What I did today 2012-2014

[MrsCordial]

With my 12yo's help we got the raspberries netted and pulled up the onions.

[Dorothy rouse]

Making courgette and tomato chutney,from recipe in Aug mag. Simmering away, smells lovely.

[MrsCordial]

What a great idea for using two gluts at once!

[MrsCordial]

Just nipped out to prepare a bed for planting mustard greens tomorrow, and watered my seedlings. Now back in front of the box for the Rugby 7s

[Snadger]

Harvested the remains of my red onions. Raked the bed over, purposely didn't dig it, and planted cabbage I had waiting in the wings.
Harvested the last cabbage from another bed and dug it over. Dibbled in about 40 leeks at 1 foot spacings and watered in.

Picked three gherkins and one cucumber along with three small swedes.
Munched on some peas. Peas grown in my allotment never see it past the allotment gate

[MrsCordial]

Sowed into the bed I prepared yesterday. Sowed a row of Dragon's Tongue (Homi-Zee) Mild Mustard Green, a row of Green Wave Mustard Greens (Hot) and a row of Gigant Enormous Kohl Rabi (capitals courtesy of seed packets). I've had sod-all luck with kohl rabi last year or this - currently I have one that has actually grown into something resembling a KR, then this happened:



I wonder if I should cloche the latest sowing - what do you think?

[ButternutSquash]

Poached some plaice, french beans and mange touts, with garlic, tarragon, rosemary, savory and oregano, sauteed some onion, courgette and carrot finished with balsamic vinegar and Kikkoman soya sauce, served with boiled potatoes. All but fish, tatties, garlic and onion were home produce. Beautiful. Never really liked courgettes, until I tried home grown ones picked young. They are lovely.

[Florence Fennel]

Potted on more Basil. If there's one thing I'm good at it's Basil. Wish I could apply the technique to everything else as well

[veggiechicken]

Cleared an overgrown bed, edged the new one with old telegraph poles and painted the wall behind.

This is how it looked last year before GH No. 3 was built.



This is it today



Bet you're thinking how on earth did she manage to do all that today..............

I confess - I started yesterday

They don't call me Superchicken for nothing

[Dorothy rouse]

Ummmm, I sees your boots, but where are your legs?

[Sophia-Bubble]

Weeded between the marigolds surrounding the dwarf apple tree (took longer than I thought) as I was leaving I noticed the cucumbers where huge and ready to pick (the last time I saw these they were flowers).

[hamamelis]

Got back from my holiday, and nipped down the allotment as soon as I was awake enough after the overnight ferry.

It's not as bad as it could have been- the slugs have nobbled all the chinese cabbage and almost all the radish seedlings, the baby chard and kale was crispy in the pots, and something had managed to pull the netting off the brussels sprouts, so the pigeons had had a go, but most things were ok. Some of the squash and tomatoes were looking very wilty, but they perked up when I watered 'em. There clearly has been some heavy rain (unless my neighbours dumped water in the wheelbarrow to confuse me), or it would have been worse.

Did a bit of weeding, picked some plums (though loads had gone rotten on the branches, so I'm not going to have a massive crop this year), watered everything I could think of, but I was still far too tired to do much.

[MrsCordial]

With my 12yo's help we tied up tomatoes, removed glazing panes that had been doing quasi-greenhouse duty, watered seedlings, fed tomatoes, aubergines and squashes. My artichokes under the panes were looking dismally munched

[Penellype]

Had a bit of a rearrangement today. The mangetout got ditched (Shiraz is awful) and I planted the leeks that were waiting in a pot in their place. Harvested some kohlrabi that was being eaten by caterpillars and swamped by tomatoes. Moved the rest of the kohlrabi out of the fruit cage where it had been sheltering underneath the blueberry and put it near the garage. Whether there is more light with its back to a north facing wall or underneath the blueberries I have no idea, but at least I can get at it now.

Potted up 2 broccoli plants that are waiting for the onions to come out, and pricked out some more kohlrabi and some cabbages, and put these in the fruit cage (which is now veggiemesh).

Cut the foliage back on one of the desiree potato bags which was looking very sad, and moved the bag to the garage. Took the 2 courgettes out of the trough by the back door, where it is too windy and they are getting mildew, and planted one of them where the red onions were (now harvested) and put the other in a pot replacing the potatoes.

Harvested some carrots and made a casserole with the kohlrabi, some chicken and ham. Also harvested lettuce, cucumber and 12 Sungold tomatoes.

Removed the old calabrese plants and sowed some more carrots. My "brassica" cage now contains 1 pot of red cabbage and 5 pots of carrots

Couldn't quite bring myself to ditch the mizuna, which has flea beetle and is peppered with small holes, so picked some blueberries and ate them with ice cream instead.

[Snadger]

First beefsteak toms harvested and took a bag of mahoosive Japanese onions home for use as they are renowned poor keepers.