What I Did Today Archive 2008

[Newbie]

Pruned the apple trees,
Cleared the weeds from around apple trees,
Mulched the newly planted fruit bushes,
Pruned the newly planted autumn raspberry,
Planted the prunings of autumn planted raspberry to see if they grow!
Assembled the new bird feeder station,
Planted bargain £5 acer from B&Q in a big pot,
Trimmed dead/dying leaves from PSB plants,
Tidied up in the greenhouse.

[Kayt]

Took 4 year old grandson to plot. Dug trench for runnerbeans and started filling with compost. Drank hot chocolate from flask and ate the christmas cake we took with us. Broke the ice on the water butt and came home to warm up.

[Snadger]

Productive day at allotment today! Sick of 'long lie ins' so managed to get to the allotment at 9.30am today...............collected 7 chook eggs, filled chooks water containers from rain barrel inside run. Gave chooks some bread and mixed corn to keep them occupied while I tied up to sweetcorn cobs I picked up cheaply at Tesco's. Stood and laughed at there antics trying to peck the sweetcorn and falling into the water container.
Lit my woodburning stove and mixed up some mortar made with the wheelbarrow load of sand I had just dropped off with the Landie.
Managed to finish the bottom course of breezeblocks which surround the cold frame come seedbed I am building. Now I have these cemented into position it should be plain sailing. Once finished I'll post a piccie!

Chopped loads of wood for stove. Was approached by other allotmenteer whilst doing this and he told me to take as much as I liked of some timber he had.........he was just going to burn it on a bonfire as it was surplus to requirements. The timber in question is old 3" X 2" roof spars......far to good for burning but an ideal framework for........something..........possibly another gasebo or suchlike! Anyway spent half an hour carting this timber before he changed his mind!
Retired into what was now a very cozy greenhouse and proceeded to pot on some onions/shallots and make myself a well earned cup of coffe and a cup-a-soup.
Came home knackered but with a feeling I'd actually acomplished something!

[Mcbee]

attacked the hedge which I have put off for the last 3 years. As a result it is / was really overgrown.

So today i cut out everything over 6ft - and there was a lot of it. I had to go into my neighbours garden to get to the otherside so consequently we both have a mountain of hedge - hawthorn, beech, wild rose, holly - covering our lawn. Gods knows what we'll do with it all. I could shred it - but i don't think I've got enough bins to put it in. And it would probably take years to rot down.

I am pleased with what I've done - but having taken all that height out i am feeling a bit sad for the birds that perch and call from there. I know it will grow back, but then I'm back into the cycle of cutting again. Oh the joys of gardening!!!!

[sewer rat]

Got up at stupid o'clock and went out to my field. Lifted swedes, cabbage and kale til my fingers (inside gloves) went numb. Had a coffeee break and a smoke. Went back out and dug up loads of JA's 'til my fingers (inside new dry gloves) went numb. Stopped for coffee and smoke. Went into polytunnel and picked 40 bags of spinach and about 30 of chard. Stopped when my fingers (inside third pair of gloves) went numb. Stopped for coffeee and a smoke.
Made up boxes for tomorrow's deliveries - customers should be impressed with the amount of frost on the kale (it's so cold it will still be there in the morning)- very festive looking !!
Came home - cleared dishes into dishwasher which promptly flooded the kitchen - not good as we are having visitors tomorrow night for Hogmanay and also on New Years Day (open house - all welcome )

[zazen999]

We've been on the lottie every day except boxing day so quite chuffed with that.

We've totally dug over every bed, apart from the ones dug over earlier and planted up. One more 1.5m square bit to go [tomorrow] and that's all done ready for new crops.

We're leaving 2 bits, one infested with couch grass and one infested with horseradish; these are being heavily mulched with newspaper and cardboard boxes, covered over with soil and being left fallow for a year so that if anything grows back we can get onto it sharpish.

Started breaking up pallets to make wooden walkways. Need a different crowbar.
Harvested and got rid of all remaining crops from 2008 apart from cabbages, swedes and leeks [loads of broccoli were frosted and no good], and all the autumn sown crops that are in for the spring.
Sowed early toms and chilli peppers.
Sowed lots of alliums
one more lot of moon trial garlic to go in on Saturday
put peas and broad beans into the lottie [just 4 of each] for an early crop.
Brought Alberto Rocoto indoors for the winter when the garage was demolished, and the peppers are turning red already. Very festive.

[Camsdad]

Finished building number 2 son's beds in the garden, now needing plenty of good organic matter to fill them up.

Camsdad

[SarzWix]

The 'What I Did Today' thread is something of an institution on the Grapevine, having started and been run continuously since 2006. At nearly 7 years old (at the time of writing this) it had grown to over 300 pages, and was becoming difficult to browse. So we have decided to separate the posts into a thread for each year, and put them into the Archive for ease of use, keeping only the current and previous year in the active thread.

This thread is for 'What I Did Today', 2008