What I did today 2012-2014

[di]

Didn't sow beans in the crappy area....that will hopefully get forked through once the weather has finished it's hissy fit!

[Vince G]

Finished weeding and mucking where the brassica cage had been, having moved it onto Plot C for this year. Can't believe I've run out of muck, having got 4 tons of the stuff in the autumn.

Planted climbing french beans in loo roll cores when I got home. Neckargold and Purple Cascade.

[Peas'n'Kews]

Spent a couple of hours digging over three beds and planted out my jerusalem artichokes. They were growing me out of the kitchen (despite me NOT wanting them to grow), no idea if they are hardy enough, but they needed to go!
The rain stopped me in my tracks again, but just as well - the roast chicken was ready when I got home and then a lazy evening

My Jerusalem artichokes overwintered - I deliberately left some in to "come again" this year and they are growing well. so no worries about hardiness!

[Sanjo]

At 2.15 a.m this morning I was out in the back garden shutting up the grow house that I had put my cucumbers in for the first time yesterday afternoon. My husband had kindly shut everything up for me he said, greenhouse etc. It wasn't until 11pm last night I went through the list of what he said he'd done and realised that one was left. (How come when it was dead opposite the new one.
He assured me no frost was forecast so off I went to bed. I'm not sleeping very well at the moment so was awake a couple of hours later.
The more I thought about it the more I felt sorry the for poor cukes!
As it happens it was very mild just as well as I was out there in my PJs!

[Sanjo]

At 2.15 a.m this morning I was out in the back garden shutting up the grow house that I had put my cucumbers in for the first time yesterday afternoon. My husband had kindly shut everything up for me he said, greenhouse etc. It wasn't until 11pm last night I went through the list of what he said he'd done and realised that one was left. (How come when it was dead opposite the new one.
He assured me no frost was forecast so off I went to bed. I'm not sleeping very well at the moment so was awake a couple of hours later.
The more I thought about it the more I felt sorry the for poor cukes!
As it happens it was very mild just as well as I was out there in my PJs!

[Loudbarker1]

Not a bad set of work for a raining bank holiday with guests.

Visited B&Q and bought bamboos, compost, new pots (large, larger and very large), and new cheap watering can with wide rose holes to use only for nemotaodes: my posh cans' holes get clogged, as I discovered last week. Also bought a roll of weed surpressing water permiable fabric.

Really good weeding session. Veg patch now fit to be seen. Pity about rest of garden (apart from terrance and paths where I had a good session hoeing off weeds. Lots of bindweed and others into old plastic compost bags. Plan is to get plastic dustbin to drown them in.

Planted 6 new yellow courgette plants: 3x soliel (only one of previous 6 germinated) and 3x gold rush. Will compare and contrast.

Harvested lettuce (nicked with permission from mother Loudbarker's garden), radishes, perpetual spinage, sprouting brocoli. That's the end of of the last three: french breakfast out perform cherry bell. Broccoli and perpetual spinage rooted out to make space for leeks and courgettes respectively. Added a 3 cm layer of compost to both places and covered the courgette area with the weed supressant fabric. The parsnips sowed in the same drill as the raddishes look good so far.

Am paranoid about not haveing enough leeks: sowed a few more (musselbrough) that came with one of the gardening mags: whole packet in one of the new pots with thick layer of compost, watered, then leek seed then thin layer of seed compost on top.

Pricked out tomato plants into 3 inch pots. I hope they will be outside in a month or so. All I ask is enough to go into Mrs and Miss Loudbarker's green tomato chutney.

Very pleased with current cuttings which seem to be coming out into leaf from red, black and rose currents. Must try same for gooseberries.

Erected peas structure and planted out tall peas: Telephon and Champion of England. Don't expect much from these since it's a very shady place.

Moved courgettes out to cold house to start hardening off process.
Flowers (pot marigold, cornflower and another whose name I forget) went out too.

Potted on a magnolia received as gift by Sunday's lunch guests - luckily I hadn't killed it over the last couple of years.

As experiment planted Maris Piper seed potatos (beautifully chitted) into bags with compost with help from Master Loudbarker and his lunch guest friend Abel (not quite 2) and his daddy. No idea whether maincrops in bags is a good idea or not.

And it rained a lot and we had guests on Sunday!

[Snadger]

Gave 'carrot bed to be' its final rake over and sowed 7 rows of Norfolk Giant 2, 7 rows of Autumn king 2, 4 rows of Berlikumer 2 and three rows of Major F1.
Added potting compost to cover the seed up and watwered the whole bed.
Dug out well worn sheet of enviromesh and covered the whole bed with it. The bed has a mixture of perspex/glass and debri netting sides two feet high so after tightening the top Enviromesh I nailed it down.
It will be opened again when seed has germinated to have a quick weeding and thinning session then closed back up quickly.
Went round whole plot and dug up all the dandelions I could see to stop them flowering and setting seed.

[Peas'n'Kews]

Washed out my mini poly tunnels (one's in the shed and one's in the garage to dry).

Clipped the edges of the lawn - HATE this job! Retaliated by not picking up (all) the clippings!

[Sanjo]

With the help of my lovely patient (well sort of!) husband, erected my new small polycarb walk in Greenhouse which I got from Argos reduced from £150 to half price.
Looked at the reviews before I ordered and they were pretty grim regarding construction but the overall opinion seemed to be that once erected it was a good sturdy little greenhouse.
It's true the instructions were pretty grim and the photos were not too clear BUT by using common sense we got there.
We did put it together in the conservatory having checked it would go through the door (thankfully oversized) but didn't think about the garden gate we had to negotiate.
A bit of scraped fingers each but we did it.
Put it in the prepared space between the glass greenhouse and the concrete shed then realised we hadn't put the sliding door on. OOPS
Slid it back out again, put on the door, put it back.
As we were doing so I realised I was going to have to upset the OH again as I hadn't put the seed tray rack in which was going to be a tight squeeze anyway.
In the end we got it sideways through the door but then couldn't staighten it up!
Problem solved by taking out the end polycarb panel, twisting said rack until it was properly in then panel back.
All we need to do now is anchor it someway.

[SeleneMourie]

Potted up my tomato plants, the pumpkins, courgettes, butter nut squashes and bell pepper plants. Potted the chitted sweetcorn. Chopped up loo rolls, filled with compost and sowed some swedes. Sowed 20 pea pod seeds in the propagator. Sowed some more dwarf purple French beans and bulb fennel then read my vegie mag Productive afternoon

[yekim_4321]

Purchased staging for new GH £31 for 2 * 3ft wide and my biggest bargain was 20 5litre pots for £8 and potted on yet more toms, courgettes and cucumbers

[Florence Fennel]

Planted last of potatoes in buckets. Moved last of the toms from the windowsills indoors into my stayput, watered and shut the door. Treated knees to Ibuprofen gel - bliss.

[Currysniffa]

Potted on 2nd sowing of Calabrese, planted more Beetroot on full plot and planted some Cauliflowers on half plot.

[Brentalist]

I checked on my sacrifical Sugar snap peas that I planted out last week and they seem to be surviving if not thriving so planted out 4 more onto the same wigwam. I am sure if nothing else they will get planty of rain

The indoor veg jungle including the chillies, tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes got a watering, they are in for a shocker when they do get planted out!

[Feral007]

200 litres of weed spraying today but then ran out of red dye and it got too windy. Sent No.2 son into town to collect more red dye for tomorrow, and his sister from her friends. Quiet afternoon. Just hope I get the weeds finished tomorrow so I can do something more interesting. So hard listening to all of you getting your seeds in, plants out and worrying about slugs. It's winding down here for winter.