What I Did Today Archive 2009

[Demeter]

Took the aged parents to the allotment as we needed to level out an area and lay some paving slabs on it ready for shed delivery on Tuesday. The three of us (plus lo) did amazing things - a very good day.

While we were there, we also did major digging & clearing (whoop!) and now have a nice big bed with transplanted raspberries at one end (they would have been outside my shed door otherwise - I mean, it would have been good security, but really!!) and loads of space for carrots, leeks, spring onions, parsley - all of which to be sown direct in the next couple of days - as well as some swiss chard and perpetual spinach - to be planted out in due course as plants are still too small to fiddle about with yet. Whoop!

There is also the beginnings of the next bed along (for brassicas and I plan a windshield of Jerusalem artichokes to stop the netting thingy falling over) which has been turned over but not yet cleared of all the roots and things.

And mum & lo weeded the onions, garlic and the flowerbed with spring bulbs in it Also there was a skip on the site today so we were able to get rid of quite a bit of the rubbish I have been digging out of my allotment and keeping in a big pile (bits of rusty corrugated iron, rotting wood, two plastic chairs...) Much more of this and the place will stop looking like a building site!

Bloke with the immaculate allotment next to mine gave me a bunch of gladioli bulbs so I now have to prioritise digging the second of my two planned flower beds too - ah well. Parents coming to do some more digging on Tuesday so with the three of us it will be fine

It's all good.

Plus - Brought home 4 huge kale plants (under shed otherwise) and turned them into kale soup.

[susiewoosie]

I planted out my pre-germintated parsnips and sowed some spring onions in modules. Then I sat in the garden with a nice cold drink and read my GYO mag. Bliss

[Welsh Wizard]

30 sunflower cells were sown today, 10 cells per family member in our race. Other cell trays were given over to a mix of various varieties of rocket. Sowed 1x cucumber "marketmore", 1xmelon "Blenheim Orange" and 2x squash f1"Cobnut". Last three chitted Rooster spuds went into dregs of a bag of compost, 2 chitted saxon spuds went into the flower border (dont tell the wife!).

[Jenny22Cumbria]

I got lots done yesterday and today cos' the weather's been gorgeous here in (usually rainy) Barrow-in-Furness! Actually feel like I'm catching up now

Sowed all the seeds I hadn't got round to (...cabbages, caulis, kale, broccoli, more leeks...) and lots of things that have actually gone in on time! I've now got sweetcorn (minipop and Sundance), courgettes (green ball and F1 one ball) pumpkins (atlantic giant) and indoor cucumbers (marketmore) in my electric propagator and 10 climbing french beans and 10 runner beans sown in loo roll tubes in the greenhouse

Used a brilliant tip from GYO magazine and mulched round my raspberry canes with newspaper and then grass cuttings - no more weeding there for a while!

I did a bit of weeding and put my spuds (4 each of kestrel and charlotte) in the cleared bed. I sowed a drill of chard (bright lights) down the middle of the strip I'll use to grow my beans and watered the peas I'd planted out in their loo roll tubes last week. They seem to be doing well but there's no sign of the direct sown ones round the other teepee.

Checked on and watered all the stuff in the greenhouse - the indoor cucumbers (F1 socrates) have got their first true leaves fully opened now and the tomatoes and aubergines seem happy enough. Parsnips haven't germinated (even though all 4 types of carrot have) so I put some seed from 2 varieties on the window sill on wet kitchen paper in the hope of pre-germinating some just in case

I've still got lots of weeding to do but I had a really nice day pottering in the garden today with Amy (our staffordshire bull terrier and deputy head gardener) so I don't think it'll take me long to do it all if we get a bit more sun

[Meschuee]

I planted a horseradish (Armoracia rusticana), forked over a piece of ground where I plan to put the leek seeds when they arrive from "Real Seeds". Watered the herbs and the new clematis. A bright, sunny morning.

Penny

[coreopsis]

Sorted out the last"half ready"bed and sowed some beetroots!At last!

[Flummery]

This morning I sorted 2 of the compost 'daleks' and spread the resulting goodies on the garden veg beds. I also took the opportunity to give a good seeing-to to the area near the compost bins. It used to be the dreaded pampas grass site and has 2 good rhubarb crowns near it. I added some of the new compost after removing some rubbishy weeds and planted out 3 gooseberry bushes. They were 'layers' that I separated last year and potted up. They joys of lazy gardening. A tidy gardener would never have let the original bush get in the state that allowed so many layers to thrive!

[Newbie]

Today i sowed 3 types of French Bean & 3 types if pumpkin/squash in modules in the GH, Lettuce in the veg bed, Peas & Pak Choi in pots in the GH, pricked out 40 French Marigold seedlings and weeded the onion bed. Not a bad couple of hours work.

[Meschuee]

Bought sweet woodruff and oregano for the herb garden.

[Purplebint]

Busy day today, we had to cram 4 days of gardening into one because we've been lazy the other 3 days

We found mason bees nesting under our paving slabs, saw the taters had started to come through the soil and thinned lots of lettuce and salad leaves out.

We started using the grinder we got on freecycle too and made a pile of dead branches into garlic bed mulch.

Pics in the blog

*off to eat chocolate and sit down*

[Snadger]

Cashed in my sweet jar full of change at Tesco's and got £138 for it. Good start to the day that!

Planted Tesco's butter beans for my bean poles as i don't particularily like runner beans.
Moved and stacked about six full barrowloads of bricks I've been saving for a rainy day and stacked them neatly. The area where they were will become part of my extended onion bed.
Moved chicks into run i built for them as it was quite sunny. Harvested the remains of my carrot crop before they shot away to seed.
My Conference pear is in full bloom, my apple bloom buds are ready to open like wise with my cherry which looks like it's going to be full of bloom.
Fed chicks and chooks, collected eggs, watered everything that needed watering from my 1000 litre container and headed for home and a nice bath!

[sewer rat]

Was working at the estate garden til 4 - clearing stones and rubbish from the area I've cleared of Ivy, in preparation for grass and wild flower meadow.
Went back to the tunnel for an hour - sowed 175 Climbing French Bean (Blue Lake) and brought home some homework - got 200 Runner Beans to sow tonight,

[starloc]

I just spent the day taking a few rows of tiles out, turning them on end, digging up the soil underneath ( luckily not on concrete or cement, just on soil) then i put a few bags of BQ manure a few of topsoil 100L of perlite in, dug it over ( its always been a bit wet as theres an underground river ) then i went to asda and got 20 bags of asda compost to fill it up, then dug it all over to mix it up
Then if that wasnt enough , i went and emptied our 7.5 ton lorry of model aerpolane bits and pieces and a couple of marquees.....to get to the generator i knew was in there somewere., on the way back i ended up in homebase..... trays of strawberry plants 6 in a tray for 4.99 , but buy 2 get one free so it was 18 large plants, with some flower buds on them all for 9.98, i got one lot of 3 as ive just got another 100 bare root on ebay




it did look like this, ive widened it a by 2 tiles now its large enough to use, i cant go more as the greenhouse has to fit in the paved bit once i chop the sycamore trees down, ive been lowering them bit by bit for a few weeks

[Flobalob]

Sown more Radish & Lettuce. Planted Dahlia,Lilys,Zantedeschia Aethiopia.
Potted up various Peppers. Mown lawns.

[FROSTYFRECKLE]

Today was nice and sunny but there is still a cold wind. Sowed some PSB, turnips, Sutherland Kale, some seeds I got from Ailsasyl and Happybunny (part of the Turnip family but looks like broccoli), also sowed Lemon Cucs, 4 courgettes (free seeds from GYO), Achocha, and a few other things that I can't remember. Next free day is Thursday time to get more peas sowed and perhaps some early beans.