What I Did Today Archive 2008

[Snadger]

Eventually I managed to get eight rows of maincrop carrots sown. Last year I had the rows 8" apart with idea that this would give me enough room to hoe in between rows and do any thinning that was required. What really happened though was that I only lifted the enviromesh once mid season to thin the carrots and I hand weeded at the same time.

This year I've made the rows are only 4" apart which should in theory double the crop from a given area and I should still be able to thin and hand weed in between them!
Anyway they are now all sown with a sprinkling of sand along the rows, watered and covered. Enviromesh is nailed down over a frame work giving them 2 foot headroom.

I dug over a small bed incorporating manure and planted about 20 sweetcorn plants.

I was having a chat with one of the other plot holders at the greenhouse door when I had to tell him to stand inside for a mo so as not to spook my resident blackbird with a gob full of worms waiting to get to her brood in my shed. Once he was out of the way she flew into the shed and fed her young!

[Mrs Dobby]

No fair! Torrential rain today! Got to the plot and hoed the greenhouses, then sideshooted toms and fed everything, toms are flowering nicely, and the 2 cucumber plants in the big greenhouse are flowering, with small cukes visible behind the flowers! One of the melons in the lean too has vanished tho, no slime trails visible, so I'm not sure whats had it (tho the polythene door wasnt weighted down, so it could be that wabbits have been in there!)

The leeks that were planted yesterday look fine, as does most of everything else, just a shame that I wasnt able to get the 3 beds rotovated and plante dup, ah well, perhaps it'll be a bit less wet on Wednesday!

[middlefield]

Due to two days off work on Thursday and Friday I've had a long-weekend mostly at the allotment so got loads done and can say that we're about on schedule now. The biggest thing we've got done is clearing a bed for all the pumpkins, squash, patty pans and courgette - with 20 barrows of pig and cow manure we prepared the bed, then covered in plastic and planted through holes that we cut - a method we used last year with success.

Despite a lack of space brassica's are now starting to go in, with the sprouts first and doing well so far.

On top of that we've done lots and lots and lots of weeding, with seemingly bucket upon bucket of small weedlings (is that a real word?) going in to the compost bin - past experience has shown us the importance of getting on top of weeds early and there is a real pride in getting the rows pretty weed-free.

Now we've got an allotment that we are really proud of, and I've been looking at new camera's today to capture images of the plot!

[heebiejeebie]

Didn't get much time on the lottie yesterday - promised to spend some time with the OH instead (if only he'd take up gardening...)

Did a bit of weeding. The bindweed is struggling to find daylight amongst the tatties! The earlies are nearly all showing flower buds but I resisted furtling because it's waaay too soon - another couple of weeks and I could have new potatoes

Picked lettuce leaves and PSB to make salad for dinner. Eyed up the overwintered onions but left them alone.

[jackie j]

I have now had three good days at the Lottie. Spent most of the time weeding today it was the turn of the cabbages, so took off the net weeded, found a few slugs hiding remade the netting Picked one small and one bigger cabbage put netting back on.
Picked 4 strawberries but must get some more netting to cover them with but will have to wait til thursday for some money.
Planted some spuds that have seeded will see how they fair.
Thinned out lettuces and swede.
Its raining now.

[Newbie]

Pottered in the greenhouse for an hour or so after work; Sowed some more Neckar Gold climbing french beans in modules (getting terrible germination rates this year, and its new seed), "Parmex" carrots in a trough, "All Year Round" lettuce in modules, Garlic Chives, and "Orelia" courgette - its third sowing with no success yet, this is its last chance before getting binned! Don't really need more courgettes as the 2 "zucchini" plants i have will suffice but i am determined to get some yellow courgettes this year!

[Mrs Dobby]

Had to work today, but managed to get home for 630pm, so got changed and straight to the plot to plant out the last of the 2 sisters beds (squashes and sweetcorn) thru the cardboard I fitted to the bed on Saturday. Stayed till 9pm, then home for tea, I'm starving!!

Mr D was at the plot early this morning, he's weeded the broadies and cleared some more paths on our original plot, plus planted out another 2 small beds of trench celery! He also harvested more rhubarb and made a rhubarb crumble, with the words 'love you' scribbed on the top!

[Snadger]

Bummed off work to meet a tree surgeon who kindly donated a pile of wood chippings to the allotment Association. Persuaded him to deliver another load on Wednesday as I know that as soon as the vultures see it it will be like snow on a hot tin roof! Watered the indoor plants and scarpered to do the shopping!

[Claire72]

Spent a bit of time today cutting the hedge around the veg plot, put all the clippings on the garden for OH to mow tomorrow.
Then watered the existing plants.
Wish the greenhouse was up, then I would be able to get more going

[Winged one]

Only back at a pc today, but I had a great day on Friday!! I took the day off and arrived at the plot at just after 9am. Weeded all 3 onion beds and did a lot of other weeding, including cutting some of the worst of the grass on the paths using my harvesting knife (never thought to bring clippers). Pulled up all but one of my PSB plants, getting another handful of sprouts off them and taking a few leaves for spring greens too - the plants went on a communal heap for composting rather than my own bin. My own dalek was overfull by midmorning, so I also ended up leaving a large pile of weeds at the back of the plot to add when everything has wilted a bit.

Put up a piece of plastic fencing (you know the stuff that looks like chicken wire but is quite hard plastic?) which was the perfect length for my row of peas. As well as weeded the 2 rows and the broad beans beside them.

Dug over the area brocolli had been, and planted the last of my sweetcorn seeds under bottles cut in half against slugs! (The rest of the seeds started to show through in pots at home over the weekend so will put these in to that area in a couple of weeks).

Covered over the other part of that area with weed suppressant membrane, as it was too hot to contemplate finishing the digging, planting carrot and parsnip seeds and covering with a fleece tunnel - next weekend!!

Planted out my 4 coffee cups of climbing french beans - averaged at 2 plants per bamboo cane. The coffee cups idea worked very well (thanks HW!!) as they stayed intact long enough for the job, but the copious watering over the weeks meant that the cup split along its side seam BEAUTIFULLY for planting purposes!! Will be doing that again!

Planted 4 brussels sprouts plants in the winter area of the brassica bed, but it got too hot to keep going with that.

Harvested for going home - 4 cabbages and 3 onions for various relatives (3 bags of produce). 1 cabbage, some PSB shoots and leaves, 3 heads of lettuce, 2 japanese onions (and 2 red onions from last year amongst cabbages - rogues!!), a handfull of rosemary (for going with some lamb over the weekend), a handful of pea-pods, and a handful of broad beans.

En route home, I dropped 2 bags and on the second, found the recipients at home and was offered coffee (oh bliss, sitting in the sun and having a grand chat while my weary muscles rested and my sunburn had a chance to really redden up - note to self: even if the morning is foggy, remember sunscreen in plot bag!), so went straight to collect the toddler and only dropped bag 3 on Saturday. Oh, that visit also allowed me to give away 5 PSB plants and received back 4 butternut squashes in return - and I have promised a few more summer cabbages and brocolli as I have loads left at home and no room left for them.

On sat, I had already done a prioritised list of the jobs remaining and OH took this and headed off. So he weeded the summer cabbages, planted the rest of the brussles sprouts (6) and PSB (15) - which he says he found room for (I didn't think there was enough for all those!). Finished digging the area for the carrots, weeded around the spinach (which I had forgotten) and did a lot of watering and spreading of slug pellets.

Due to great weather all weekend, we BBQ'd on Fri, Sat and Sun. In terms of eating our own, apart from onions and garlic as necessary, on Sunday we had an (almost) all our own veggie dish - onions fried for a couple of minutes, with the peas, broad beans and a handful of mangetout (from the home garden) added in along with a bunch of asparagus (from shops) and basically steamed for a few mins with some lemon juice added at the end - oh DELISH!! Broad beans were an experiment, but successful this year so looking forward to using up the rest of them. Used the cabbage last night in a bubble and squeak-type dish (mash, with the stalks of the onions chopped into it too) with some lamb chops. And we did yummy (if tiny) individual rhubarb crumbles on Sunday as well.

[Flummery]

Wish we had some of Winged One's sunshine! Yesterday I pottered for a while, potting on PSB from its modules into 3" pots. Weeded front garden. Then the men turned up who are refurbishing our garage, extending it into an en-suite shed and fencing that half of the garden. In the evening we went to the semi-lottie with the last of the anti-pigeon cages and fastened the panels together. I did some weeding and planted out one each of courgette zuchini, patty pan squash and butternut squash and we hoped for good weather today. It's sheeting down! - no workmen, too wet to weed. Getting the sewing machine out soon!

[gemlady]

Had a good day yesterday despite the weather forecast, they said heavy showers for Monday and heavy rain for Tuesday (have got both days off). Thankfully we didn't get the rain till the evening on Monday and got lots done. Planted some flowers in beds, did some deadheading, put some herbs in pots for my DD, put my outdoor toms in place and generally tidied up outside. Today, however, its raining, not heavy just constant, so nothing will get done outside today. Will have to see if I can find something to do in the greenhouse, otherwise I'll have to resort to doing h*******k

[Wren]

I bought some fun veg seed to try my hand at and to lighten my mood today.
The slugs have got me cussing and are spoiling my enjoyment with dark thoughts of incinerating them to raisins with a flame thrower

I have some seed for the gorgeous looking 'purple Haze carrots', the space age looking lime green cauliflower 'romanesco early', and the yummy looking new red, salad cabbage 'Kalibos'.

Not feeling quite so dark now

Wren

[dinah gale]

Feeling like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. I'm late, late late this season having been away twice and delayed by the b..... rain.

So it's catch-up time. Today I've trimmed some of the edges round the lottie plot (with hand shears - ain't it hard work?), direct sowed borlotti beans and put up a structure for them to climb up, direct sowed Crown Prince squash (last years kept beautifully and an earlier indoor sowing failed), also sowed spring onions and radishes and killed all the slugs and snails I could find hiding under the strawberry leaves and mats.

It's amazing how once your hunting instinct is up you just have to keep going with the slug hunt. My next task is to get rid of what I suspect is a family of mice behind the compost heap- don't much like the thought of that but I reckon they'll be out munching on the borlottis before they come up.

a happier task was to pick broad beans, strawberries, an onion from the autumn planted ones and enough new spuds for supper tonight. Love this time of year when we start reaping the rewards for the hours of slog in the cold and frost.

[Claire72]

Dug half of last years potato plot today, hoping to sow some runner beans tomorrow in there, will sow some indoors and some straight out, to see how I get on.
Finally got driven indoors by the midges at 9.30, where are the bats when you need them?