What I did today 2012-2014

[binley100]

Weeded my flowery bit and planted out some stuff that was still lurking at home........weeded the runners (haha) and gave them some chicken poo and a stiff talking too.......did some harvesting.......went for coffee on my mates plot.........weeded the french beans and gave them some chicken poo and a stiff talking too ........killed some asparagus beetles .....made the gh stinky by giving the occupants a drink of comfrey tea......
Cooked tea then bottled up some ginger beer.....

[Acanthus]

Just come in from slug patrol, got about 30 of the little devils from the cabbages but only a couple from what's left of the runner beans. Hopefully the blue sweeties got them earlier.

[Peppermint]

Yesterday:

Dug over and raked the beds where the garlic had been harvested from. Sowed three varieties of turnips.

OH completed the wind break fencing around the new brassica bed. Very nice it is too I continued to dig the said brassica bed.

Gave the plants a watering - it then started to rain

Deadheaded the lupins.

[Bren In Pots]

Sown a sprinkle of salad leaves and spring onions then in paper pots some rhubarb and yellow chard.

[Loudbarker1]

All day yesterday in the garden - horray!

Firstly harvesting 'cos that's the fun bit. Dug potateos (Lady Christl, Sharpes's Express, Ed Duke of York) helped my Master and Miss L. Had the RDoY mashed for tea (with home grown courgettes, carrots & secondary shoots of calebrase) borcoli) - delicious. Also harvested said courgettes (defender/soleil) and carrots (early nantes), also beetroot (bolthardy), tayberries and lettuce catelgona and Autralian Yellow Leaf (from the real seed catelogue - am pleased with this works very well for harvesting of single leaves over a long period a la Charles Dowling). With Master and Miss Loudbarker stole gooseberries and redcurrents from grandma who also made blackcurrent jelly (scoffed for tea) and jam (with rubarb???) for us. Digging potatos makes a bit of a mess of the "no-dig" theory, but I don't mind too much.

With Master Loudbarker, planted into modules perpetual spinage, lettuce (All Year Round and more yellw leaf), Salad Endive (Bianca Riccia da Taglio fom Real Seeds) and Raddacio (freebie from another gardening mag).

Also planted out second planting of PSB and swede (Marian and Joan) interplanted between them. I think this is going to work - fingers crossed. Well puddled in and then cloches over since they came straight out of the cold house. Master Loudbarker helped.

Noticed very intemitant germination of last lot of french beans (in loo rolls in greenhouse) - undid a coupel to look - one had died and other growing very slowly - is it that cold?? Also something has nipped off the last growing tip of my last runner bean (out of 4).

Good session weeding the exposed beds. Also removed spent calebrase plants. Now nice and clean. Far too much bindweed about in the garden generaly. Hoed off paths to make them look a bit more presentable. Must make a general effort to clip paths, clear weedy bit over winter to make the place mroe presentable.

Nipped out pumpkin growng points to concentrate plant energy on fruit Will need to decide how many pumpkins the plant can sustain as well and remove spares in a week or two.

Watered container plants: cucumber (burpless tasty green looking good) and toms in grow bags; soft fruit in pots and potatos and pumpkin in big bags. Master Loudbarker helped again (good boy!). All with a dose of high phosphate wih seaweed mixed and water from water butt.

Mowed lawn - mower conked out three quarters of the way through. If it doesn't start next time an emergency servce will be needed). Helped clear away paddling pool (there was a misguided purchase this year - we bought it just at the end of he hot spell, after the hosepipe ban started - Mrs Loudbarker not quite on ball there - filled it laboriously by hand with watering cans and the heavens opened............ Bet it now stops raining). Picked pot marogilds, cornflowers. Sweet peas looking good.


All that clearing and harvesting is opening up big bits of bed for new harvests - will need to plant overwintering lettuce, parsely, coriander and chervil, oriental greens, corn salad, also quick growing turnips while keeping space for overwintering broad beans. Must make a success of spring onion - failed every time so far with White Lisbon.

Covered recently germinated lettuce with fleece to keep off local cats. Should probably cover all the bare soil thus.

[Gearoid]

Planted some more french beans as the slugs had eaten all the others I'd previously sown. Planted out in gaps some patty pan squash, yellow courgettes (Gold Rush) and finally a Nice de Rond courgette in a huge pot. Given the weather this year, I haven't been in a hurry to plant any of these. Gave some scraps of salad leaves to the tortoise who was very pleased with himself and waste no time wolfing them down.

And then it started to rain again so came in to watch a Joan Crawford DVD with a hot chocolate & marshmallows. ;o)

[Loudbarker1]

Discovered slugs (or something) have eaten off the tops of my last lot of french beans in mother's hot house

[kentishgal]

Beautiful warm, sunny day today (almost like a proper summer!!). Repotted the geraniums, hardy fuschias and dwarf budleias. Gave the toms and cukes some TLC (extra MPC, feeding and tying in). A little bit of weeding, dont need to do much as there arent many spaces for weeds to grow!. Attempted to train the sweet peas up their trellis's whilst I wait for all the flower buds to open.
Going out later to pick courgettes, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, spring onions, peas, broadies and chervil for tea! (I seem to have had a mysterious growth spurt of all my veggies just lately).

[Snadger]

Today I took the enviromesh cover off my carrots and weeded between them. I've had a lot of problems this year. Sowed five packets earlier in the year and not one germinated. Sowed another five packets and had about 30% germination. Today I sowed another packet in areas of rows that hadn't taken. Local garden centre was selling seeds at half price so I used F1 Kingston seeds.
Watered the bed then applied the last of my slug pellets before covering up again to keep the carrot fly at bay.
Planted out some yellow french beans which are quite easily identifiable because the have yellow foliage as well.
Did loads of weeding and pulled up some onions which were affected with white rot.
Pulled out some leeks which had seeded, but luckily I have leeks waiting in the wings to take their place. (they've only been in the ground a month.)

[T8Ter]

Today I swapped 8 panels (twinwall) on my polycarb greenhouse for 8 clear acrylic - what a difference, I knew the twinwall diffused the light somewhat but I could almost hear the plants growing in their new found daylight.

[Florence Fennel]

Cleaned out the stayput again and evicted half a dozen big fat ugly slugs and some little white ones that were all feeding on my chillies. Made an onion string.

[binley100]

Yesterday.......tidied up the gh and evicted slugs and snails found hiding. Tidied up the kitchen. Went up lottie and removed dead and dying potato leaves, weeded the celeriac , killed some asparagus beetles, went to a committee meeting.
today.....started giving the kitchen a deep clean , deleafed some toms ,fed whatever is fruiting, made phone calls re hedge cutting ....

[Bren In Pots]

Picked the last of my broad beans (apart from a few I'm leaving for seed beans) dug the area over and if its not raining tomorrow I'll be planting my leeks there.

[Uber-Uncool]

Went to a garden centre and ignored all the half price seeds on offer!!! Thats a first, i can tell you.

Instead, spotted some sweet pepper plants, mine are all dead, had sodall luck with them this year, pants germination and those that started then to grow got eaten by slugs or i overwatered them.

Anyhow, it stuck in my craw a bit to buy pepper planta but as there were six for a fiver, lots with flowers and fruits starting on them...and the advantage of there being extra plants because in one pot three had grown and in another pot two plants had grown, so ultimately i had 9 pepper plants for a fiver.

Also bought a blueberry bush that has a fair bit o fruit on it. Just need to buy some ericaceous compost for it. I had only 6 tiny blueberries of my tiny (about 6-8 inches tall) blueberry bush in the garden. A couple of years ago i chucked what i thought was a dead poundland blueberry twig up a dank corner in the garden and last year it gave me i think one solitary blueberry, so it got a great crop of 6 this year!

The new bluberry bush i bought today was half price. Looks okay but needs potting on or planting out.

Also brought six herb plants, 6 for a tenner.

[Loudbarker1]

Discovered slugs (or something) have eaten off the tops of my last lot of french beans in mother's hot house

Put down slug pellets to protect newly sown (and germinated) endive, lettuce, perpetual spinage, raddachio. That should fix the ******s.