What I did today - 2015

[Florence Fennel]

Having been hampered by ailments I have been unable to follow my usual growing programme and I've watched my early Spring effort decimated by pests. I have felt devastated in the last few weeks to realise that physically I can't work like I used to, but today I thought "s@d it" and I've weeded a bed, dug out stones from the flower border ready for my somewhat pot bound sweet peas and sowed runner beans. Squashes will be sown tomorrow if I'm fit after today - wish me luck?

[Martin H]

Today was war on aphids day.

Down the allotment I tied up some more chrysanths to canes, then went round rubbing out all the blackfly colonies on them while flicking away the ants standing guard. Then when I watered the runner beans I discovered I had to do exactly the same for them.

I came home and watered my new lawn then turned the hose on the huge greenfly colonies on my espalier apples. I couldn't get the ones hiding inside the curled up leaves but all the rest will at least be pretty annoyed.

I can see I'm going to have to maintain a constant vigilance from now on.

[Snadger]

Having been hampered by ailments I have been unable to follow my usual growing programme and I've watched my early Spring effort decimated by pests. I have felt devastated in the last few weeks to realise that physically I can't work like I used to, but today I thought "s@d it" and I've weeded a bed, dug out stones from the flower border ready for my somewhat pot bound sweet peas and sowed runner beans. Squashes will be sown tomorrow if I'm fit after today - wish me luck?

Good luck!

[Muppet194]

Realised I cant tell the difference between my runner beans and bindweed. The bindweed is doing a very good impression.

[Snadger]

Went to the GC before heading to allotment. Bought a melon plant and a couple of named chilli peppers that I didn't have.. On leaving the GC there was a notice with some rather nice pansies saying "Please take one FREE"
Got to allotment and potted up my large flowering pansy in a hanging basket inside my greenhouse. Apparently its pendulous so should do well there.
Potted up the new peppers along with another four Jalapeno's into there final pots. Pricked out some thyme plants into modular tray (in retrospect I should have sown them direct into modules!)
When I mentioned i was short of pepper plants my next door neighbour gave me about 150!
Set up some canes and mesh long the edge of my polytunnel to plant some peas another day. Planted out my sweet peas into there final position.

Left allotment with two nice early Jalapeno peppers to add to something and spice it up for my supper!

Oops,...... forgot to mention I planted a melon and a cucumber in the polytunnel and set up three cane inverted wigwams for each.

[kris1960]

Out all day but went to allotment in the evening and watered.

Also planted out 70 onions(red and white) in raised bed I finished yesterday, I know it is late but I could use some more even if they are small. Planted out french tarragon- instruction was to plant in poor dry soil! - and carnation from dead plant section of homebase.

Absolutely lovely at the allotment- forgot to mention pyrethram and lupins in 'blooming' flowers list yesterday! Have allowed buttercups behind the pond and, though I hate to admit it, they are gorgeous and cheerful too!

[Jay-ell]

Poped into the plot in between shifts and watered the beds. Finished just in time to duck inside from the rain.

[ESBkevin]

Well the weekend was pretty busy all told. Friday evening we planted out sweet corn, dwarf french beans, some more cabbage and courgettes as well as watering and hoeing a plenty. Saturday morning was shopping and domestics (but got some flowers at morrisons for cheap). Spent the afternoon digging in two wheelbarrow loads of home made compost and then we set about planting the bought and self grown bedding plants and puddling them in.
Sunday I volunteered my services for the local raft race but managed a quick trip to Beeuncue for a few top up bedding flowers and hanging basket features. So I suspect tonight will be potting up the baskets then :-)

[Penellype]

Having spent the weekend battling with howling gales and trying to stop my cloches from flying about and decapitating the potatoes at my friend's house, as well as weeding and generally rearranging the greenhouse, I was looking forward to a day in my own garden today.

First job - go and find a replacement for my hedge trimmer, which has died. Intention was to trim the hedge this afternoon, so that I can put the cucumbers and melons in the corner. I nipped into Wilko first to buy another cloche and a blowaway greenhouse - more of that later. So I emerge from Wilko to find that this supposedly nice sunny day isn't. In fact its a positive deluge. I got soaked walking across the width of a road to my car, splashing through the puddles. I went and got the hedge trimmer anyway, and when I came out of there it was still pouring down and of course the hedge was now soaking wet.

Not to be deterred I diverted attention to tomato plan E (urgent). Plan A was to grow the tomatoes on under cover in the mini greenhouse I bought to use primarily as a fruit cage, until the weather warmed up. That was quickly scuppered by the gales threatening to rearrange the framework. Plan B was to grow the Sungold in the cold frame under blowaway covers and plant the rest out under colche greenhouses. That came to a sticky end because the blowaway covers thrashed about in the gales so much that they were breaking the plants and I had to take them down and use the cloche greenhouse for the sungold. Plan C was to wait until the promised heatwave arrived and then plant out with perhaps some fleece if there looked like being the odd cold night. Our heatwave, if it arrived at all, lasted about half an hour, so that was the end of that.

Plan D was to get another cloche and plant out the increasingly pot bound plants under that. The problem is that the sweet aperitif, which had the luxury of the windowsills for longest, are now 3ft tall, and getting too big for the growhouse (hence the urgent part) and, obviously, also too tall for the cloche. So to Plan E. I took the first bucket of potatoes into the garage for harvesting and replaced it with a blowaway cover supported on a frame made of old fruit cage poles rammed into the ground as far as I could, plus the top part of the old growhouse the cover came with. I've pegged the cover down with a ridiculous number of pegs and tied it to the frame to stop it thrashing about when (not if) the gales return, and I've planted the tallest 4 plants in there. The next part of plan E is to move the cloche currently covering the courgettes (next to the potatoes) along one courgette width so that it covers the kohlrabi instead, and put up the cloche I bought today to plant out the smaller tomatoes under. This is likely to work for about a week, until the plants get too tall - when this happens, if we are still being forecast 1 degree at night (as we are tonight and tomorrow night) I will have to use the other growhouse I bought today to cover the plants. Otherwise the intention with this is to use it for the sungold if they ever grow tall enough to need it, as one of their covers is now being used elsewhere.

To say this year has been somewhat challenging is looking like an understatement of epic proportions. This is supposed to be the best half of June - it all goes downhill from the weekend if the forecasts are to believed (and the long range forecasts for July and August are diabolical). Lets hope the met men have got it wrong (again) otherwise tomatoes are probably not going to be on the menu this year

[Snadger]

Two days ago I had very few peppers....and now I have a multitude. OH even bought some at the reduced counter for 20p for three plants! Eventually I'll get round to potting some on.
Planted out some peas along the outside of my polytunnel. Hoed a bed, raked a bed and sowed four long rows of carrots. I have some enviromesh but will cover them at a later date when I build a bit of a framework. Put some brassicas in the dog cage to harden off.

Hand weeded my japanese onions. really pleased with the red version which are bulking up nicely.
Hand weeded my main onion bed. Hand weeded my parsnips. started to hand weed my shallots when i got sick of weeding and decided to call it a night.!

[Jay-ell]

Two days ago I had very few peppers....and now I have a multitude. OH even bought some at the reduced counter for 20p for three plants! Eventually I'll get round to potting some on.

I've got a couple of spare Koral chilli plants if you're interested

[out in the cold]

When I got home at teatime we had a very full gh and not much planted.

Spent a very pleasant evening planting PSB, Calabresi, Romanesco, Lolo Rosso, some sort of green saladvleaf that I can't remember the variety of (looks like one of Lawrence Lowellan Bowen's shirts...), Red Pak Choi, Savoy, Horseradish, Carrots and erecting the pea and bean frame. Also put in two courgettes in the greenhouse raised bed.

A good evenings work I think...

[Bigmallly]

When I got home at teatime we had a very full gh and not much planted.

Spent a very pleasant evening planting PSB, Calabresi, Romanesco, Lolo Rosso, some sort of green saladvleaf that I can't remember the variety of (looks like one of Lawrence Lowellan Bowen's shirts...), Red Pak Choi, Savoy, Horseradish, Carrots and erecting the pea and bean frame. Also put in two courgettes in the greenhouse raised bed.

A good evenings work I think...[ATTACH=CONFIG]56578[/ATTACH]

.....................

[out in the cold]

Thanks Mally!

[Hazel at the Hill]

Having spent last week in a vest with a number on, and this weekend prepping for mum's 80th, I went to the Hill tonight to reclaim the potato beds from the weeds, ditto parsnips. Planted out runners and the second batch of dwarf french beans.