What I did today - 2016

[Florence Fennel]

Finally managed to tidy up the patio

[vixylix]

I was away this weekend so I've done absolutely nothing apart from a quick water when I got back yesterday evening. Things are looking good though and my radish, beetroot and rocket seedlings are all popping through.

My chilles are sunbathing outside today for their first outside adventure Hoping to get them potted into final positions this weekend - then I can relax and watch the veggies grow!

[Mikey]

Well I'm mainly hobbling around making groaning pains, after a marathon 11 hour shift in the garden yesterday. It would have been longer had I managed to get the lawnmower started at 8pm.....

Finally managed to get around to building the last of my raised beds in the back garden yesterday, the messy gap left by the chooks has been staring at me for a while, it now looks nice and neat and awaiting a top up of soil. I might add a piccie later.

[Cadalot]

The weather has done a full 180 and this Sunday 24th June 2016, it's sunny and very warm 24 degrees C. The car was loaded up with the plants and I was out of the door by 7:30 and on the site with all the plants and equipment on the plot by 8:00 and set about working straight away.

The foxes who had been clambering all over the portable hoop fames as they were covered on muddy paw prints, had finally managed to bust the smaller one. I've seen them on other peoples plots using the hoop frames as trampolines.

I took the strimmer to exhaust the battery and see how much more I could strim which was mainly the entrance and the path to the water butt. Beautiful my robin kept me company whilst I cleared beds 11 and 12 and prepped them for the sweetcorn.

Many slugs were dispatched to sluggy heaven and I wished I had brought a lid with breathing holes for one of the food storage buckets then I could have had a go at created my own DIY Nematodes

On my blog is a video of the progress made during the day on plot 1A Sweetcorn & Sprouts and 23B Burpless Cucumbers

[Jungle Jane]

Saturday I put my two smallest blow-aways in the shed,made space for three more pots of tomatoes,marigolds & petunias. Planted a few more tomato plants in the ground & put up two bean teepees. Last years runner beans are coming up through my autumn sowed Brussels sprouts,one plants forming sprouts (about 2mm big).
Today I planted out my runner beans,sweetcorn & a few more tomato plants & surrounded them with petunias,geraniums & french marigolds.

[SaraJH]

Pinched out the side shoots on my tomatoes, they're looking good, if a little small but they were sown late.
And that is all I did in the garden today apart from watering!

[Snadger]

Cleaned out the timber greenhouse on my new plot and potted on six jalapenos and six other chilli peppers (lost label) Also potted on six Passion fruit plants grown from a passion fruit I ate. Three water melons potted on also but the cukamelons i deemed a bit small for potting on so left them for the time being.
Replaced the sliding door on the greenhouse after unscrewing the end stop. Lubrication was attained by crushing two large snails that had lodged themselves in the runner!

Watered plants on new and old plot with numewrous trips with a watering can.

[Small pumpkin]

Fed and watered everything. Re stocked the little sales barrow. Filled a couple of gaps in the beds with spare plants (replacing slug eaten crops). Dumping old dead mint tubes.
Hopefully will be able to get in the tunnel soon to tie up toms and take of side shoots, it's been way to hot to spend more than a couple of minutes in there most of today (definitely not complaining, it's fantastic).

[BimblingBob]

Gave up with trying to dig over the plot (new to this) after fighting thistles, grasses and some small pine tree lookey likey things.

Hit it hard with weedol (sorry world, I'm a bad man) and going to pick up some raised beds to get in over the weekend. PS. it doesn't help my neighbours who had the same problem has killed all the weeds and rotovated and are now planting and it looks amazing. Gotta keep up with Jones don't you know :-D

Some successes; I've only been at this a month; Tomatoes are loving it and growing strong, spuds have come up, herbs are going mental and the Chilli's, which I thought were gonna be gonners, have woken up. Winner Winner Soon Have Home Grown Veg On My Dinner

Gonna be interesting to see how the raised beds go, plus I'm gonna get the drone out at the weekend and start doing fly overs to do an interesting way of tracking progress.

Lovin' it!

[Cadalot]

A swift visit to plot 23B to plant Four Butternut squash, a tray of beetroot and put up coffee ground barriers around the cucumbers and new beets. Shredded paper added to Dalek 1

Drop off at Plot 1A to pick up Comfrey. During the day the tomatoes in vending machine cups have been topped up with compost to the brim of the cups and they have all been given a comfrey bath, along with some of the older onions that need a boost.

Standpipe Tomatoes have finally been potted up into vending machine cups, and the spacesaver greenhouse has been re arranged such that all the toms are now on the top shelf and the spring onions on the second shelf.

The experimental Crimson Crush from last years seed save (yes I know they are F1 etc. but it's an experiment) are now doing really well and I have a 50:50 split of tomato leaf and potato leaf plants which will go down to both allotments for growing comparison.

[Gillykat]

Yesterday, Monday 6th, I gave everything a good watering as the sun has arrived Big Style after last week's chilliness. Moved beans, squashes etc out of tunnel to continue hardening off. Moved wood for raised beds (bigger than 5ft 5 inches tall me!) and leant it against the shed for now. Then weeded bed and dug it over for sweetcorn & squashes. Quite pleased with the day's work as that back area against the fence has always been a bit of a messy one and it's now weed-free. I'll probably keep it that way by putting some membrane down, covering it with gravel or bark and have pots along it's length as it's such a sun trap..

[SusieG]

Finally got around to potting up Jersey blueberry into some comfy ericaceous compo - was a bit worried about it looking dry, so I followed advice, and added a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice to a full watering can of water, and watered it in that way ..... as I have no rain water (yet....!)

I covered the top over with some slatey-stone bits to mulch the compost - hopefully retain some moisture! Saw a busy bee visiting the tiny white flowers on it a bit later - result..!

[bario1]

Quick visit to the plot this morning to water everything in the tunnel. Tied in a couple of tomatoes that were getting a bit top heavy. Set up an impromptu hanging drip-bottle thing to try and re-hydrate a strawberry hanging basket that's got so dry it wont accept water from the watering can any more!
Decided to take down last year's brassica cage as the PSB has finished and it was all looking a bit of a mess of weeds and flowering kale/PSB... now I know where all the snails were hiding, had to relocate about 20 massive ones! I'll have to rebuild the cage in its new location soon as this year's brassicas are already outgrowing their pots.

[Cadalot]

Potted up 3 Kibitz Tomatoes, 6 Kiwano Cucumbers and 2 Cucina Cucumbers from the pop bottle propagators into vending machine cups, square pots and round pots respectively. Continued to give everything in the greenhouse that growing and needs it an infusion in the comfrey gravel tray carrying on from yesterday.

Made the drainage cap end to my comfrey pipe using my trusty soldering iron, an end from a silicon tube, a plug hole filter and some mesh from a wire calendar.

Managed to seal the spacesaver this morning before the thunder and lightening and accompanying rain this afternoon.

[skeggijon]

Planted out Blue French Beans and module grown Beetroots.
Tried to resuscitate various plants from the greenhouse that were suffering from heat stress and gave the beds a liquid feed.