What I did today - 2019

[Jungle Jane]

There’s a few tips here in this link,it says one nest box per 4-5 laying hens. Do you have two nest boxes? There’s a tip about adding golf balls or wooden eggs to the nest to show it’s a safe place to lay,that’s interesting although I don’t have chickens
https://www.mypetchicken.com/backyar...nest-H204.aspx

[veggiechicken]

My 4 chooks are in an enclosed run, with coop and nest box. I usually let them out to free range late morning after they have all laid. I know which hen lays which egg as they are marginally different in colour and size - even though they're all rescue hens that look similar.
When I've let them out too soon they take themselves back to the run and wait at the door to be let back in, so that they can lay in their nest box.

[lolie]

Gave everything a good watering in anticipation of the 34C we're expecting today.

My portable air conditioner decided to start leaking and the hose on it has split, so replacing that will take priority over the other tasks I had planned for today.

The mystery tomato has babies!

Afternoon update. Picked up another blueberry plant while I was at the garden centre. This one already has some fruit forming. I'm not sure whether it's labelled correctly as the tag and the sticker say different varieties. I'm not sure whether to re-pot it. I'm worried that doing so might interfere with the fruiting that's in progress.

Repotted a trailing verbena plant for my daughter. Gave my oregano, mint and thyme a brutal cutback (even though it's not Thursday).

Ordered some sulphate of potash for the blueberries and tomatoes.

[bario1]

Planted out two bulbs’ worth of garlic in the rain. I bought it at a local farm shop, it was homegrown, so hopefully it’ll cope ok with the climate. I was going to buy some proper stuff from the Garlic Farm, but honestly, £5.50 p&p??

[lolie]

Just gave my tomato seedlings a feed of trace elements. They're not looking very robust this year and I figured that might help.

Sowed more leek seeds because the last lot are struggling.

Sowed some amaranth and mini cabbage seeds. Transplanted one of my sprouted lemon pips to a 2 inch pot and put it under a grow light.

Planted some more Desiree and Red seed potatoes. I didn't have enough normal potting mix and Google tells me they like acidic soil, so they're in azalea mix. They can't do worse than the lot I planted "properly", and it's not like the remaining seed potatoes will keep until next season, so it's worth a shot.

Will need to move the blueberry plants before the predicted storm, but I want to give them as much sun as possible first.

[ameno]

Weeded the raspberry and grape bed at the allotment.
Emptied my perennial weed drowning barrel, and put the contents on the compost. It stank.
With those two, my compost bin is now almost full.

Cut down the bay tree. I'll dig it out at some point this winter, but it's not urgent.

[lolie]

We got an incredibly disappointing 15mm of rain, so I had to water everything this morning.

Picked about 20 snails out of the "flower bed" at the front.

[Chestnut]

Weeded the asparagus bed, and sowed some baby leaf salads in the GH

[lolie]

Transplanted Lebanese cucumber seedlings into the large raised bed. Transplanted climbing spinach seedlings - some into a felt grow bag and some into a raised bed.

I think I'm going to chuck my pak choi seedlings. They're not doing well, whereas my bok choi seedlings are coming along nicely (and need transplanting).

Emptied out another bag of failed spuds, so I now have a pile of soil and straw in the middle of my front yard.

I have some more seeds due to arrive so if they turn up in today's mail I will sow those.

Scattered some cornflower seeds in the "flower bed". I don't really expect them to grow but I'm sick of having flower seeds hanging around not doing anything.

Threw out the pak choi and put the bok choi in that pot. The soil was surprisingly dense so I added a heap of vermiculite to it in the hope of lightening it up and improving the drainage.

Seeds arrived and I sowed some salad burnet and summery savory. I've never had any luck with these so if they don't grow this time I will just buy tubestock.

Planted second lemon pip in a two inch pot. One is inside under a grow lamp and one is outside in the blowaway, It will be interesting to see how they go.

[muck lover]

Today I noticed parasitised greenfly on my windowsill plants- little succulents. I suspect the biological predators got in on a small purchased basil plant. The basil got covered in the greenfly from the windowsill but all the plants are now covered in golden parasitised greenfly. That’s a pretty cheap way of getting aphid biological control. If only it were summer I would be planting that basil in the polytunnel. Next year I’m going to try it.

[Sweet savory]

Cleared the courgette from the raised bed in the back garden. Emptied soil from tom and pepper growbags onto it and covered with cardboard (except for parsley corner and a cloche of lettuce). All tucked up and ready for winter.

[ESBkevin]

Took the enviromesh off the sprouts and curly kale. The birds can have the caterpillers from the sprouts and they in turn have left little for the pigeons. The Kale seems immune to both problems but does have those tiny white butterflies that leave a white powder under the leaves.

We had a few 'stray' plants that had sat in cells for months so we planted about 4 calabreese and a couple of cauliflowers as well as half a dozen sweede. Not expecting much, so it just might be a bonus.

A few weeks ago I hoed a patch and we planted out the onion sets. Well it looks like many of the chickweed sproutings survived the hoe (it was rather moist the day I had available to do it). Of course now would be a bad tine to try and hoe again without catching some onions (that are not visible in the main), so I'm going to have to be brave and tackle that problem again in a few weeks.

Finished taking down the runner and climbing french beans and stacked away the canes. the last brown pods have gone in the shed as further seed.

Finally while faffing about in the kitchen over breakfast this morning I remember a conversation with my older brother on saturday, where I said we had some lovely cherry plum tomatoes and I needed to save some seed. So I crushed three ripe fruit onto a paper kitchen towel and then removed the pulp. See i can garden when I'm getting ready for the office! Proper man style multitasking. ;-)

[bikermike]

I was out fixing the pond liner in the rain on Saturday morning (I checked the score in the world cup at half time and stopped grumbling about being outside and missing the game). Then I fixed two cars. Then on Sunday I finally got to do some gardening
1) cleared out the cucumber plants from the greenhouse and had a general tidy. Looks like I might have some sweet potatoes potating[1], checked on my broad beans.
Emptied and cleaned the bird-feeders and re-filled one. Saw a woodpecker on them last week.
2) took three green bins of garden waste to the plot compost heap (our green bin collections are stopping for winter early this year, so these are from neighbours). Took a box of coffee grounds round and spread them out over a bed. Planted out the last of the garlic and saw that some (Caulk White) is sprouting already!! With the amount I bought and the number of sprouts, I've got the end product down to £4/clove now (excluding rent, labour, fertiliser etc etc).
Harvested swiss chard and broccoli and beetroot.

[1]If fruits fruit, then what else do potatoes do?

[muck lover]

heres a photo. Assuming this is encarsia.

Today I noticed parasitised greenfly on my windowsill plants- little succulents. I suspect the biological predators got in on a small purchased basil plant. The basil got covered in the greenfly from the windowsill but all the plants are now covered in golden parasitised greenfly. That’s a pretty cheap way of getting aphid biological control. If only it were summer I would be planting that basil in the polytunnel. Next year I’m going to try it.

[lolie]

Squeezed some seeds out of an amazing store bought grape tomato to wash and dry.

It's an F1 so I don't really expect the seeds to do anything, but I've sometimes been surprised in the past so there's nothing to lose.

Put the seeds in some seed raising mix. I'm now out of seed raising mix and potting mix, so won't be planting anything else until I get to the garden centre again.