What I Did Today Archive - 2010

[wellie]

I took a short walk from our gate down to someone else's gate, that's recently moved into their new home, and, even though the wild hips were well outside of their homeliness, I used permission to pick them, as a friendly excuse to introduce Trousers, BC and Myself. Only to find that she knew nothing about Rosehips, and had designs on seeking me out at The Funny Farm days before, for a recipe or two, and hadn't quite got around to it yet.
So I like her style already so soon..... AND they've got, not one, but TWO jet black cats, albeit much older than BC, and not the one called Cocoa, but the other one, did wake up, go for a pee, come back and 'check me out' on the sofa, and I got a right royal Purr, which was nice.....
They have an Apple Tree and Rhubarb in their garden, and she's coming for Rosehip recipes tomorrow, so I better dust round with the henry hoover or something bizarre once Trousers has gone Detecting, no?!

Sorry, I nearly forgot: I managed to pick some Crab Apples from the garden yesterday for the first time. Not many. Just enough to get cooked and dripped with the equivalent of my own garden rosehips that have been sitting in the freezer for a year, and because I'm such a numptie, and quite frankly, just 'when am I going to learn a lesson'?? ....I do stuff in much bigger quantities than I should do, and then wait for an eternity for it to drip through a jelly bag or boil to a setting point..... DOH!

[StephenH]

Yesterday I panted next year's garlic. I was going to order 'Elephant' garlic from a grower, which I understand is not really garlic at all, but a type of leek, but in 'Asda', I came across some very big garlic bulbs, about twice standard size, which they call 'Jumbo' garlic. Whether it's what gardeners call 'elephant' garlic I know not, but I might email Asda to find out. Wodevva: the individual cloves are also very big and fat, so I planted the biggest, at about 8" each way in a staggered grid pattern, and will hopefully have loadsa giant garlic bulbs next summer. Before planting, I added a dressing of pelletted chicken sh - er - poultry manure, and raked it in, and after planting added a mulch of compost. Should I have limed as well? Oh well: a bit late now, if so. Anyway, this year's garlic did quite well, and I don't think I limed for that (I've got fairly heavy clay soil, so it tends to be acid).

[lottieanne]

Dug, weeded, dug, weeded, dug and weeded. Got some apples and pears from the land where my veg patch will be. Took some pics and uploaded them to my plot on here. Was going to make green tom chutney but my toms have had a bit of a ripening stint this weekend with the sunny days so I might leave that thought for a day or two.

[Newbie]

De-scaled the kettle & iron, swept & mopped the kitchen floor, cut the grass, emptied & re-planted two large planters at the front of the house, swept round the front of the house, cut the grass for a second time and told the dog off for burrying her bone where my lettuces are/were.

[vegnut]

Weeded and weeded some more. Turned the compost heap, and got a nice pile of well rotted stuff for the garlic bed.
Dug some spuds up.
And weeded some more.

[StephenH]

De-scaled the kettle & iron, swept & mopped the kitchen floor, cut the grass, emptied & re-planted two large planters at the front of the house, swept round the front of the house, cut the grass for a second time and told the dog off for burrying her bone where my lettuces are/were.

Blimy! That'd be a busy week for me!

[buzzingtalk]

After work finished I took a nice 3 mile autumnal walk to the garden centre and left thoroughly dissapointed, everything looked half dead and they didn't have hardley anything I was after.

[Complete Novice]

Picked the last of the borlotti beans, and about 15 (beefstake) tomatoes and made a big batch of Tractor Boy's "Tomato and Borlotti Bean Soup" for freezing.

Planted winter leaves which arrived by post today from the, as always excellent, Seedaholic - "Winter Purslane" (Miner's Lettuce); Tatsoi "F1 Red"; Tatsoi x Pak Choi "F1 Kuro"; Cavolo Nero "Nero de Toscana" Black Cabbage; Mizuna "F1 Red Knight"; 'Wild Rocket'.

First time I have planted any of these, but hey its all a learning process...

The sweat was dripping off me today in the garden and the forecast is good all week so hope to get a lot of work done!!!

[Snadger]

Planted up some grass leeks. Added sand to my chicken runs to try and dry them up AND give them some grit. Glad to see three of my self hatched chooks are now laying. This is good as my others are toning down for the winter months.

[bearded bloke]

Nearly finished the new bed ready for the sets which should be here this month

[solway cropper]

Walked the dog and filled my pockets with 5lbs of crab apples. These will be added to the garden apples for a cider mix. Picked a couple of bags of windfalls from the lawn and swapped one with a neighbour in exchange for a lovely apple pie and loaf of home-made bread.

[Snadger]

Cleared a way a pocket of cornflowers, tickled over the soil and planted some Senshyu onion sets. Cleared away quite a few of my Brussel Sprouts lower leaves and fed them to the chooks!

[wellie]

Finally decided to process the 2.75kg Rosehips, juiced and strained, into a marriage of equality of Bramley Seedling juice. Bit of an experiment, as having bottled them into 750ml 'stopper bottles', the waterbath came up to slightly less than 'bottle-filled-level', but brought it up to temperature, and processed it for 20 and 88 degrees, and only time will tell kiddy-winks, eh?

[Gurberly]

Cut the top growth off the asparagus and spread a bit of old manure on top for the worms to work there wonder on over winter.

Picked up some more windfall apples, sadly destined for the compost bin as I am all appled out.

Pulled a couple of leeks ready for soup tomorrow.

Turned the heating on!!!

[zeezeezed]

Helped out the local group to plant up the villages tubs with winter pansies for a few hours. It was a lovely afternoon

Now vegging out on the sofa after a lovely chinese! x