What I did today 2012-2014

[Feral007]

Went with son to check the river height. Still well over the pumping site, but will have to dig out a higher one, shorten the pipe and re-do the ends and get some water happening. Son is hoping that the height will have dropped 5cm overnight and we won't have to do all that! Oh and chain the pump to a tree so it doesn't vibrate itself off the new platform and into the river.

Then stopped and folded up about 700 metres of black plastic from solarising, another 300 to do today. And restacked the tyre protectors around the one snow gum that grew out of the 21 plants we put in It all starts with one tree you know! Then we went for a walk in the flat paddock where the rain has brought out all the dashed serrated tussock again. So that will be the next job. Found a large patch of lovegrass so that will be a burn I think.

Will be pumping and checking out the rest of the paddocks today, altho I wanted to walk the dogs with daughter as well, so might have to flip a coin over the last job of the day.

Oh and had some broccoli straight off the plant yesterday and some in the fried rice, along with the first of the red cabbage. Tasted fabulous, both of them. So much nicer than store bought.

[heidifuss]

Picked mixed lettuce leaves...disappointingly some were bitter...hummm

Molly and I pollinated the first courgette. Male and female flowers opening on same day...howzat! No i'm not leaving it to nature this ydar after last years dismal display.

Izzy and Molly repotted their sunflowers planted as school homework. So far Izzys is winning.

Admired cucumber flowers but they are all female, so pointless unless an all female variety, unless a very hard working bee carries some male pollen from another cucumber somewhere else... no chance!

warm but windy, 20○c

[veggiechicken]

Planted out more mini Oca and some Kyoto bunching onions.
Did more weeding and clearing.
Picked a cabbage head from my experimental "perennial" cabbage (no photos 'cos I've eaten it!).
Emptied a pot of carrots so that I could laugh at the bizarre roots (all eaten tonight)

[rustylady]

Housecleaning, lawncutting Managed an hour at the lottie enjoying the peace and quiet. Picked two punnets of strawberries and a bunch of sweet peas. Hoed the sweetcorn bed and handweeded the beans.

[Scarlet]

Spent hours doing taxi service for the kids - on activity week..
Few hours in the office.
Watered green houses, arm pitted, tied in and generally cleaned up toms and GH's.
Weeded bean patch, dug up my shallots and over wintered onions ready for planting up mu cabbage and cauli plants.
Found tons of black fly on my courgettes - never happened before.... What to do?

[Two_Sheds]

- finally getting on top of the lotty. The weeds are losing, and I've got nearly everything planted out that needs to be
- sowed a few lines of carrot in gaps: in the onion bed where I just pulled out the mature ones, and where some lettuce have just come out
- pulled up & chopped lots of green manures, left them on the soil as a mulch. It's really improving the soil and keeping the weeds down
- potted on in the greenhouse: the viola from seed are doing surprisingly well
- spent 3hrs weeding the school's flower beds
- chopped up a bucketful of alfalfa and sprinkled on school's veg beds, which have poor soil
- went for a leisure drive, which I never do. I needed a day off. Got to the Urban Jungle (which is even better than in the photos, just beautiful) & Taverham GC without a sat nav or map, q.pleased with self. Spent a lot, but got a lot of things I'd been promising myself for ages: a rain guage, a beer trap for school, lots of new green manure seeds, new gloves, organic slug pellets*


* and I rearranged the shelves for them I put all the big bottles of organic pellets in front of the metaldehyde ones

[Snadger]

I'll second TS's post..............dunweedin!

Momentous day yesterday as just like TS I could finally say I've gotten someplace with every bed planted and most of them weeded
Had a well earned sit on my seat in the middle of my plot in the sunshine when i'd finished. All work and no play makes snadge.........or words to that effect Whats the point of having an allotment if you can't at some time sit down and enjoy it.
My seat faces my pergola and if I ever get around to it I'm going to fasten a 'Dunweedin' plaque to the top face facing my seat.

[Likac66]

All my beds are pretty much weeded now as well so feeling very pleased. Still have 2 paths between beds to weed though - they are seriously overgrown.

My onion bed got very overgrown and now that I have weeded it I can see a lot of leaves have died off and I think the onions may have stopped growing. I think I may as well pull them soon but they are not very big.

Picked off a few caterpillars from the brassicas. Weeded round the pumpkins. Very pleased with the squash plants - taxi courgettes forming well and lots of flowers. Even the little round courgettes seem to be coming on too. One teeny pumpkin forming as well.

Fed the tomato plants in the polytunnel.

I harvested a couple of baby turnips and big radishes.

[KittyColdNose]

Had a general tidy in the garden, planted the 15 or so bedding plants oitc got for free from school, cut down the 2ft high cress and used it as green manure/mulch and found these wee blighters on the gooseberry bush.



They are bird food!

[Snadger]

Lifted the mesh and weeded the sprouts and sweetheart cabbages which are doing well. Weeded two potato beds one of which was full of goose grass for some reason.
Had a well earned sit down on my seat and watched the sun go down.

Next planned weeding expedition is to the jungle of my carrot bed!

[Likac66]

Quickly popped to plot and harvested small bag of peas and broad beans, a couple more baby turnips, radishes and 3 carrots.

[frogga]

Bug and Slug hunting for 2 hours this evening, with an awful lot of slugs and snails caught and destroyed!

[Loudbarker1]

More accurately - thispost is what I did last weekend.

Watered soft fruit, courgettes, tomatos, cucumbers and french beans.

Inspected runner beans and french beans - latest lot germnatng rather sporadically. Should plant more frenchies.

Thinned/harvested baby turnips - from bteen the rows of very baby parsnips - am not sure this inter planting has been a great success. Weeded as well.

Thinned and weeded spring onions. They are growing very slowly.

Thinned out grossly over thickly sown lettuce so there are individual plants tnat I will be abel to harvest a la Charles Dowling. Earlier sown little gem etc harvested and a great success.

Weeded between beetroot.

Harvested broad beans

Sowed maincrop carots betwen the leeks planted out last weekend: from the left: Autumn king (2 rows) , Giant Red (one row) D'Eysines (one row) and James Scarlett Intermediate (2 rows). Watered them in.

Mowed lawn

This weekend I need to:

plant out said french and runner beans.
Sow more carrots, pak choi, beetroot and french beans.
Harvest (and eat) lettuce, broad beans, new potatos, turnips, beetroot
Watering
Armpit tomatos

[Peppermint]

Yesterday I sowed more peas and sugar snaps, weeded the bean beds and checked the cabbages for butterfly eggs (rubbed them off 5 plants - she keeps on sneaking in).

Today sowed some more pack choi (2 different varieties), mizuma and a small pinch of Little Gem and Cos lettuce seeds. Also sowed a short row of florence fennel - tried this last year and it was a dismal failure. Hoping to do better this year. Watered the strawberry plants with seaweed tea. Too windy here today to do much else.

[Snadger]

Weeded carrot bed. Got nettled...........frequently!