What I Did Today Archive 2011

[Newbie]

Watered & fed the greenhouse crops (toms, cucs & chillis) and put up fleece as a sunscreen in the GH as the first three cherry tomato plants have been sun scorched - not sure if they will sufficiently recover but they will be given a chance. Pulled a carrot to see how they were doing - success! Long, straight & carrot fly free (so far!).

[Welsh Wizard]

Out of sheer frustration lifted all the garlic: cant be bothered to allow it to swell any more as there is too little top growth to get a decent bulb. It needed a feed around April time and it didnt get it, so I cant complain too much!
Dug in some compost and in its place planted out a row of Cavolo Nero kale ready for the winter to come! Much better!

Broad beans seem to be perking up, setting a second blush of flowers and some plants sending fresh stems up: blackfly all b*ggered off (was it the soap, or was it the crud weather?, or did the ladybirds finally wake up to the free aphid bonanza?)

Picked wild bilberries.

[Florence Fennel]

Yesterday evening fed squash, pumpkins and courgettes with comfrey tea. Chopped comfrey again and made two more buckets of tea and 5 bottles using TS method stuffing leaves into said bottles and filling with water. Got a lovely thank you letter from 8 year old boy I provided with sweet pea plants.
Garlic plaited.

[binley100]

Watered where needed on little lottie, picked raspberries and lifted shallots. Watered where necessary on big lottie , planted out 4 x 16ft rows of leeks and then covered them with fleece cloches . Watered some stuff on Centenary garden.
In gh sowed dill, purple basil, chives and parsley , potted on some peppers ,sorted out the garlic (mouldy ones in the bin decent cloves in the freezer ) watered .....
Now about to bottle up rhubarb voddy and quarante quatre and start off some plum gin.......
4 lots of watering done and guess what ....it's now bladdy raining

raspberries are in the dehydrator .......

[Suky]

Cleared some potatoes from one bed at lottie and sowed Kelvedon Wonder peas and some dwarf beans for an autumn crop.

[Two_Sheds]

- spent a few hours weeding the Wildlife Garden ~ I seem to be winning, at last. The couch & horsetail are in retreat and the wildflowers are coming back
- took away 11 garden sacks of couch & horsetail roots to rot down
- destroyed a massive ants nest in the garage: they'd excavated the mortar and left a 3' x 1' pile of sand on the floor. The nest itself was over 5' long (shudder)
- earthed up the tomatoes, they're drying out fast when the sun comes out
- planted out Zazen's Bleu de Solaise leeks under netting, plus more shallots & beetroot
- pickled a load of courgettes & French beans, made 6 jars of pickle out of them
- planted out a couple of butter beans that had rooted & grown 6" in just a puddle of water
- sowed another 4 rows of carrots for the slugs to eat
- potted on some of next year's flowers: delphs etc
- debated what to do about 6 tomatoes that are too big for the gh now
- saved poppy seeds for the ladies at school
- trimmed the rampant buddleja that's escaping over the school fence

[susieq100]

Yesterday - spent the afternoon at the plot. Lifted all the over-wintered onions and cleaned the beds. Planted peas, beetroot, radish in the space provided. Did a ton of weeding ... I have not spent enough time here over the past 2-3 weeks (work) so there was plenty to do - 3 wheelbarrows full of stuff to go on the compost heap. Bought some more bean sticks in HomeBase sale and planted out some more climbing Frenchies - hoping I may get a late crop of Cobra. Cut a huge bunch of sweetpeas from a neighbour's plot - I had given him cuke as a swapsie. My sweet peas are gorgeous - scarlet - but they don't have the powerful scent that I associate with sweetpeas - one of the perfumes of summer. Picked raspberries and dug up potatoes. Watered the greenhouse, raised beds and 'flower' beds in the garden. There are flowers in the beds but there are also courgettes, gherkins, outdoor tomatoes, cauliflower, climbing frenchies and beetroot. Then we barbecued some chicken and burgers and sat in the conservatory drinking wine and talking until it went dark. Lovely day!

[Snadger]

Had an early start assisting my Son selling stuff at a car boot. Was at the grain warehose by 10 am buying layers pellets for chooks. Mixed some home made compost and planted up eight late chrysanths in morrisons flower buckets. Gathered another bucketful of blackcurrants whilst pruning bushes at the same time. Quite easy to prune a branch, strip it of berries, prune another ad infinitum!

[Newbie]

Went for Dimsum lunch with OH & his mate, came home, stripped off & set to work in the garden. OH Cut the lawn & strimmed the boundary & around the raised beds whilst i picked the Gooseberries, de-netted the now all picked gooseberry & currant bed, weeded & dead headed the flowerbed in front of the greenhouse, weeded the bird-feeder bed (got a bucket & a half of germinated niger seed weeds) and trimmed my bushes.

[Aberdeenplotter]

came home, stripped off & set to work in the garden.

[binley100]

.......... came home, stripped off & set to work in the garden.

*coffee>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..screen.............. most definately a tena moment.......

[sewer rat]

In garden / greenhouse this morning - rearranged shelving to accomodate my 3 Pendle Improved leeks and replaced the DPC membrane so that they are now blancing to a height of about 13" above soil level. They are also now starting to visibly thicken. Earthed up round the tops of my show beetroot and turnips. Over at the polytunnel this afternoon, completely denuded all the tomato plants up to the first truss, weeded the onion beds and brassicas, folded the outer leaves over the two remaining mature caulies ready to bring them home later in the week, staked up the top growth on the best of the onions (Setton from sets) most of which are now approaching a diameter of 10" or thereabouts. lifted and composted a courgette plant that was being smothered by the triffid in the corner (aka Medwyns Giant Marrow).

[Winged one]

Today, I mostly harvest - potatoes, spinach, peas, broad beans, raspberries, (a very small handful of) red and black currants, lettuce, and a cabbage.

I also clipped back the grass on the plot, and pulled a few broad bean plants that are done. I will try to sow a few broadies to replace those next week. And watered a few plants that really needed it.

At home, I also pulled a broadie plant, and contemplated pulling and replacing the living fence of peas (against a real wooden fence - will do that during the week). I've refilled the waterbutt over the past few nights with showers, and have a few buckets full too to maximise my supplies as I have been using lots and want to avoid the tap water as much as possible.

[bethduckie]

Yesterday I tied up and sorted out my severely neglected tomatoes... with any luck I've managed to NOT kill any of them off. they were so bushy they had fallen over and the stems were growing wonky. Oops. Still I got there in the end and I fed them with tomato food afterwards so hopefully they won't hate me too much. There are even some baby toms forming so they seem to have been happy enough, being neglected.

Today I did some weeding and general tending of the front patch, picked some veg, sowed some salads, titillated the aubergines and peppers (in mini greenhouses so no bees to pollinate them) and I'm just about to give the pots and bags a good watering.

[Florence Fennel]

Watered. Took me nearly an hour, but I swear I could hear the plants drinking it.