What I did today - 2019

[1Bee]

Potted up 3 strawberries into milk bottles. Planted out a Crown Prince, Uchiki Kuri and tromboncino into builder's bags. Sowed spinach.

[bramble]

Potted on all my tomato plants.
Some now in their final,pots and some just getting there.

So pleased with the amount of work I have achieved in the last few days.

[Jay-ell]

So far I've sown my Taraxacums.

Taraxacum Officianale "White Flash" - a varigated variety
Taraxacum Rubifolium (Faeroense) - Red leaved variety
Taraxacum Albidum - White Flowered variety
Taraxacum Leucanthum - White Flower with a Yellow Eye
Taraxacum Pseudoroseum - Pink flowered with a yellow eye.

For the few of you that aren't growing Taraxacum out there (hard to imagine I know, but anything is possible) Taraxacum if a root veg, bitter salad herb, edible flower, used in country wined, herbal drinks, salads, cooking, etc.

A usefull feature is that they can produce seeds through apomixis (i.e. the seeds are actual clones of the parent not just self fertilised) as well as regular cross/self polination so in the absence of pollinators they can still set seed.

You may know Taraxacum Officinale by one of it's nore common names - Weethebed, Pissthebed, Wetthebed, Irish daisy, lion's tooth, pissinbed, pissinlit, priest's crown, puffball, swine's snout, telltime, yellow gowan.

You might be able to tell from those common names that it is used in herbal medicine as a diuretic.

If you still don't recognise the plant try it's most common name - dandelion (the Frenchified form of lions tooth).

Yes - I'm sowing dandelions - get over it

Of course I'll probably be doing more later on as the Compost Fairy has sneaked in 4 bags full of grass clippings so I'll be popping down the plot later.

[bario1]

Cut asparagus for tea tonight.
Emptied two bags of bark chippings onto my new recreational area.
Watered the toms and squashes in the tunnel.
Picked more catkins out of the pond.
Dug some bark chippings into the area where my hostas are going.

[1Bee]

Taraxacum officinale agg. ap. as I learnt it at college...

Dawn shift on the plot.

Finished clearing the two original raised beds which are woefully dry and weedy. As I grubbed up endless nettle, cleavers and bindweed roots I found myself thinking, "you know what? It's really impressive there are no creeping buttercup in here...." which is way too glass half full for 6am.

Refreshed the soil with some MPC, BFB and dug soil from one of the beds. In the first bed, sowed beetroot and carrots either side of the rocket that is still growing nice from LAST SPRING's sowing. So it's at least capable of shrugging off -5C. In the second bed planted out four cabbage golden acre and protected with a netted cloche.

Dug out a circular (it was meant to be circular but ended up a kind of squashed rect-oval) trench and filled the bottom with green waste, manure and comfrey. Covered it back up and erected canes for the runner beans when they deign to germinate.

Planted out 8 more sweet peas, getting desperate and putting some along the edge of a row of potatoes. I'm going to regret that. In lieu of making any more regrettable choices, I potted up the remaining 8 into a big pot while I work out what else goes where.

Moved potted dahlias into position, since they'll be too hot in the covered bed.

Gloated over my spinach and the squashes I've planted out so far, in a Gollum-like, hand-rubbing, myyyyy preciousssss sort of way.

Felt thankful that my plot had been visited by a cow, and all I had to show for it was a couple of hoof-prints in the potato bed and a couple of tiny cow pats on the path. Now THAT could have been a lot worse...

[Small pumpkin]

Sown seeds
Tied up radish ( for seed pods ), asparagus and all the sunflowers.
Finished planting up the garden.
Yet another chilli planted into a pop bottle.
Tomatoes tied up and armpits removed.
Thinned radish
Got our little boat back in the water.

[veggiechicken]

Weeded Bed 16.
Potted on all the tomato seedlings and planted out 4 more into their final positions.
Potted on the 6 chillies that SP "made" me grow. "Fooled you" has flower buds - unless its fooling me.
Potted on some alphabetical DFBs - some letters are missing.
Sure I did more than that???/

[Snadger]

So far I've sown my Taraxacums.

Taraxacum Officianale "White Flash" - a varigated variety
Taraxacum Rubifolium (Faeroense) - Red leaved variety
Taraxacum Albidum - White Flowered variety
Taraxacum Leucanthum - White Flower with a Yellow Eye
Taraxacum Pseudoroseum - Pink flowered with a yellow eye.

For the few of you that aren't growing Taraxacum out there (hard to imagine I know, but anything is possible) Taraxacum if a root veg, bitter salad herb, edible flower, used in country wined, herbal drinks, salads, cooking, etc.

A usefull feature is that they can produce seeds through apomixis (i.e. the seeds are actual clones of the parent not just self fertilised) as well as regular cross/self polination so in the absence of pollinators they can still set seed.

You may know Taraxacum Officinale by one of it's nore common names - Weethebed, Pissthebed, Wetthebed, Irish daisy, lion's tooth, pissinbed, pissinlit, priest's crown, puffball, swine's snout, telltime, yellow gowan.

You might be able to tell from those common names that it is used in herbal medicine as a diuretic.

If you still don't recognise the plant try it's most common name - dandelion (the Frenchified form of lions tooth).

Yes - I'm sowing dandelions - get over it

Of course I'll probably be doing more later on as the Compost Fairy has sneaked in 4 bags full of grass clippings so I'll be popping down the plot later.

Most people are trying to get rid of the damm things!

I once used officianale roots as a coffee substitute. It was ok but decided to stay with Nescafe!

[veggiechicken]

Weeded Bed 16.
Potted on all the tomato seedlings and planted out 4 more into their final positions.
Potted on the 6 chillies that SP "made" me grow. "Fooled you" has flower buds - unless its fooling me.
Potted on some alphabetical DFBs - some letters are missing.
Sure I did more than that???/

I remembered:..........

In order to plant more toms in the GH, I had to clear the lettuces that had self seeded everywhere. The smaller ones went to the chooks but I kept back 6 big ones that were bolting to replant in the Bed for Surprising Items.
To make enough room for 6 lettuces I had to weed a large patch about 15' long. I didn't really need to but I got a bit carried away.
The tay or is it logan berry arch had collapsed and needed securing, which I didn't do, but I thought about it.
Eventually, I weeded back to where I started and planted the 6 lettuces. To my delight I found chard and kale seedlings and some potatoes from 2 years ago. Also lots of gooseberries on a bush that was concealed by weeds.
One never knows what you'll find in the Bed for Surprising Items.

[Nicos]

Replaced the daffs in the windowboxes with geraniums.

[ameno]

Dug over and weeded some more of my new allotment, and set up supports for about half of the beans I intend to plant, along with sowing some french beans.
I also found a blackcurrant stem in a waste pile which had started rooting, so I brought it home and have potted it up.

[Jay-ell]

Continued sowing stuff – this time brassicas (Portuguese Couve Galaga Tree Cabbage, Austurian Tree Cabbage, Turkish Rocket, Calabrese, Broccoli, various kales and sprouts).

Popped some more oca into pots to hold them back till I plant it out between the sweetcorn.

Blinked. During which that Compost Fairy popped another 2 bags of grass clippings into the pile. Sneaky things Compost Fairies.

Took the 6 bags down to the plot. Stuffed one and a half bags into a water butt. The grass was rammed in there good and tight using a tree support (tree not attached). Topped it up with water – now to let it stand and go wiffy for a few weeks.


Pruned back the Asturian Tree Cabbages to see if I can get another year out of them.


Watered the greenhouse and added capillary matting to the staging in the green house. It’s the thicker stuff that looks like a dogs blanket and is supposed to hold 6 litres per meter squared.

Still had four and a half bags of grass to sort out. Turned the compost which has a high percentage of twigs, leaves and other woody stuff so I layered the grass in between the shovel loads of the stuff on the pile. Took a while but eventually got the pile turned and all the grass incorporated.

The Robin popped over at the end to cadge worms. Told him that the new pile wasn’t the place to look and he should look in the old bin. He flew off then back and landed on the old bin. Told him he needed to get down because there were loads of worms. He looks down and then flies down. Told him to look at the side because that was were all the fat worms were. He hops over to the side I was pointing at.

I swear he understood English.

[1Bee]

The tay or is it logan berry arch had collapsed and needed securing, which I didn't do, but I thought about it.

DOES THAT COUNT? OMG if that counts I have loads more to report.... ROFL

Toddled round the plot and watered the blueberries with a few mm of rainwater. More on the way hopefully. Tried to identify a few more gaps to plant things. There really aren't any, but I keep hoping...

[the big lebowski]

hi all yesterday I went up the plot and had a tidy up , I took some pics to show you all

[ATTACH=CONFIG]86675[/ATTACH]
this is my new irrigation system I set up ,its gravity fed from the barrel and im pretty pleased with it




here are a few of my cordon sweet red gooseberrys



heres my garlic (I had to edit this photo down a lot to get it on here , the patch is about double this size )



heres my grapevine that im training onto wires , this is its 2nd summer and its nearly ready to tie onto the wires

ill have some chilli picks for you all soon too , cheers

[Jay-ell]

Ordered a new compost thermometer today as I've lost the last one.

Well, not lost as I know exactly where it is.

Is in the middle of this.