What I did today 2012-2014

[Noosner]

Why thank you! That was after they had been dropped as well

I have never strung onions before, but saw a vid on youtube and it seemed easier than the gardener's world one I watched that included dark arts knots. This way is simple - no knots.

Fabulous - thanks DDNHSW. I was doing an unnecessarily purist thing of plaiting and not using any string and they were turning out very dangly!

[horticultural_hobbit]

Put this up, whilst under parental supervision.




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[Noosner]

Mr MS and I started b*stard trenching the first empty bed - as we should have done 4 years ago when we got the plot. Our veg has been good, but size-wise not a patch on the produce I see on other plots. So perhaps this will help? Hope so because it's hard work. Almost as hard as getting Mr MS to come down to lottie

[Two_Sheds]

- cut 3 buckets of tomato leaves off the plants, to improve airflow & help ripen the fruits
- gathered the first dry beans (Zazen's Dapple Grey were first to ripen, then Rocquencourt, both dwarf)
- dug out the last few straggles of couch grass
- watered & fed everything. This is the driest E.Anglian year since 2005. I've measured only 2cm of rain all summer
- gathered ripe dry seed from flowers (delphinium, poppy, marigold etc) Stored in paper envelopes
- potted on the greenhouse basil, which has done really well: the first year I've succeeded at it
- murdered another 40 or so CW butterflies with my fishing net
- picked a kilo of rasps & blackberries, made ice cream
- brought home the first Kuri squashes, scooped out & dried the seeds
- picked the first few sweetcorns
- took 60 odd cuttings of dahlia & lavender to overwinter in the gh
- gathered a bucket of seaweed off the beach, left on soil as a mulch
- picked a dozen CW caterpillars off the brassicas, which were under a double layer of netting
- sowed 3 trays each of spring cabbage, Winter Gem lettuce & land cress
- cleaned out a water butt & relocated its fish to a new one, to eat up the mozzie larvae
- turned one of the dog poo daleks which was full, re-sited it and started filling it. It will now sit for a few months, quietly rotting down amongst the flower borders. It makes surprisingly good, black crumbly compost. No smell at all
- gave the holly tree a trim with my new toy: brilliant!
- identified which plants I want to remove & plant in the school garden (anything that's come out lilac instead of blue. I do hate the "blue" lie that seed companies tell)

[Dorothy rouse]

Started to tidy up strawberry bed, removing straw etc, thought it wud take about half an hour! 2 hours later, have maybe done half!

Now have lots of little plants with roots, that I've cut from main plant. Wonder what's best: put them into little pots for over the winter or plant straight back into bed?

I don't really want to start another bed, as I bought a special 'strawberry cage' to protect them, which worked a treat, and don't have room for another bed.

Thanks


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[Dorothy rouse]

Made 4 jars of Courgette Chutney, using mainly yellow courgettes+1green, and 1green button squash, a mixture of 2 recipes, ( 1 on here+ 1 recommended by Bren in Pots, H F W, Glutney recipe).

Looks good and smells delicious


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[MrsCordial]

Gave the veg patch a good watering and pulled out a few weeds.

[hamsterqueen]

yesterday: dug over side bed , which son had hoed and removed all surface weeds, dug out a bucketful of bindweed roots from a third of the bed, still a long way to go. Watered , weeded and harvested lots of spinach beet. swept paths and took loads of weeds and clippings to dump.

today: watered and weeded raised beds

[marcofez]

Started preparing ground for garlic and autumn onions.
Manged to get some spare leeks off a fellow allotmenteer to fill in some of the spaces which did'nt take!
Decided to try some green manure. Have sown some tares in one area, will see how it works out.

[Feral007]

Yesterday, pumped water (having left the hose on and ran out the day before,) divided rhubarb and planted about 17 pieces. Need to pot the other pieces up, for future use (after the wombat has been through) or for swapping at the seed/cuttings swap.

Mulched all the currant and berry cuttings, and the trees on one side of the food forest, dug and planted a row of potatoes which were found sprouting under some bills on the kitchen table

And watered the lot.

Today, do the other half. Then pull out all the turnips (which are not nice and round, but will go very nicely in the casserole anyway.) Then dig over that bed, manure it, put in some snow peas and think about what will go in there.

Hopefully by friday will be working on the front garden. And sat/sunday - start planting seeds in the garden and in seed trays. Spring has sprung!

[Noosner]

Yesterday, pumped water (having left the hose on and ran out the day before,) divided rhubarb and planted about 17 pieces. Need to pot the other pieces up, for future use (after the wombat has been through) or for swapping at the seed/cuttings swap.

Mulched all the currant and berry cuttings, and the trees on one side of the food forest, dug and planted a row of potatoes which were found sprouting under some bills on the kitchen table

And watered the lot.

Today, do the other half. Then pull out all the turnips (which are not nice and round, but will go very nicely in the casserole anyway.) Then dig over that bed, manure it, put in some snow peas and think about what will go in there.

Hopefully by friday will be working on the front garden. And sat/sunday - start planting seeds in the garden and in seed trays. Spring has sprung!

WONDERFUL to hear about your Spring as the UK enters Autumn. Was going to say I'm envious (and I am in a way) but I love the variety of the seasons so there's no real arguing with it!

[Snadger]

Harvested a few of my red onions and had a pleasant half hour in the sunshine taking the loose outer skins off and putting the onions on a wall to dry off for storage.

Harvested another four peaches. Well I say harvested, they actually fell off the tree. Ate three and took one home for the missus.
Harvested a couple of handfulls of differing tomato varieties.

My black grape has numerous bunches of small grapes which are a pain to pick off and eat. Being resourceful I've found a new way to eat them! Imagine the small bunches are a corn on the cob.............hold the bunch by each end and eat them like COTC!

More calabrese side shoots harvested. I prefer these to the main central shoot as I take quite a few leaves with them which when steamed are like a poor mans PSB.

Can't remember whether I posted yesterday or not but picked a huge ammount of long green french beans from a single wigwam support. When frozen there's enough to keep me going until next year.
Its been a good growing year for me this year with rain through the nights and sunshine through the days..........gardeners heaven really!

[veggiechicken]

My black grape has numerous bunches of small grapes which are a pain to pick off and eat. Being resourceful I've found a new way to eat them! Imagine the small bunches are a corn on the cob.............hold the bunch by each end and eat them like COTC!

Great minds Snadger That is exactly what I was doing 5 minutes ago in the GH
My grapes are small and pippy with a hint of Cabernet Sauvignon. Pretentious Moi?
Eating a bunch at a time seems so indulgent - but we're worth it

[Snadger]

Great minds Snadger That is exactly what I was doing 5 minutes ago in the GH
My grapes are small and pippy with a hint of Cabernet Sauvignon. Pretentious Moi?
Eating a bunch at a time seems so indulgent - but we're worth it

Mine is also Cabernet Sauvignon-ish!

Here's me thinking I was being ever so resourceful and thinking 'out of the box'

[Bren In Pots]

Made Runner Bean chutney then potted on my winter lettuce into newspaper pots.