What I Did Today Archive 2009

[Flummery]

Did a big pot of dwarf french beans as per Piglet's instructions. Shifted a serious amount of soil (just a few inches but from a patch 3m by 2.5 m - lots of barrow-loads!)

[selfraising]

Today 8 bags of gravel arrived so laid that on the weed membrane. Found yet another terracotta pot with major frost damage so had to empty it and find a new home for the plant in it. Checked on my onion sets in mini greenhouse, they seem to be doing okay.
I have sown:
Teasel (for the birds)
Amaranthus
Delphiniums (3rd year of trying!!!)
Stock
more Aubergines (Just in case)
Checked the pond to see if fish were awake yet but no sign (no floaters either though, so that's good!!)

[colser]

planted 1st earlies today (under a pile of rotting hay, so hopefully not affected by any future frost) spring onions in modules on the window ledge as ell as a genera feed and tidy up

[Two_Sheds]

- erected a Freecycle plastic greenhouse
- soaked 45 broad beans to start them germinating. I'll pot up the strongest ones
- opened the sweaty plastic greenhouse for some fresh air
- turned the celeriac propagator ... only 4 have germinated out of 48, but early days yet
- moved the onions seedlings to a cooler windowsill to slow them down a bit
- told the chillies to get a move on
- picked a small bag of Rudolph PSB

[Hazel at the Hill]

Parsnip wine

(Yesterday, actually) started off this year's batch of parsnip wine by scrubbing, chopping and simmering 3.5lb of parsnips (that's 3 biggies), straining, adding sugar and simmering for an hour.

Left to cool overnight and have added yeast this morning.

[Flummery]

I went to B&Q this morning (with my pensioners' free bus pass) and enquired about their Diamond Card - 10% off for over 60s on Wednesdays. They gave me a card, and used it for my weed fabric - for under the chook run - while I filled in the form. Result!
Off to ASDA soon - on the bus, free, again.

Whooo- pensioners rule!

PS sowed some chard this aft - and moved yet more earth for the chook run floor. It will be flagstones and gravel on weed fabric so I can hose it down.

[Herbie]

Potted on tomatoes, chilli's. Sown some more. Potted on lavender and chinese lanterns.
Sown Teasel seeds (Thank you seasprout) and lemon balm. Sown some more mange tout. Sown some leafy crops in moduels in greenhouse. Admired Mr Herbie's x2 new raised beds (one left to be done).

Now sorting seeds out again and thinking about what comes next.

[kentvegplot]

Having sat the first of my RHS exams this morning, required retail therapy so went and bought rhubarb, blueberries and a lovely daphne for the garden (yes I know, expensive!)

Went to potter in garden after lunch, split up a houseplant, transferred all my sweet williams to their final homes and tidied that border. That means I've cleared this year's potato bed, so need to cover with black plastic to warm up a bit.

Dug up dahlias which I assumed would be mush after all this bad weather. Amazed to find all OK, so have potted them up in the greenhouse to try to get some basal shoots as cuttings.

[coreopsis]

Where to start...
Weather was mild,ground not frozen so I decided to do my favourite-digging.
Converted about 4'*4' square of lawn into some growing space.I'm happy because that's the place for 1 wigwam ready(either Cobra or Blue Lake).Dug it over a foot deep,got rid of 3 full buckets of stones,put half of dalek contents into the hole,covered it up with soil,watered well and waiting for my kind spaghetti in the ground to do their job so I'll have big fat wormies

[jacob marley]

Sat morn sun morn and wed morn i emptied 3 of my rather large comost bin's i now have 52 barrow load's in nice row's across the plot's .
All that want's doing now is to spread it about a bit and then rotavate it in and then think about planting some thing ....jacob

[pigletwillie]

Tonight I collected my fab Ebay solid oak flooring from Grantham, hopefully I will lay it this weekend providing gert has painted the doors.

Just back from the greenhouse where I pricked out some sungold tomato seedlings and some more fat bangladeshi chillies.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Sowed a pot of celery (I will not be beaten!!) and of celeriac (not tried this before). Both seeds are like dust.

Sowed a packet of sweetpeas in loo-roll-inners

Sowed a pot with 2 x early warwick french beans and 2 x tendergreen french beans á la PW.

[shirlthegirl43]

Planted 3 seed spuds, finished cutting down the privet hedge for Madmax to brutalise the remaining trunks. Clambered over the collapsed fence to next door and cut back loads of ivy and brambles so that we can put the fence back up (yes I did ask if I could). The boys left the back door open while Madmax and I took the car for a re-MOT and I came back to find the chooks had demolished my tomato seedlings I need to start over with Garden Pearl and Roma - the ones that were doing best too - typical! Filled some loo roll middles with seived multi-purpose ready to transplant my sprouted parsnip seeds.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Planted 3 seed spuds, finished cutting down ..... etc

Well done - I hope that doesn't mean you're laid up for the next week!

You've reminded me that 3 of my tommie seedling have come up today - two of which are from saved supermarket varieties - so I did a very happy dance.

[selfraising]

Re-jigged my asparagus raised bed and fixed it in the ground. Here's hoping my asparagus has survived ( I moved them about 3 weeks ago!) Put up some acrylic mirrors on my garden fence. Not to admire myself in you understand!! The idea was because my garden is quite narrow, I thought it might give the illusion of being wider. Also it's a bit shady right near the fence so I thought it might reflect the light a bit onto the plants. I'll try anything once!! Have got to get more after wages go in!