What I did today - 2016

[Florence Fennel]

Lots of weeding - beds now look presentable. Found 5 miniature cauliflowers that I thought had been eaten altogether by snugs - they were hidden in the borage! Pricked out red lettuce into modules. Cut most of the bottom leaves from the tomatoes.

[Florence Fennel]

Ooh VC - watered the hollyhocks - yay I have hollyhocks - thank you, thank you. They're not as tall as they could be as I restricted them a bit planting in some big tyres I have near the fence. They'll be taller next year and forever after that

[Jay-ell]

Got to the plot and saw that the wind had blown over the runner beans and french beans so spent most the time wrestling with these to rebuild the frames - several spare canes and lots of wire, string and a couple of bits of rope later they were back up - though I don't know how long for.

Whilst I was at it I picked some runner beans. Also noticed the lack of weeds underneath the beans so at least one objective of the V frame worked.

Also picked some peas, strawberries, Pineberries, a courgette and a couple of garlic's I had missed earlier.

Took the monumental step today of thinning out the pumpkins to one fruit per plant, now that each plant has a set at least one pumpkin on it. Now all I have to do is pull off the small immature fruit without having to trace each vine.

Went home and grabbed a bit of shuteye (12 hrs night shifts this week) - dreamt about bean frames. Decided that dream1, whilst sturdy, would be impractical due to cost and the fact it would weigh a quater of a ton. Dream2 seemed perfect but I couldn't remember it when I woke up.

[Snadger]

Watered greenhouse stuff. Dug a shy of spuds to go with my leg-o-mince for supper!

Did a bit more cutting of scrap timber and affixing it to my chicken coop!

Noticed how much growth my pumpkin plants had put on without setting any pumpkins. Tried to work out how i can nobble Jay-els pumpkins. Must admit, he's looking favourite for the allotment pumpkin competition! With me a close 20th!

[happyhumph]

Yesterday and today. Dug over the last bit of mini-digger compacted veg patch, quite roughly, pulling out bindweed as I went. Decided I can't be bothered to dig compost in, so have nearly finished emptying 2 compost bins to cover the ground to a depth of 4 inches & will plant straight into that

Started tackling tbe big front border - chopping back & what cold be pulled out by hand. Filled a wheelbarrow & so much more to do! At least i can see the dahlias now the borange is gone

Fed everything in gteen house & started thinking about suports for growing next year's squashes up as that's obviously what they want to do

[Cadalot]

The cucumbers in the vending machine cups are getting a little to big and need potting onto larger pots so that's what I did this morning at 8 am

[elleme]

I'm going away for a couple of nights with more weekends away planned, so after watering/feeding I raided the recycling bin and turned a few mini wine bottles into a self watering system by drilling holes in the caps, filling with water and planting upside down in my tomato containers. I'll check back after returning on Sunday, and if the toms are dried out I'll either widen the holes or take the caps off completely. Repotted some cavolo nero seedlings which will be transferred to the plot once they are bigger.

Also scattered around some winter lettuce seed from a single plant which I'd left to bolt in my annuals border. This is part of my ongoing experiment where I'm trying to follow on bee-friendly flowers in summer with hardy winter salad veg. It definitely works with corn salad but I'm trying to get more of a mix going.

[Snadger]

Finally got around to potting on my chilli peppers!Then promptly fell asleep on the comfy chair in the summerhouse after a busy day at work.Luckily it was only a short snooze and i did a bit of watering after I woke up!

[Jay-ell]

Finished a 12 hour night shift but couldn't sleep so decided to pop down the lottie for half an hour to harvest and water the greenhouse.

Well I did harvest half a dozen courgettes and some toms. Pulled up a bed of onions and laid them out to dry. Decided the bed looked empty so planted out brassicas. Decided that they were vulnerable to the flapping white things so put a hoop cover over the bed.

Watered in the greenhouse - installed some capillary dripper thingies into some pots that move water out of a bucket into the pot.

Smashed down a fence and knocked down more of the see through shack.

Also wandered round the garden checking it out. Bean frames are still standing (although some of the beans are worse for wear) - the dwarf french beans under the climbing bean frames seem to be doing fine.

My summer raspberry plants (Tulameen) i finally planter out earlier and which have given me a handful of raspberries already (if yoy habe small hands) seem to think that they're autumn raspberry plants and have started to form flowers on this years growth.

One of elephant garlic corms I planted grew without me noticing, reached 3 inches high, decided to flower and grew little bulbs on top - it was hiding at the back of the onions.

My walking onions are starting to put out green shoots from their topset - don't know if I should break them off and plant them now.

Pulled more female flowers off my pumpkins - tomorrow I'll have to pack more straw under the set fruit whilst I can still lift them.

My udo which I planted a week or two ago in the hedge is looking healthy.

My skirret isn't doing much so I doubt that I'll lift it this year. Same goes for the Sweet Cicely.

My Himalayan Honeysuckle is starting to set fruit and is also developing new flowers.

[sparrow100]

I went around an Italian garden centre! (I had to offer to make pudding tomorrow though...)

2 lemongrass plants fell into my hands - lovely big things at 4 euros each. Plus some really cheap seeds at 90 cents a pack. I did try for a pomegranate plant, but all they had of a size I could take were the ornamental ones.

[Snadger]

Picked a carrier bag full of gooseberries. Gave some to my Daughter and some to my next door neighbour and still have a multitude left!

[Snadger]

Dug up a row of 2nd early spuds. Impressed with ther crop I got. About 5% had keel slug damage but the rest were fine and they were all good sized spuds. (Elfe and Kestrel)
Kestrel is supposed to have slug resistance and the one taatie with slight slug damage was only skin deep so the slug resistance must work on taste?

Tickled over the soil where the tatties had been and planted out 10 calabrese plants. Spent the next hour building a cane frame work with mesh fastened over it. My new plot is on the edge of a wooded dene and the wood pigeons roost in the trees. I didn't want to make breakfast too easy for them!

[Jay-ell]

Started to pile up the wood from the demolition of the back part of the jungle onto the back of the New Territories to clear up the space I'm working on demolishing the seethrough shack, fence and woodstore area.

Yesterday I bid on a poly-tunnel which I won so I have to clear this section and prep it to build the poly-tunnel on. It's a 6x3 meter high sided tunnel so is going to take over this back part of the plot. Hopefully I'll have it all done by the end of September although at the moment that looks like alot of work to fit around work.

Picked the peas - cleared out the vines which will be frozed. Also picked the last of the broad beans, broccoli and 6 more courgettes which, yesterday, were nowhere near ready so they’re moving fast.

[happyhumph]

Nothing except sending pOH outside to do watering l might do something later

[treepixie]

I to sent my OH to do the watering, while I sat down with a nice glass of wine