What I did today 2012-2014

[pigletwillie]

Lifted a load of redundant decking to make way for more pottager space, relocated the sump for a water feature and re-discovered just how heavy clay my soil is before its improved.

[Mumbles]

Planted toms and Brussels into final positions.

And found the first flower on my cucumbers




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[Greenleaves]

Just a bit of digging and feeding, OH came over with lunch and we enjoyed the sun.

[marcofez]

Watered! Started weeding the mess that is my raspberry patch. Got to just prune some canes back now, so get more fruit instead.

[Bren In Pots]

Picked some broad beans then dibbed leeks in the space they've made.

[Martin H]

Stayed in the garden today. Took out sweet william plants that have finished flowering. I've got some young penstemon and gazania plants and some wallflower seedlings to put in the spaces.

Cut down Glen Moy raspberry canes that have finished fruiting. Glem Ample is still going strong so picked some of those.

[Dorothy rouse]

Began returning house to normal, so I cleaned, and cleaned and hoovered, and polished. Home 'grown' dinner, being cooked. Tomorrow hope to get to plot.

[Nannysally99]

Just planted a few more little gem lettuces grown indoors, I'm hanging up my windowsills now.

[Penellype]

Cut the 3rd of the 4 leylandii hedges (all are about 15 ft long and 8ft high). Fed some of the clippings to the hotbin along with trimmings from the periwinkle which tries to grow through the back door and under the house every year. Hotbin churning along happily at 65C, but I am restricting the volume of leylandii to half a bucketful a day, well mixed with other stuff.

Made minor adjustments to the fruit cage after a blackbird found its way under the netting and was eating the strawberries. Blackbird released unharmed.

Harvested lettuce for lunch and an orange pepper for tea. Tasted a white currant but it was still a bit sour so leaving those for a few more days.

[AllInContainers]

Went to the shop and bought a tub of vanilla ice cream. Went out in the garden and harvested jostaberry, blackberry and raspberry. Boiled up the jostaberry and blackberry in some sugar
Dished up the ice cream, drizzled the blackberry and jostaberry over it and topped off with the raspberries. Shared it with the neighbours

[Noosner]

Went to the shop and bought a tub of vanilla ice cream. Went out in the garden and harvested jostaberry, blackberry and raspberry. Boiled up the jostaberry and blackberry in some sugar
Dished up the ice cream, drizzled the blackberry and jostaberry over it and topped off with the raspberries. Shared it with the neighbours

Can I move in next door to you, AIC, on the other side?

[Noosner]

Hi folks, back from hols now, and was chuffed to see my square foot garden at home looking absolutely magnificent, having been watered by a friend.

Lottie on the other hand looks a bit of a disaster! Following rabbit invasions a few weeks back and the hasty patch up job on the fence that Mr Noosner and I did before we left, nearly everything has been eaten again, and the recovering peas and beans snipped off just above the ground as before! I'm just going to have to write this year off I think, and make sure we repair the suspect fence over the winter. On the plus side, potatoes and broad beans look fine. There are gadzillions of redcurrants and goosegogs and a crop of raspberries. Courgettes and pumpkins are also unaffected. Have lifted the garlic and although the bulbs aren't very big, at least they are bulbs! Think I may concentrate on these sorts of crops that rabbits don't really like next year, and save the tender stuff for the square foot garden, as it's amazing how much stuff you can fit in and also how vigorously it seems to grow.

Anyway, sorry, to get back onto topic and what I actually DID at lottie (besides put my head in my hands and groan) I picked loads of red currants and raspberries and made a summer pudding, also picked, boiled and ate 2 x globe artichokes, which were really delicious. Also lifted a few spuds (Maris Peer) and made a garlicky potato salad, served with sardines and lettuce and mizuna from the garden for tea. Really tasty.

Ordered another cold frame online as they are perfect for square foot gardening - it will provide another six squares and then I'll put the lid back on in autumn for some late lettuce.

[Two_Sheds]

Still no rain, even the self-sown foxgloves are wilting

- watered plot again, not as much as needed, but as much as my arms & back could take
- watered home gardens with a hosepipe. What bliss! It only takes 5 mins, as opposed to an hour with watering cans. I did the maths, and worked out how much water I normally use, and timed the hose for that long (it can do a whole allotment in 20 mins)

- weeded the drive, lots of dandelions coming back. They are now mulch on the flower beds
- fed the spuds, comfrey tea
- pinched the climbing beans off as they get within a foot of the tops of their canes
- continued deadheading the flowers. Tedious, but well worth it for a much-longer show
- pulled out the climbing beans that have reverted from white to red
- harvested another carrier bag of peas, and some BBs but they've slowed right down now
- " a saucepan full of DFBs
- made redcurrant & raspberry ice cream in my maker. Blissful, but super-fattening, so freeze it in tiny tubs
- made ice-creams for the dogs. It's £3 in the pet shop, so I got some baby food & froze that: they love it

[pigletwillie]

The chooks went to their new retirement home today. Its at a special needs school and they get to free range in an orchard all day and that makes me happy.

At home the chook run has been partly dismantled ready to make a long flower border, a water feature was made specifically so my bees can harvest water and we got some perenially planted out around the hot tub.

[Penellype]

Deadheaded the pansies and decided on a stay of execution for a while longer. I can never bring myself to rip up plants that are still in flower to replace them with other flowers.
Mowed the front lawn.
Harvested lettuce, mizuna, peas, mangetout, carrots and some of the disappointing spring onions.
Squished zillions of tiny caterpillars on the broccoli.
Tidied up some of the empty plant pots that tend to get chucked on the garage floor.
Sat down with a pen and paper to try to plan next year's veg layout. Not at all easy when you haven't much sun and most of the veg need it, and there's crop rotation to try to stick to... it doesn't help that I want to grow about 4m of peas which means peas will have to follow this year's peas somewhere.