What I did today 2012-2014

[PyreneesPlot]

Bottled nettle tea and made more.
Cut edges of all beg beds.
Finished weeding one bed.
Put tender seedlings outside for a bit of SUN.
Weeded new trees and shrubs.

[Martin H]

I went down my new allotment and started digging.

I had several "omg what have I done" moments. I thought I'd start by clearing a bed that had been recently cultivated, but it turned out to be wet heavy clay soil and I think the previous owner had been cultivating couch, buttercup and docks. Very slow going!

Still a start has now been made. Back again tomorrow.

[kathycam]

This week had about 3 sessions of lifting up cardboard. Taking out any nasty perrenials. Loosely digging the soil and then adding a layer of well rotted woodchip. Then put the cardboard back down. Weighed down the cardboard with well rotted woodchip, leaves, soil improved and more rotted woodchip. Spent a lot of time removing weeds from the well rotted woodchip, hope that means its nice and fertile!

[Tripmeup]

Weeded around fruit bushes and trees.
Sowed Spring Onion seeds ( purple and white)
Sowed Mizuna seeds in planters.
Planted potatoes - Orla, Casablanca and Setanta
Spread some home made compost on beds
Planted out two redberry bushes bought on Thursday
Bit more progress on building 2nd greenhouse

[StaryD]

Planted bare root roses, grapes, red currant, gooseberries, sowed some bedfordshire champion onion seed, pricked out cabbage express seedlings into individual pots, sowed some peas in toilet roll tubes, gave the greenhouse a good clean up, dug over a bit more of bed 2 (broke the spade, so need to get a new one )

[susieq100]

Decided that I could no longer wait for the weather to improve (!) before I did anything garden related. So I spent 2 hours at the plot this morning - forked over a couple of beds and planted out 140 onion sets. Then planted out 5 bare root tayberries into the garden at home against a nice sunny fence. Fingers crossed.

[Martin H]

Finished digging weeds out of the very first bed on my new allotment. Today's I added to the collection:
- what looks suspiciously like bindweed roots
- brambles
- annual meadow grass (do you know, the golf commentators on Sky call it "Poanna", it took me ages to work out what they were on about!).
I now have a neat rectangle of dug soil about 12' by 4' 6"". The first of many.

Met my new neighbours on the adjacent plot to the South. Shout out to John and Heather!

Started emptying the compost bin kindly left by a previous occupant of my plot, but stopped when the sner came. I need a shed to shelter in! With a radio and maybe a row of optic dispensers.

Bought some onion sets from the allotment shop before they all run out. Hoping to get another bed cleared by the end of Monday, I might get them planted!

[w33blegurl]

Broke up some more pallets for raised beds at the lottie and then realised that I would need to buy a new drill (battery finally died on the old one) before I could actually put them together . Did some digging where the tatties will go and pulled out some of the endless bindweed roots that are taking over the plot!

Oh...and got snowed on. Several times!

[veggiechicken]

Sowed some Carentan leeks in a pot (because of the thread on leeks )
Planted 20 Asd@ shallots in modules - just to see if they'll grow. If so they're much cheaper than buying the gardening ones (there were only 8 in a bag )
Amazed to see that seeds sown in modules nearly 4 weeks ago, and left unwatered and unloved are mostly up and thriving. Maybe I'm too kind
The unheated GH veggies have also survived frosts down to -4.
Perhaps, if they'd been watered the soil may have frozen around their roots

[Bigmallly]

Spent several hours down at lottie today, it actually felt that spring had sprung at times when the bright thing in the sky came out. Planted 60 self saved King Edwards, sowed Cabbage (Red & Green), Cauli (All year round), Sprouts (Tall & Half Tall), Lettuce (Little Gem & Iceberg), Turnip (Purple top & Snowball), Toms (Gardeners Delight). All in 6 module trays (about a dozen seeds in each module). Now steaming nicely in the kite. Went to £land & picked up a thermometer & a bag of Asiatic Lilies. Came home & put some Courgettes in kitchen roll.........feeling optimistic today.

[sally fran]

Spent the last few days digging and shoveling and barrowing chalk out of the greenhouse site. I'm amazed that I haven't had to hire a breaker or even use a pickaxe to get the chalk out. It just crumbles when I dig a fork into it. In fact digging it out is the easy bit - the shoveling and barrowing is the real hard work. I reckon in a couple more days I'll have a level surface. And then maybe by the end of the week the greenhouse will be up! Yay!

[Likac66]

I went up to the plot quickly to measure up a potential site for a polytunnel. Think I can happily fit 4m length. The ground will need a lot of work though.

[GrimChili]

A lot of digging, shoveling and sieving!

More tomorrow!

...and stopped at garden center and bought some onion sets (Centurion) and accidentally bought another pack of chilli seeds (Apache) even though I'm unlikely to bother sowing them now this year... why do I always do that! I think of Apache F1 as a bit uninteresting because you can get them everywhere but I gotta say they are damn easy and prolific, I probably have them to thank for my chilli/veg growing addiction.

[arronb]

6th consecutive day today down at the lottie and the sun well and truly had its hat on! In that time ive managed to weed half of my 2nd plot hand weeded right down to the last bit of greenery!

Sowed 2 rows of nantes carrots and cultivated a 2 metre strip ready for planting the onion sets next week! If the weather improves I might even get the spuds put in (fingers crossed).

Tied up some blackberrys along the sheds, then went to the greenhouse to sow some calabrese, cabbage red/white, sprouts and kale!

[Tripmeup]

Planted out my onion sets. Red Fen, Rumba & Fen Early( good sized sets they were too)
Put in some laurel hedging..
Continued hardening off some stuff from greenhouse.. Soon to be moved or planted outside..