What I did today - 2016

[Nafets]

I was away for a week so came back yesterday to the usual binweed take over. So lots of weeding, harvesting even more runner beans, beetroot and cucumbers. I mainly started to clear the second half of the plot, there is a huge patch of nettles I decided to tackle. Stung all over, will be tingling for a few days now
I want to try and get this nettle patch down and get it back to grass, could take a while.

[hamamelis]

Had a pretty productive day, really! A lovely little bag of saffron arrived (thanks sparrow!- PS, I tried to message you to say they'd arrived, but it said your inbox was full) so I finished edging their new bed and planted 'em out.

Dug over another bed, removed the last few spuds from it (my crop's been dire this year for spuds incidentally) and sowed some winter tares and phacelia. Weeded another bed, sowed some hardy annuals in the gaps for an early start next year, then drank cocoa and watched a big flock of martins getting some flying practice in before their holidays.

[Snadger]

Another row of tatties dug! I appear to be starting on the Desiree's now so saved in a different box. Happy with the way my pumpkin is growing. I may even get the penultimate prize rather than the booby prize!

[Bigmallly]

Managed to do a bit of multi-tasking today.......................set up the pond Vac to fill and empty through old pillow cases then just let it run while I finished creocoating the shelter.............jobs a goodun.....................need to find a job to do tomorrow while the Vac runs itself..............

[Jay-ell]

Received an envelope of seeds I had forgotten I ordered (well it was 2 in the morning when I ordered - I was asleep by 1:30)



You'll notice that the bottom says Allium Ampeloprasum var Babingtonii

I sent an email to the company to verify that was what they were (because afaik they rarely/never produce seeds) and they replied quickly saying

it is var. ampeloprasum which usually does propagate by numerous bulbils, yet it does (rarely) set a couple of seeds in between the bulbils.

I obviously complained about the mislabelling of Allium Ampeloprasum var Ampeloprasum as Allium Ampeloprasum var Babingtonii. The response I received shortly afterwards was this

Hello again,

I now had a closer look into our offered items and you are correct, we mixed up both varieties in the shop system. Varieties´ names did not correspond with texts and photos. This has now been corrected with the corresponding photos from our plants.

We do have seeds from both varieties and unfortuntately I am not sure, which ones were included. Thus I just gave you a refund for this item and also reimbursed the order handling charge as an apology for this mistake.

Seeds from Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum are smaller in size than those in var. babingtonii - which of course is hard to distinguish as we shipped one batch only.

Again, I regret this unintended mistake.

The description on the website was updated and both plants now have their own listings. So I may have one or the other.

My first email was at 7pm UK time and my 9pm I had my refund which is really good customer service.

As rareplants.eu is based in Spain I think they are an hour ahead at the moment it must have been 10pm their time when they sent me the last email.

[vixylix]

Jay you're getting Allium obsessed even worse than we thought if you're ordering seeds in your sleep!!

Excellent news on the refund though

[Jay-ell]

Jay you're getting Allium obsessed even worse than we thought if you're ordering seeds in your sleep!!

Excellent news on the refund though

Had another stupid allium idea today. My onions have been drying down the plot. Bagged them up today and noticed that some of them had split into several smaller bulbs and one had developed a little baby bulb on its roots.

Thinking about replanting these to see if they will continue to grow and split each year to create a patch that can be harvested as sets.

As I usually don't let onions bolt and if they do I pull them I have no idea what will happen next year. They may just flower then die or they may, like other alliums, produce small baby bulbs around the main bulb.

Remember that nothing works until it is tried. You only fail when you give up. (you can tell I had some fortune cookies today)

I also cut back the greenery on the rest of the strawberries and Pineberries - found a few gooseberries I had missed.

Measured out the New Territories to start planning a redesign.

Weeded the Celeriac and a few other bits.

Picked more courgettes.

[Snadger]

Progressed with the chicken coop. Didn't have a coping saw so used an axe to put a slight curve in the top of the pophole Painted the bit I had done with Poundlands finest wood preserver!

Need to make a ladder type thingy to get the chooks to the pophole which is three foot above ground.
Got the go ahead to have a scrounge arouind Jay-els plot as he has a mountain of wood from the demolished derelict buildings which i may relieve hiom of!

Tomorrow is another day!

[Bigmallly]

After getting up to wake the birds, I decided to have a mosey into town as I needed some bits, whilst there I picked up a leccy lawnmower to keep down at the plot. New pond pump arrived so put it together & that's now up & running, did a bit of pond vaccing but it's gonna be a long job. Put the lawnmower together & gave the turf its first high cut as it was going rampant. Put some bracing on the canopy as it had a slight rock to it. Canopy all Creocoated now.

[gringo]

Potted up my loquat tree. Must be 25cm tall now and the leaves are forming a perfect fibonacci pattern

Keeping it indoors until the spring.

[veggiechicken]

Did a bit of tomato pruning, a bit of weeding, a bit of chicken house cleaning and collected a couple of very friendly chooks from a rehoming charity. Introduced them to Mrs Brown who was not impressed.

[bario1]

Watered the toms and sweetcorn in the tunnel. Did a serious tomato prune removing all the new growth and anything that looked iffy, including half a Galina plant with unripe toms, because I thought I saw patches of blight on the stem.
Moved my trays of spring cabbage ex-seedlings from the coldframe to the floating shelf in the tunnel as every time anything germinates, it's getting chopped off at ground level by something and left!
lined one of my smaller trenches with old fertiliser bags and filled with gravel. Continued to widen the main trench in preparation for pipe installation - my plot now resembles a scale model of the front line in WW1...
Rain stopped play, time for work anyway.

[ESBkevin]

Time was short yesterday evening so we delivered my latest collection of brown cardboard (enough to cover about 8 sq yards), critical watering and harvesting then away after just 35 mins. Pleased to see my outdoor surplus tomatoes continue to flourish despite the threat of blight. One cold night though or a wet period (like the coming weekend) and they'll be all done. Then it'll be green tomatoe chutney I guess.

[Bigmallly]

Spent the morning planning how to make a waterfall.............Spent the afternoon building it, out of 15" logs, tiered them up, levelled them & stapled old compost bags over the logs followed by a layer of bubblewrap. I then attached some pipe lagging along both edges to give me a walled profile. Ordered some pond liner to go over the bubblewrap & lagging which should arrive tomorrow, great delivery time as I only ordered it today at 2pm. I then washed a bucket full of gravel to go in the crevices which were made between the logs. The pond liner is to run into a 4ft gravel tray which has one end cut off to act as the waterfall. The pond filter ( Waste Bin full of filter medium ) which will be fed from the pump will be placed at the top of the waterfall then it's fingers crossed...................I have not the foggiest how it will work out but am looking forward to seeing it finished. All I'm waiting for now is some Biochemical filter foam from China to replace the materials I currently have in the filter then hopefully it will be all systems go.

[SusieG]

^^^^^photos BM, photos...!!!^^^^^