What I Did Today Archive 2008

[Flummery]

Went to the lottie for a bit of an auld dig. Got some of the cow poo that appears over the fence - farmer just chucks a tractor bucket full over every so often - doesn't last long! Harvested achocha, chard and patty-pan squashes - all courtesy of grapes! Brought home drying pods of yin-yang beans.

[sewer rat]

Lifted the last of my tatties - approx 150kg Red Duke of York.
Did some more work in the tunnel on constructing the new raised beds.
Checked my pak choi and lettuce seeds - all germinated now.
Came home early and put together new flat pack cot bed for Niamh.

[kentvegplot]

Woke up this morning to frost (and there's you thinking I live in the softy South!)

Had to go out in the morning, but on return spent a jolly time cutting any veggies from the now-very-sad plants - so a few small cucumbers, about 10lbs of green tomatoes(groan, I can't eat that much chutney), 5 butternuts (not sure if they're ripe or not), a couple of courgettes and a couple of handfuls of french beans.

Having seen the weather forecast, then picked whatever flowers were still OK (dahlias gone last night) and batterned down the hatches for the day.

Going to light a fire now.....

[BrideXIII]

Built another raised bed, along the side of the greenhouse for beans next season, just managed to get it done before the rain set in, battened down against the wind, moved indoors.

built seedbox, and sorted seeds for next season, so I dont have to keep hunting for what needs planting when.

looked outside, weather worse, opened beer, dragged down fur throw, curled up in front of telly.

got dragged up upstairs cos computer network went down ( how they do it I don't know), spent half an hour getting them back up and running whilst they played the xbox, then adjurned to sofa again.

[Kayt]

Went to lottie and picked some spinach, turnips and collected some stored shallots. Had a bit of a tidy up, watched a sparrowhawk. Went home and made beef casserole and left in slo-cooker. Went to watch sons play rugby and then spent 3 hours in A & E with youngest as he got concussion and broke collar bone! Home now to casserole. So glad I put it in the slo-cooker

[pjh75]

Finally got hold of some garlic and onion sets to have a go at overwintering... have been staking out the (nationwide) garden centres to no avail, so went to a local one today and they had loads... can't wait for a bit of dry weather to plant them.

[FionaH]

sowed carrots

[Wren]

Today has been torrental rain and blowing a gale down here in the south east. i ran out to the kitchen garden to hack off the heads o the 3 giant sun flowers before they were torn off by the winds.
They are now drip drying in the bath, an i will lay them out on news paper tomorrow to start to dry off the seeds for the birds.

Wren

[BrideXIII]

Today has been torrental rain and blowing a gale down here in the south east. i ran out to the kitchen garden to hack off the heads o the 3 giant sun flowers before they were torn off by the winds.
They are now drip drying in the bath, an i will lay them out on news paper tomorrow to start to dry off the seeds for the birds.

Wren

It has been rotten down here today hasn't it.

managed to get out and check and water in the greenhouse, rescue what had fallen over due to wind battering it, kept having to pop out to check it every hour or so, its holding up well considering.
the so called lawn is marshland again.

[sewer rat]

Spent this afternoon in the kitchen - made 32 x 12oz jars of Rowan Jelly, 19 jars of Sweet Chutney and prepared and salted the veg for picallili - suffiient for 20lbs. Will make it tomorrow night.

[Newbie]

Finally got round to edging my 2nd veg bed - i've reclaimed about a foot on each side of it the grass was so long! Also gave it a long overdue weed, there are only 6 Purple & White sprouting broccolli plants in that bed now.

The other veg bed was done last weekend & is looking ok weed wise, however my french & runner beans look like they're on their last legs, as do the courgettes & sweetcorn. We've only had 6 cobs so far & need to sun to ripen the rest but its going to rot at this rate.

I resigned 2 of my pumpkin plants grown in pots to the compost bin but harvested the 4 mini pumpkins first (they were about the size of a satsuma!) ate 2 after cooking them in the microwave!

Also harvested a load of tomatoes & chillis for soup later in the week.

[squashman]

Filled 3 bin bags with fallen leaves for leaf mould, converted an old bin into a composter, sowed Senshyu onions, Aquadulce Cladia broad beans and Valdor winter lettuce under poly.

Quite productive really.

[Kayt]

Squashman - how did you convert the bin into a composter? Are we talking about a black dustbin? We have about a dozen of those doing nothing at our flats now we have the new wheelie bins.

[zazen999]

Brought in 5 cukes, and about 10 courgettes, pending frost which hasn't come yet.

Sowed kale, spinach, red chicory, garlic chives, chives, and some peas. Also Echinacea from seed head harvested last week.

Harvested beans mainly, weighting up leaving them on for as long as possible without getting them frosted. Not that it matters I suppose, they are only going into the freezer.

Got some wood from a chappie on his way to the tip [yes, I followed him].
Took a load of compost to the lottie, bagged up in old bags for life and compost bags.
Bought some tanalised wood to make pegs for the above wood for raised beds, and made the pegs.
Got a bin bag of coffee grounds from a large international coffee shop.

Kayt, to convert a bin into a composter, you can just make some big holes in the bottom for the worms to get in and out. We put all our kitchen veg etc into a plastic bin, not converted; and once it's been in there a while and rotted down, it gets tipped into the dalek. Once it's been in the dalek for a while, it gets shovelled into a wooden composter for the final breaking down process. You can do the same using 3 bins, as long as you have one that just has the 'final' stage, which is broken down but not yet 100% smell free - you should be ok. you can use that for mulching, we use ours this time of year to protect for the winter and, for this year, to condition the lottie soil.

We do have 3 rotating 'fresh' ones though, so that we have minimal tipping to do - as it breaks down into about 1/4 of it's volume after a few weeks.

[Kayt]

Thanks zazen. I've just moved plots - long story!! But the new one doesn't have any compost bins. Using old dustbins will serve the purpose for the time being and we were wondering what to do with all these old bins.