What I Did Today Archive 2009

[shelleygeo]

Easter veg-tastic weekend

Had a very busy weekend. Started by making a new raised bed (raised bed No. 2), and planted 160 white onion sets and 160 red onion sets. Put canes all around edge of bed with pots on the ends, and stapled down some netting over the lot, to stop the local cats using my bed as a top of the range loo!
After making raised bed No.2, I moved onto raised bed No.1 which I am using as the brassica bed this year, 2 weeks ago I had put a bag of rotted manure on and sprinkled a bit of lime, and lightly raked it. So I sowed red cabbage, green cabbage & purple sprouting broccoli. I had started off some kohl rabi in the greenhouse and I planted them out in bed No.1 with pop bottle covers. I also sowed turnips and spinach in this bed too (but at the other end of the bed which was not limed).
In the border I turned over the soil and added compost and growmore and sowed corriander, flat leaf parsley & sorrel. I have left room for the dill, basil & peppermint which is in the greenhouse waiting to be put out.

I have used 5 big blue Ikea bags, 3 big blue Tesco bags and a green sack and planted my Roaster & King Edward potatoes. I used old wooden Ikea cd-racks and lined them with grow bags and filled with compost and sowed golden globe beetroot, and mizuna lettuce.

I planted winter broad beans in October, and they have taken a flyer this weekend and put on about 5 inches growth, so I tied them into the supporting canes.

In the greenhouse I have seedlings of: -
4 types of Tomatoes - Tumbler, cherry, plum, money maker
I have too many goji berries, was not expecting all of them to germinate. I have about 35 plants! would like to give some away if anyone wants to message me. I have sprouts, kale, catnep, leeks, spring onion, ancho chillies, peppers, celeriac and aubergines. A rogue slug had slyly crept into the greenhouse and devoured 2 of my 4 aubergines! so went on the hunt to find it.

The two cherry trees, morello & stella is about to burst into blossom, and they both have lots of buds we may have a good crop this year. Must have been the chicken poo I put around the base of the tree. Noticed that I have to put some canes on my fruit bushes in pots to stop them getting tangled and too leggy.

I reckon a pretty busy weekend then!

[Meschuee]

Coo, you were busy, shelleygeo! I bought fine guage pond cover netting to fix over the raised beds to keep pigeons, etc., off the seedlings. Could make a tunnel of it if I had hoops to use with it.

Penny

[BumbleB]

Feeling under the weather with a heavy cold but lots of jobs to do so I am working my way at a snails pace.
Potted on 45 tomato plants (far too may, and more to do).
watered and rearranged GH
Found a slug had been eating my cornflower seedlings! Hmm !
OH busy building 'chinese terraces' so put in my 2p of advice there.
Time for a break untill my energy returns, lol.

[Newbie]

Not much today, sowed a short row of Beetroot (Boltardy), Turnip (Purple Top Milan), Swede (Best of all) and Red Cabbage (Marner Fruerot).

[Sweepster]

Put on wellies.

Removed right welly, extracted cat poo, put welly back on.

Made mental note not to keep wellies next to cat litter tray.

Painted timber for third mini-raised bed.

Bit tongue as water balloon landed 2 ft from open tin of paint, courtesy of next-door-but-one's kids.

Snarled at next-door-but-one's kids as fourth water balloon crashed into pond.

Cut floppy bit off newly planted clematis... looks like wilt.

Came back inside, extracted cat from seedlings on windowsill, extracted wasp from cat.

[sewer rat]

Made up tomato cane frame in polytunnel and planted toms - Golden Sunrise, San Marzano, Moneymaker, Roma, and Gardeners Delight.
Potted approx 50 x Tumbling Toms (both red and yellow) into 5 litre pots.
Sowed 150 lettuce.
Planted out rest of the first strawberry bed.
Watered strawbs in hanging baskets = gonna be an early crop !
Brought chillies down from heated greenhouse to polytunnel.
Planted another 54 clumps of spring onions in the tunnel.
Picked some Chard, Spinach and Mixed Salad Leaves for the shop I supply.

[wellie]

Dug up a few more sections of Perennials from the flower borders to take to our new home.

[carlseawolf]

Hacked and burned at the field, then went down lottie and planted out some french bean plants.
Came home and updated lottie blog as have not done it for a year.
( new photo added)

[Topcat36]

Not today (peeing down) or yesterday but the day before, spent the whole day in the garden as i had spent the last 5 days sick along with 2 kids and found my beans and others had over run the windowsill. so sat myself down(not lazy but still recovering) and surrounded myself with pots and bags of this and that and more seeds. sowed some more lettuce and sweet peas more beans and flowers, some carrots, transplanted various things into bigger pots, rescued wilting beans, moved things into mini greenhouse, was happy to find my courgettes had all taken on windowsill, last lot over half rotted, teach me to water them. A really good day ,just what i needed before i go back to work. Harvested my first raddish and a couple of lettuce leaves ,enough for my roll.
Tried to convince OH that digging up the patio and turning it into a raised veg bed was a good idea, OH not convinced, but it is slowly being taken over so he might not have a choice soon
Oh and i lied i did do something today brough some more carrot seeds and 2 huge containers from wilkinson about a foot and half deep and two foot wide now what to put in them.

[miffy]

Nothing it hasn't stopped raining!!

[Two_Sheds]

- cleared a new carrot bed, sowed Sugarsnax & Healthmaster (freebies)
- cleared a nettley patch for spuds
- dug up all the Scorzonera (I don't like it, won't bother again)
- transplanted another row of self-sown lettuces
- transplanted a new row of Elvira strawberries (Honeoye all died)
- soaked 2 packs of sweetcorn for sowing at the w/e (Swift and Lark)
- soaked loads of dwarf Frenchies (Purple Teepee)
- weeding, weeding, weeding
- picked spring onions, lettuce, chives, coriander, red cabbage (salad) and leeks, PSB & kale for dinner (stir fry)
- bought 3 new Pelargoniums for £4 - I picked the ones with the longest stems to take cuttings from
- potted up my over-wintered Busy Lizzies. They look fairly sickly, tbh, but I think fresh compost'll perk them up
- dug another bit of lawn out & planted Hostas & Pulmonaria & Fern (it's a shady patch)

[veggielover]

Put parsnip seedlings ( in loo roll tubes ) into ground today, potted up toms, chillies, peppers and aubergines, sown more peppers and chillies and cucumbers.

[sewer rat]

Veg Box day today. This weeks boxes contain some or all of the following;
Potatoes, Carrots, Onions, Cauliflower, Chard, Spinach, Parsley, Chives, Rhubarb, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Leeks, Mixed Salad Leaves.
Went up to posh walled garden at the Chef's request - apparently BBC Alba will be there next Thursday and I have to be in attendance. There will be 15 kids (from my daughter Iona's school, including Iona)a dn they want to plant some stuff, so have lettuce split pills and potatoes at the ready. He also wants me to supply Spinach, various herbs and Salad Leaves for a cookery demo he has to do for the programme.
He then onformed me that they might want to come and film at my place - although there isn't much to see, but I think I might be doing a spring clean of the polytunnel next week just in case
Tractor is now on site - tatties and JA's going in on Sunday - would have been Saturday but have a Farmers Market, so will need to wait til Sunday.

[coreopsis]

Look like you're going to be quite busy SR,give us a shout when Alba's going to show anything

[selfraising]

Today I tranpslanted on large pot of basil into 3 smaller ones. Sowed 14 large peat modules with dwarf french bean Purple Queen and 16 root trainers with Climbing french bean Sultana in gh. Planted out 5 x teasel. Potted up 3 x melon sweetheart and covered with plastic sandwich bags. Also potted up pumpkin hooligan. All toms and peppers have now been in gh for a week and are doing well. Earthed up spuds in raised bed and those in grow bags. Weeded front garden and had a dig around to see if I had more than 1 asparagus spear and to my delight I found several (phew, thought I might have killed them!) Cleaned out pond filter and then came indoors as it suddenly got very dark and thought we were going to have another storm but nothing has developed yet.