What I did today - 2015

[Dorothy rouse]

Looked for my flower buckets. Couldn't find them. :-[

They'll be where you left them.

[Martin H]

Today I finished my lawn preparation and got the grass seed down.

[Coopers]

I planted out 2 and a half beds of potatoes.
Planted Jerusalem artichokes and asparagus in one bed
The remainder of my onion sets
Planted two buckets with flowers
Move cherry tree and planted a Gogi berry bush
Then took my seedlings from home to put in greenhouse. Consisting of toms, kale, cue, cabbage...

Must admit father in law helped. No way could have done this on my own

[Snadger]

Sowed Kin-Tsai and Larkspur seeds. Put Kin-Sai and Pumkins into electric propagator at home.

Weeded and hoe-d my Japanese onions. Any gaps where plants had not survived the winter were filled with spring planted onion sets.

[kris1960]

Home at 7.15 today- all day at allotment and forgot to take a drink -on my second pint of tea now.

Gruelling day- planted potatos. Dug trenches about 18 inches deep put upside down turves in the bottom,an inch of soil over the top, potatos, thin layer of straw, 3 inches of manure and then built up ridge to about 10 inches above the path. They had better be fantastic! I hope this will also improve soil in that patch.

Planted golden beetroot, mulched mulberry tree and spent a couple of hours on my nettle patch.

My back is killing me and I suspect I will be in bed early tonight. Not sure I will survive the rest of my holiday but I have a mass of things that I want to get done at the allotment before I am back at work on Monday.

[kris1960]

Sowed Kin-Tsai and Larkspur seeds. Put Kin-Sai and Pumkins into electric propagator at home.

Weeded and hoe-d my Japanese onions. Any gaps where plants had not survived the winter were filled with spring planted onion sets.

Is Kin-Sai chinese celery?

[Snadger]

Is Kin-Sai chinese celery?

Sure is! I love the taste of celery but slugs annihilated my blanched celery and Celeriac grew to the size of a golf ball!

[Snadger]

Last Autumn i covered a bed full of perennial weeds with cardboard and then topped it with 6 inches of hoss muck.
This evening I proposed digging it over and planting tatties in it. Its in a bit of an arid sun trap so after digging and pulling out any remaining perennial weeds I had a change of heart and decided it would be an ideal pumpkin and courgette bed especially now that it has a goodly amount of muck incorpoerated.

Poor tatties will need to be put in another place!

I had a tray full of herbaceous perennials that i grew from a free packet of seed last autumn. There were about 30 or 40 different varieties of seed within the packet so after planting each module of plants I'll just have to see what comes up?
The flower bed in question has lillies and iris already in it so I had a weeding session teasing out the nettles and other weeds without snapping the lily stems. I also have a large tray full of rooted gladioli to go in the same bed along with sweet peas on a trellis at the rear. These will have to wait until tomorrow evening as my back started to play up!

[marcofez]

Yesterday and today got all my spuds in.
Red Duke of York
Kestrel
Maris Piper
Charlotte

[kris1960]

Hard but satisfying day. Solved watering-in potato problem by side stepping it- used the top of ridges as an impromptu seed bed, they should be moved long before leaves show through, lightly watered seeds. Let me know if you think this was a poor idea.

Dug new, quite ridged bed, on a downwood slope to the south and planted beetroot(chioggi and red), calendula and peas around the perimeter of the bed in the furrowed edge. Added loads of manure and dug in well before I planted. Wanted to put in something quick because I might use that patch for tomatos later in the year.

Tilled soil in 8 ft strip where I have removed nettles and had a last go over for roots. Planted phalcelia to discourage futher incursions and hopefully enrich soil. Will do same in each completed section until I die or finish that patch!

Thanks Snadger- how do you rate the flavour? Neither my celariac or celery did well last year.

[bario1]

Sowed three types of carrots in my raised bed.
Sowed 6 more Charlotte potatoes in barrels.
Planted some onion sets.
Moved my broad bean and sugar pea seedlings from the greenhouse to the coldframe.

[Lumpy]

Spring onions, lettuce and radish in small raised beds in the garden - its the sandwich filling bed!
Coo- ood and Ooo - d at the sweetcorn that is now growing happily (well at least for now) in the porch.
Did a little dance when I saw that the courgettes, Q's and pumpkin seeds had all germinated, no doubt encouraged by the corn.
Saw that my seed swap (thank you VC) red kale seeds are up and approaching puberty.
Potted up the garlic chive plants - again Ta VC

[Elfeda]

After taking up the new allotment and cover with available plastic, cardboard or carpet ..now it is time to start sowing something. Went to allotment today to put down the potatoes in, planned to use cardboard bulb planter as suggested by BM, but the soil is very heavy and cant use the bulbplanter now, or there is any tip???


so I tried using garden fork, dig small holes and put the potatato down and put down a bit od mushroom compost mulch. donno how it isgoing to be .

have a tonne of mushroom compost, and a ton of multipurpose compost and few bags of horse menure in bags . how can I make best use of it before I try ordering any more soil.

Now the most of the plot is covered to get rid of coachgrass. don't want to rush with sweet peas, peas and onion, but should I cover with compost and plant instead to waiting?

[Snow]

Sowed some lemon marigolds that a friend sent me. Bought some calendula and sowed that. And some dwarf kale. All with four year old - she's a right green fingered girl even though she only likes carrots.

[kris1960]

Well, I failed to complete beds I had planned. Not entirely unexpected but the one that I have done is fab. Dug deep,raised about a foot off the path, generously manured, finely tilled and mostly planted.

Put lobjoit seedlings at top of slope, choy lower down and broadcast some chervil seeds down last 8 inches on SE side. Seedlings grown under covered seed bed so am a bit worried they may get cold tonight.
Top - Kailaan seedlings around outside edge, some larkspur I sowed in autumn with some more larkspur seeds to dot around allotment when they grow up.

Popped some borage seeds at end where they won't be disturbed and will distribute around allotment if they grow.