What I did today 2012-2014

[Littlefox2000]

Had a lovely day so far. Popped to the farmers market for a wander. It's lovely looking at all the veg and knowing I've got so much on plot, that I don't need to buy veg. That said I did succumb to some black cherry tomatoes, as my tomatoes aren't ready yet. Bought raw cream, milk and creme Fraiche and half a dozen eggs. Here was also a stall selling goats cheese and goat meat, so I thought if give some sausages a bash.

Then I was hoping to go and do some weeding on the plot, but it was raining...so have been preparing runner and French beans and sweetcorn for the freezer. Cooked up a batch of ratatouille. Set up the dehydrator to make kale crisps. And juiced a load of crystal apple cucumbers that were starting to look a bit sorry. Now I'm wondering if I have all the ingredients to make another chocolate courgette cake...I love weekends.

[Plot28 A&B]

Picked our first corn on the cob, came home, straight in the oven for 30mins, covered them in butter and my wife and I ate one each,they were fantasticly yummy

Also whilst at the plot harvested more raspberries, blackberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and yes......courgettes.......again!!

This morning I moved the garden lights around so that they don't look like a runway approach now and I washed the car

All in all a good day, now in a heap on the sofa.

Hope you all had good weekends too?

[cardiffsteve]

Picked last of blueberries, tomatoes and dwarf beans.
Also picked a 4kg marrow

Anybody have any clues what to do with a 4kg marrow? No rude answers please

[Bex]

Yesterday I took on the adjoining half plot so I now have a whole. Expanding my empire one half plot at a time. It's gonna take some time to take over the world at this rate.

The new plot is full and I mean full of marestail, there's an ants nest in the middle which is an interesting feature and it's not been worked for 3 years. This does not dampen my excitement though. I've got till spring to get it ready.

Happy gardening!




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[Penellype]

Spent the morning dealing with the electrician who had come to replace my bathroom fan. Discovered I had nothing in the fridge except one very large courgette, a load of runner beans and some cheese. Made courgette and runner bean soup for lunch, with some left over to freeze. Freezer now contains courgette soup, courgette and tomato soup, courgette and carrot soup, courgette, carrot and kohlrabi soup and courgette and runner bean soup!

Harvested another punnet of tomatoes from the garden - I'm bringing them in as soon as they start to turn now in case they get the blight that my friend's tomatoes have. Constructed yet another veggiemesh cage where the onions were and planted out some kohlrabi.

Went to my friend's house and cut down all the blighted tomato plants. Total crop from 3 plants: Sungold about 20, Chocolate cherry 1, Belle 0. Very depressing. Of the 3, the chocolate cherry was much the worst affected, the sungold the least.

[Littlefox2000]

I dehydrated kale and brassica leaves today! Started to sort out the beans for another freezer batch...but my new pressure canner arrived and so I'm going to delay and harvest some more beans and can the lot. I got rained off yesterday so only managed to check a few of the French beans. Tomorrow I should have enough for a decent canning batch.

Anyone else canning stuff...I'm a bit scared about using this canning device...but I am excited to make a vast quantity of ratatouille to store as well as storing my beans outside of the freezer. I've also seen some raw meat YouTube videos...

[MrsCordial]

I've never looked into canning Littlefox as I've never had enough to can!

I strimmed the veg patch and tidied the strip I'm going to plant up with winter leaves in the next few days. Potted on a windowsill basil that had got seriously big for its boots.

[skeggijon]

Turned the compost bins to find some lovely dark, sweet smelling compost in the middle.

Harvested the last cucumbers and cut down the plants, which where looking sorry for themselves. Found 7 rather large courgettes which seem to have been missed on our daily forage, a carrier bag of french beans and 4 beefsteak tomatoes.

Managed to upright the borlotti bean plants which have got a bit top heavy and did some caterpillar squashing on the calabrese.

[Ananke]

Went to a car boot sale to source "stuff" to make a fire grate with. We have started making our gas bottle log burner and it's all going so well. I'm sure that will change over the course of the week so I'll enjoy the feeling while it lasts

[Penellype]

Had a potter round the garden deadheading and picking another punnet full of tomatoes and also some blueberries. Mowed the front lawn. Turned on the spare freezer in the garage and moved 20 blocks of soup from the kitchen freezer. Now I have room to freeze some of those tomatoes

[skeggijon]

Moved loads of rubble from the allotment we've just taken next to our existing one, earthed up the potatoes we're growing for christmas dinner and pulled up some rocket which was going to seed. I also pulled up one of the courgette plants which hasn't produced for a couple of days. Since we have three others, which are feeding the neighbourhood, it won't be greatly missed!

Harvested several courgettes from the remaining plants, a dozen baby carrots, plus another carrier bag full of french beans and another carrier bag of swiss chard, which the chickens love.

When I came home I made a batch of courgette fritters - some for tea for me and the OH - and some for the freezer and have just sat down, thoroughly satisfied that we have had a completely homegrown meal tonight - apart from the spices used in the fritters.

[Two_Sheds]

- more preparing the lotty for winter. Not leaving it as bare soil, that's the worst thing to do
- cutting down old plants with shears, leaving the clippings on the soil as mulch
- liberal sprinkling of organic slug pellets, as this warm damp weather is perfect for them
- continued defoliating the kidney (French) beans & pumpkins, to ripen them
- transplanted self-sown myosotis to the flower borders
- weeded the brassica beds & sowed loads of winter salad
- deadheaded the neighbour's 5' high flowering nettles, those that I could reach
- pruned the rampant dog roses, back to the fence, left the clippings on the soil as mulch
- pulled up the seeding cornflowers, chopped up & left the clippings on flower borders as mulch
- hardly any annual weeds now appear through that 2" mulch: pulled out easily the few that make it
- raked out the remains of May's dalek heaps. They've shrunk from 3' to 18" & all the grass has gone
- installed dummy cctv camera on the shed
- sewed an extra pocket & a D ring to my gardening apron, so I don't compost my keys again
- shook out the shed's mats, surprisingly dusty. No wonder the dogs are always grey
- cooked several pots of tomatoey soups & stews, & froze
- it's been so warm, we have ripe outdoor toms, a once-in-a-decade event
- tied up & defoliated the outdoor toms to tidy them up, they're sprawling everywhere
- mowed the lawn, added clippings to the dog poo daleks
- which are still sinking rapidly, due to the prolonged warm weather
- raked out last summer's dog poo heap which has sunk from 3' tall to 12"

[solanaceae]

Whilst I was doing the daily watering in the garden, I noticed that one of my Strawberry plants had some flowers growing on it . I had a closer look and saw it was growing from a plant that had already cropped this year.

All of my Strawberry plants produces their crop in one go (usually in july), then don't crop again til the following year. So this plant should definately not be doing this.

The weather has been acting weird all year. No Winter weather meant that everything in the garden seemed to start growing one month ahead of schedule. Was picking Strawberries from the start of June this year, so it's probably confused the poor thing.

Wondering if i'll be getting a 2nd crop this year, that'll be grand.

[Aberdeenplotter]

the raspberry canes - Glen Ample- which I bought and planted last year didn't have a brilliant take - only 2 of 12 survived. I dug up some fresh canes from my own stock recently and heeled them in until I got time to plant them.. I made time today so after a forking and weeding session, the new canes are in place. Glen Ample has super sized berries and the canes are spine free so a good one for me. Can't beat fresh Scottish Raspberries

[Mumbles]

Whilst I was doing the daily watering in the garden, I noticed that one of my Strawberry plants had some flowers growing on it . I had a closer look and saw it was growing from a plant that had already cropped this year.

All of my Strawberry plants produces their crop in one go (usually in july), then don't crop again til the following year. So this plant should definately not be doing this.

The weather has been acting weird all year. No Winter weather meant that everything in the garden seemed to start growing one month ahead of schedule. Was picking Strawberries from the start of June this year, so it's probably confused the poor thing.

Wondering if i'll be getting a 2nd crop this year, that'll be grand.

Mine are doing the same, I have quite a few fruits coming so looking forward to strawberries and cream in the sun well probably get when the kids have gone back to school


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