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Sowed all my tomatoes on the 3rd also sowed a tray Banana Shallots. Someone I talk to when waiting for my son to come out of school offered me a large dalek compost bin and its composted contents. I'm going to drop him some bags off and then I'll pop back after a couple days with the trailer and drop the lot off at the allotment. I don't need the darlek so I'll give it to someone who'll use it.
Went to the garden centre to buy more pots and compost because I ran out! Picked up some tomato food and general plant fertilizer in preparation for the spring. Potted on some iceberg lettuce, cabbage and cauliflower plants that had outgrown their pots and pricked out my cucumber seedlings and put them into 3" pots. They're looking very sorry for themselves at the moment but I'm sure they'll have perked up by tonight. Then I put Slug Gone pellets around my cabbages and washed all the dirty pots. Such a glamorous day!
Rearranged the gh . Pricked out some toms and chillies. Toms have been decamped to the gh , (they have a fleece blankie)...chillies into the consevatory to make room on kitchen windowsill for the next lot..
S*d the housework I have a lottie to dig a batch of jam is always an act of creation ..Christine Ferber
Re-dug the bit that daughter "dug" the other day and removed the dandelions and buttercups that she'd buried. Also managed to level it out. She really needs to listen to me when I tell her she's doing it wrong.
Harvested some Cavolo Nero shoots and some carrots for dinner.
It was lovely in the sunshine. Saw two huge bumblebees, and several butterflies (tortoiseshells I think). Shame I had to pack up early to fetch the grandchildren from school.
A lovely spring-like day today, so me and the dogs went up the lotty:
- cut down the rasps to ground level
- pulled out buckets & buckets of flowering dead nettle, speedwell & chickweed. Blast the chickweed
- gave the green manures another cut, before they flower. Left cuttings on soil as a mulch
- planted out 2 trays of kale & 2 of shallots
- 1 of garlic, 2 of spring onions, 1 of winter Gem lettuce
- planted out a dozen rows of chitted broadies & peas
- dug holes for my Charlottes, and filled them in with rotted leafmould (it prevents scab)
- took germinated tomatoes out of heated prop and into the unheated greenhouse, sowed more in prop
- started the massive chore that is hardening off: taking everything out of the gh onto the patio for the day, and back in at night
Noticed my module sown swedes have germinated. Took off the glass I had covering the tray in the cold greenhouse. The glass was there purely to stop the mice scratching things out. Hopefully now they've germinated they'lll leave them alone.
My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)
Yesterday, went to the plot at about 11.30 am. Mr Q is in hospital and is not very well at all so I needed to be busy but doing something where I don't have to concentrate too much. Digging, forking, barrowing. Planted out my strawberry plants; Site Manager took pity on me and helped me build a raised bed for said strawberries (he hammered in nails in the scaffolding boards). Forked over half the onion bed - do the rest this morning. They have moved hubby to ITU, anxious times, I need to be doing otherwise I think too much.
Got all my 'seeds to sow in March' out then decided day three of OH giving up smoking probably wasn't a good time to test how many windowsills I can take over before he loses his patience and put them back!
Received my replacement Jostaberry bush today from Gardening Express. The first one kippered out, but their customer service team was excellent, and got me another in the mail straight away. The new one is over twice the size of the original
Potted the Jostaberry up, then got in the car and shot off to the PO to collect my skyscraper lily bulbs that were waiting for me. It was too dark to pot them up when I got back, so that'll be a little job for another evening
Repotted all my cacti to try and stop them falling over and hitting me on the head every time I walk past, instead of growing them in tesco cat litter, im now using 50% garden center gravel to add weight, the cat litter seems better but is just too light once they get tall.
While I repotted them I took a few cuttings to tidy them up a bit
After removing the cactus spines from my hands....in between the cacti I found a couple of pomegranate cuttings I took in Bulgaria June last year and had put in a bottle of water wapped in tin foil to keep light out ,I put them in the back of the van and brought them back in July
Both cuttings had leaves on till November since then they were just sticks, one had rotted at the bottom, the other had some tiny roots about 10mm long starting, so I potted them into some compost and dumped them outside in a warmish place to see if they grow.
Living off grid and growing my own food in Bulgaria.....
Yesterday son started remodelling the front garden - digging - yes the D word
So today I've been putting organic hay into the bottom of the trenches, over pumpkin vines, broad bean stalks. And then shelled a mahoosive amount of broad beans! While watching son finish it off.
Tis the first no dig garden site, added to on both sides since. He's decided that we can have pits with mulch to save any water that we get, to make the gardens better.
Lots more mulching to do tomorrow. Hoping for more rain then. Storm coming atm, kelpie is on his lead and barking like a mad thing (as opposed to taking the front door off it's hinges)
Yesterday also dug up all the potatoes. Loads of em! Had all the baby ones last night
Cut back the pumpkin vine yesterday to give the bigger pumpkins a chance to mature, instead of having millions of small ones. One pumpkin vine, so sad.
And today found two bulbs of garlic that were missed in winter, and each clove has started growing.
And, my dad's spring onions have shot up again from where they got put aside.
Some days it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints!
One bit of old folklore wisdom says to plant tomatoes when the soil is warm enough to sit on with bare buttocks. In surburban areas, use the back of your wrist. Jackie French
Member of the Eastern Branch of the Darn Under Nutter's Club
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