What I did today 2012-2014

[hamamelis]

Got back from a week away last night, so went down the plot today despite the rain.

The slimy things have eaten one squash plant completely, but the others have either been barely nibbled or completely ignored, so it could have been worse. Planted out some herbs and misc I bought on holiday (honestly, I can't even go camping without buying more plants ), plus two oca plants that were starting to outgrow their pots. Was wet and my shoes leak, so I wasn't down there for long.

Potted up a few more things and started letting the next wave of squash out to harden off.

Then, just as I was about to head back inside, noticed a shiitake mushroom growing on the inoculated log!

3 years that's been out there, I'd almost forgotten about it! Hope it's not the only one I get!

[binley100]

Sunday.....lottie all day, loadsa weeding and planting of pretty things in the pretty things bits........bbq with our neighbours .....
Monday......prepped two beds ready for the next wave of plantings ..topped up the spuds in builders bags with more leaves, weeded the bog garden , planted some chillies and peppers in the gh .....
today.....made jam, potted on some chillies and aubs........work stopped play....

[hawthorns]

sown 23 martha washington asparagus seeds into pots

[JustPotteringAbout]

Picked some slugs and snails 01:00, 03:00,
Robbed palstic bottles from people's recycling to use around the garden and in greenhouse
slept,
cut brassicacea collars from replacement microwave packaging,
broke up polystyrene from packaging to use at bottom of herb pots,
<daytime stuff gym-college-gym->
hosed down the seaweed until I can be bothered cutting it.
Watered and fed the greenhouse plants and seedlings
updated CAD drawings with recent sowing (just a few rows)
updated spreadsheet with recent sowings and taxa of pests diseases and pathogens
noted a few measurements for cad drawings for front garden.
Weeded willowherbs and welsh poppies from around garden
Spoke to my neighbour politely while thinking "sort your garden out all your bloody weeds are seeding my garden you lazy so-and-so!"
Raked a couple of beds ready for planting kohl rabi, kale, yet more calabrese/broccoli.
Scratched my head a lot what to do next
Raked remainder of brassicacea beds
Added some 'self-sourced' nitrogen around garden
Carefully picked chickweed from around alliodeae seedlings (nah, I didn't add nitrogen there!)
Got bored, had dinner
Looked up 'chickweed' on here. wait until sown-direct seedlings grow a bit or pull now and risk pulling seedlings

[Snadger]

A bit of weeding.
A bit of digging.
Erected my frenchie bean wigwam. Planted some shallots from a tray.
Planted six tomato plants in greenhouse border.

[Rigel]

Mourned some very sad little tomato plants which have just never thrived. Took ages to germinate and just never looked well and then keeled over and wilted yesterday. Tried to revive them but by this evening they were goners- type was 'Ruby Red'. All the other tomatoes are still doing fine...so perhaps just not meant to be.

Other than that just rearranged my balcony after the builders had moved it all. Still to clean up the mess from paint chippings though. Nice to get everything back up on a sunny day.

[Loudbarker1]

Left work early and spent a very happy evening thinning turnips and weeding.

Then picked lettuce for supper and ate it.

[Likac66]

Been down the plot to take a look if the slugs have been out in force but pleased to see very little evidence of them. Noticed TWO PEA PODS on my early peas. Delighted. They are Douce Provence.

Been in the greenhouse and planted lots of plants:

one last romenesco courgette seed(two earlier sowings have resulted in nothing but they were old seeds.)
3 Cucumber marketmore. (wasn't going to bother with these, but I figured I could try them outside.)
Rocket
Lolla rosso lettuce
Red salad bowl lettuce
Little Gem lettuce
April cabbage
Cardinal Broccoli (late PSB)
Early PSB (2nd attempt at sowing these.)
Autumn calabrese
Curly kale (2nd or even 3rd attempt at these - last of the seeds.)
Spinach -red cardinal
Spinach - scenic
Red chard - rhubarb variety
Sweet peas
French lavender

Taken some plants out of the greenhouse today to start hardening off: garden pearl tomatoes, pumpkins, winter dumpling squash, bedding plants.

[darcyvuqua]

Planted out beans and peas and tidied a greenhouse ready for the chillies

[bearded bloke]

3 Cucumber marketmore. (wasn't going to bother with these, but I figured I could try them outside.)

They will be fine outside in a sunny spot out of the wind

[Canny Grower]

Hand weeded the onions, garlic and shallots; hoed everywhere; thinned turnips. Did a bit more heavy weeding around the blackberries and currants. Set out basil seedlings in amongst the tomatoes in the greenhouse border. Gave a cheer to see the sugar snap peas are up.

[treepixie]

Popped down the lottie and breathed a huge sigh of relief, no slug damage!!

[veggiechicken]

Culled a spotty potato plant - perhaps needlessly as a squirt of Epsom Salts may have been all it needed Never mind, a few new potatoes are a real treat!
Filled 2 wheelie bins with holly branches, cut down by Chris at the weekend. Nasty prickly things that will turn up in somebody's bag of municipal compost before long.
Lots of midges around today - how can something so small cause such irritation May have to wear my bee veil in future

[maisiem]

- potted on tomatoes and chilli peppers.
- sorted out the strongest broccoli and sprouts to keep in reserve incase ones in the beds die.
- sowed some more kenyan beans, sugarsnap peas and peas Tom thumb for my second sowing.
- gave greenhouse spuds their last earthing up. Couple have some flower buds on them but will be keeping them for a lot longer as I didn't plant them til late.

[JustPotteringAbout]

Watched a couple of eps of Chelsea Flower Show footage on iplayer (I'v never been)

Watched E1 Botany-A Blooming History ahead of tonight's talk by Dr Timothy Walker , Director of University of Oxford Botanical Gardens)

Looked up Saffa Western Cape ethnobotany on the interweb
Didn't find much (the same abstracts) so had a cup or tea (Roobios)

Watched E2 of Botany. Fell asleep about 5 minutes from the end and left computer on (not that it was uninteresting .. it was well after 04:00 hrs by that time)
college stuff
Yoga class at college ... worrying decreptitus noises
To library to print off leaf morphology chart and CAD drawings but CAD stations busy.

Chatted with college coffee shop guy about growing fruit and veg, foreshore mineral rights and donkey manure in Tunisia, collected his used coffee grounds

Applied coffee grounds around front garden and around perpetual spinach b vulgaris

planted out more broccoli, honeyed cuttings of narsturtium and some cheeky rows of radish

Cut some 1m + 1.5spit lengths of cardboard carpet roll to make some semiautomatic totem-pole compost feeders. Will perforate them, dig in at 1.5 spit and fill with compostables; seaweed, leafmould or whatever is nutritious, will rot down over season and isn't too stinky

cut a few more brassica collars from cardboard packaging.

updated my plant inventory with photosynthesis types C3 C4 and CAM

Pressed some Allium Ursinum leaves with marvellous specimens of Puccinia sessilis galls but not sure entirely why.
Looked eveywhere for my Latin dictionary to look up the etymology of sessilis
Made a list of what to do for next season: