What I Did Today Archive - 2010

[womble]

Pricked out tomatoes. Gave away all excess so I have a little more space this year on windowsills.

Built pea supports and sowed Alderman.

Repotted lemon and 2 chillies which have survived from last year.

Sowed sweet peas, planted Oca. Spread wood ash around garden, spread some FB&B around.

Potted up sprouting Loganberry plants, gave one away, 2 are for Emilymup who rang me to offer some brassica seedlings and to compare "being behind" notes

Had big BBQ, did cooking and got rid of a ton of rosemary prunings on it, Mmmmm tasty (Oh yes, pruned rosemary bushes), drank beer and hurt my back again, being silly afterwards.... Doh!

[flighty1]

I drove home from a wonderful week in chipping camden where we stayed with OHs family. Grandson had a fantastic time with the horses, chickens & pigs, Unfortunately I had a puncture in the farm yard just as we were leaving & the RAC took just over 2 hours to get there. Still every cloud has a silver lining. as we were late getting away we stopped in camden to buy a few bits & pieces. as we walked past the green grocers shop OH spotted some huge banana shallots in a box so in we went & made a few inquiries. We were told they were french bulbs so brought 20 really big ones for £2.20 which I was really impressed with. I have never seen them so big. We got them back to the landie only to find a couple have actually divided under the brown outer skins, so we now have 22 good sized bulbs to plant out tomorrow morning to let them run to seed. I was also fortunate enough to find a nice clump of wild garlic earlier in the week so I dug up a few bulbs whilst waiting for the RAC. (Just looked on the web & found out that I have three cornered leeks & not wild garlic, supposed I should have realised due to the triangular stems)

[gojiberry]

Finished building greenhouse, made tomato planters and greenhouse staging. Planted up the tomatoes in the new planter.

Ian

[Helgalush]

After doing two hours on my dissertation, I treated myself to a Pear Cider and a couple of hours in the garden.

I sowed some Bravour (Curly) Parsley, Chives, Black Eyed Susans, Baby Belle Aubergines, some Fristina lettuce, Climbing French Beans and some Morning Glories. Also potted some red pepper seedlings.

Am quite pleased, as I still really have no idea what I am doing. Just hope they germinate/survive!

OH has agreed we can get some big pots tomorrow and *may* let me order some asparagus crowns! Yay!! I'm thinking at some point I am going to realise that I cant possibly grow all this stuff and sustain it!! But for now I am going with it!

[Gurberly]

We stared in awe at our first asparagus spears, only two of them so far and just thumb high but they're ours!

With a little less awe we admired our potatoes coming up - Charlottes in the barrel and Juliettes in the bed.

I planted another row of leek seeds and one each of broccoli, carrots and turnips.

OH has sore knees following major weeding mission whilst I pottered around doing a bit of hedge trimming.

One, or two glasses of wine followed

[Emma_Elizabeth]

This weekend i aim to have finished filling my raised bed and sew more seeds of the veg variety and plan my two raised beds!!

[perkin]

In the lovely Hertfordshire sunshine, I:

• painted up my new allotment ladder so I can move it outdoors
• sowed some more broad beans in a raised bed
• sowed some fennel and thai basil seeds for herb pot table arrangements for my wedding
• took sage and mint cuttings - ditto above
• soaked and sowed Lancashire Lad peas to replace those munched by the nasty greedy slugs
• sowed sweetcorn in toilet roll tubes
• cleared the dead plant material from around mini pond
• planted tulip bulbs in a pot - they were already sprouting in their bag...

[Snadger]

Today I went to the allotment with no preconcieved idea of what I was going to do.
Went and bought 5 X 20Kg bags of layers pellets first. Unloaded them form car and divided one of the bags among the three chook tribes!
Took 30 mixed chrysanthemum cuttings.
One of the allotment holders is moving on so his plot has been pillaged by the other plotholders. Decided to have a mooch about and found a pile of block paving sets that no one appeared to want.
Took a good few barrowloads to wheel them to my plot.

Then, I statred to get arty farty and start playing about!!! My double plot is divided up potager style into 4 foot wide beds with a centre circular herb wheel.
Last year I abandonned monculture in each bed and adopted a more visually pleasing pocket planting regime...............this is where the brick sets come in.
I'm exploring surrounding each irregular'pocket' with a curved set surround. Laid out a few this morning to get a feel for the look and first impressions are that they look quite visually pleasing!
In effect I've got a formal surround with informal enclosures within.

Probably after sleeping on it and returning tomorrow I'll take em all up again!....We shall see.

[Suky]

Planted 2 strawberry plant out in SFG, sowed some more telephone peas.
Finished putting together the big raised bed for my brassicas and put it in its new home, then forked over the soil that was under the gravel and weed suppressing liner. It was very compacted so I was pleased to see how many worms there were in it.
DH came out for half an hour, mowed the lawns, and made the whole garden look lovely. Ho Hum!

[taff]

I went first to the polytunnel and watered everything, and de-weeded.
Then I went to the garden and cooed over my tomato seedlings,gave them a water,checked for anything else that may be sprouting. I have a trayful of jalapeno, prairie fire and one Facing Heaven Chilli germinating, maybe two, yeehawww!!

Mowed the lawn, first of the year, decided not to bother collecting the cuttings this time, the lawn can have a feed.
Emptied the compost out of any pots with dead things in them, unfortunately two good sized rosemary plants that got frazzled last year.Transplanted one into a bed in the hopes it may live.
Dug a little 4ft by 1ft strip along the back fencing, removed two big buckets of nettle roots and nasty grass, transplanted the climbing red rose into it.
Came home, made a big fry up, ate it,yum.

[binley100]

Toddled off up t'lottie where we sowed some mange tout, ruby chard , radishes and spring onions. Planted out sweet peas, cos lettuce , sunflowers, borage, rosemary and sage. Sat and and a coupla cups of tea and a chunk pf bread pudding.
Came home and played musical plants in the greenhouse and blowaway. Pricked out some evening primrose.Had a glass of the red stuff followed by a roast leg of lamb dinner. What a lovely day.

[Florence Fennel]

Put up the runner bean wigwam. Potted on lots of tomatoes who seem inclined to flower, albeit early in their lives. Generally pottered around on a lovely day.

[selfraising]

Today I weeded back path. Dug over and raked last raised bed. Tidied round pond area.
Potted on some cucs, courgettes and some toms. Recycled an old shoe rack I found by finding some troughs that fit in each shelf and have now planted strawbs in the top one, the lower ones I'm planning to plant some salad leaf in.

[NewbieGardenerRow]

OW OW OUCH I over did things this weekend

What possessed me to try to do it all in 2 days I don't know (lack of time next week probably)

So.....yesterday, in my green house I got my green beans planted (Streamline) using the dried out pods I saved from last years mega brilliant crop...fingers crossed they work)

I mowed the back lawn and put down lawn edging, dug everything over, fertilised it all and filled in my bean trench ready to plant up once the beans are ready.

I put some of my shrivelled up/ strangely chitting potatoes(Elgar and Sharpes Express) that I'm not sure are going to work in potato bags but ran out of compost so that was it for the day.

Bright and early this morning I got up and took some ibuprofen ready to get cracking again.

First I de-stoned the raised beds then planted onions (Red Baron), had an experimental go at carrots (Autumn King 2) planted in a compost heap/raised bed type thingy because its very fine well fertilised rotting turf and I figured ...why not give it a go, as well as planting some in a container too.
Then I mowed the front lawns and then weeded all the beds before planting some flower seed blankets that I picked up for 99p in a charity shop. I also put in some Primulas. Then I raked up everything and was cream crackered as it took me hours on end.

Then shopping beckoned so the kids and I went food shopping and to be honest I could barely move...lol.

Then we went to B&Q and got some multi purpose compost that was on a 3 for 2 offer and I bought a propagator, some seed trays and broad bean seeds and beetroot seeds.

Once back home I had a cup of tea some more ibuprofen and then got my second wind so I set about filling up seed trays and a container.

In the container I planted spring onion seeds (Ishikura) then put broad beans in trays (Masterpiece Green Longpod),peppers, in the propagator which has little disc shaped compost filled pods in it that you soak in water and they expand and you pop your seeds in the top (California Wonder), beetroot (Pronto), squash (Yellow Scallop), peas - sugar (Delikett) and French Marigolds.
Then I decided to check my garlic that I'd put in a couple of weeks ago (Fokhagyma) and its just popping through. Boosted by this I decided to rake and dig over the soil again and planted a huge row of broad beans straight into the garden. Then I covered all my seed trays with cling film, labeled everything up then caught my cat using my newly seeded bed as a loo.....grrrrrrrr.......so I then covered up the red onion raised bed with clematis netting to stop him getting in it and then threaded yards of net between two 6 foot canes to stretch over the bed of broadies....so he went off to ...ahem...fertilise an, as yet, unseeded bed.

Now I have collapsed in a heap, drawn a diagram of what is where, made notes on what is where and now a long hot bath and more drugs are calling me.
I hope my boss doesn't expect too much from me tomorrow, because somehow I think I am going to ache more than ever in the morning.He was planning some lawn mowing and weeding today too so I'm hoping for some sympathy....well this glorious weather was just too good to miss.
Sorry to rattle on..I may not post for a while and I may not be fit to do much...owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

[elsie-scot]

Ate the first produce from our new garden - not much just some salad leaves, but I was happy

Planted out some garlic, shallots, red and yellow onions. Have been growing in root trainers waiting for plot to be ready.

Destoned another of the new beds.

Enjoyed the warm sun