What I did today - 2017

[Martin H]

Today I set out 6 melon plants. I had to clear an overgrown bed first, here's the before-and-after...

[Guest]

sowed my biennial flower seeds and a few odd perennial seeds.
arm pitted and tied in toms in gh1
potted on some more chilli and pepper plants. Next year I really must use some restraint.

Edit: Thank you Martin for your weed pic that has made me feel nice and normal (well for a grape anyway) and well done on getting stuck in it looks great.

[craftymarie]

Planted out some spring onions. Planted basil into greenhouse border. Potted up some more tomatoes for outdoors.

[sarah9786]

Shook my fist at the evil genius squirrel for infiltrating my fruit cage and eating the first ripe strawberries 😠 Last year he (and he is most definitely and emphatically male!) had the whole lot. No idea how he's got inside though?! Squirrel scarer ideas anyone?

[1Bee]

12 bore, Sarah? ;-)

Actually, if he's a red, I'd probably be hand-feeding him the strawberries. If he's a grey, all bets are off...

Much better today. Several hours in the plot, with the 6yo. Pulled up finished oriental greens and rocket in the first raised bed, thinned and weeded the carrots and spring onions. Re-sowed rocket and greens, and visited destruction on the neighbouring weeds. One nice thing about all the rain, the thistles are really easy to pull up...

Planted out some sunflowers, a jack o'lantern and two tromboncinos. Protected the jack with a cloche, as he was a bit soft and floppy.

Tied up the baby runners, and weeded a bit. Planted out some more sweet peas and tied them in.

Moved things waiting to be planted (parsley, cabbages, leeks, marigolds) from the second raised bed (which has a lid-less cold frame on it as extra protection) and popped them in the brassica tunnel for now. Weeded the raised bed, refreshed the compost and planted out a gardener's delight and a moneymaker, then cloched them.

Carefully and gingerly pulled the radishes from around the parsnips. I'm not sowing radishes to 'mark the row' like that again.... too fiddly. Thinned and weeded the beetroot.

Sundry weed bashing.

[susieq100]

What an odd day. Weeded at the plot - cauliflower and onions. Picked a punnet of strawberries, watered the tomatoes and cucumbers in the glass shed and tacked up some wire for the cukes to scramble up. Was about to tackle the garlic and shallot bed and the heavens opened! So, came home. Oh well, maybe tomorrow afternoon will be better.

[Guest]

planted out yet more flowers
a bit of weed pulling
covered a bed and planted some cardoons
weeded, covered perennial kale bed and planted some VC kale
planted the last of my brassica seedlings
ate a few yellow rasps.
harvested and hung the garlic

[vixylix]

Interesting weather here too Susie - I think we've had all four seasons!

We've had a productive tidy up day - tied up raspberries which had blown over in the wind, moved strawberries and blueberries from under the shade of the raspberries and fixed the broken netting (wind again)

Lots of weeding, some more digging and I planted up a load of bedding plants my lovely grandma has grown from seed

Its starting to come together!

[Chestnut]

Strimmed the bit of our plot we won't get into production this year, did a bit of hoeing, 'harvested' an onion (it got in the way of the hoe!), and picked our first handful of broad bean pods ;-)

[Bren In Pots]

Fed my toms with comfrey then did a bit of weeding before the rain started back up.

[Jay-ell]

Beans are coming along nicely – did have to reprimand one of the CFB’s for climing up someone elses string. Another one of the ocas has poked it’s shoots above the surface – Hurray. The Jaltomato seemes to have survived the ordeal of planting out.

Refilled the other 9 section bed planter in the greenhouse giving 7 planting spaces and 2 stepping stones. Plumbed the drippers for this part of the greenhouse into the irrigation system and erected the tomato supports for it.

Planted 5 tomato plants (Black Cherry, Alecante and Moneymaker), an 2 chilis into the sections. Popped two more toms into MFBs and connected them to the irrigation – I’ll sort out the supports later on. Moved other peppers and toms up as they aren’t ready for the MFBs yet and are being stubbornly slow.




Found a Yacon lurking at the back of the tray. Bit of a runt and was hardly doing anything but gave it some fresh compost and more light anyway to see if it improves. Also found a third Litchi Tomato so I planted that out at the back of the plot where I don’t go too often.

Took a couple of cuttings off the 9 Star Brocolli, Taunton Dean Kale and Daubentons Kale hoping that some of them will take.

Dug up some of the alliums in the New Territories – these weren’t doing much and were being overtaken by various brassicas.

The Perutil bunching onions didn’t seem to have increased at all but when I split the bunch up there was 22 bulbs from the original half dozen. The leaves hadn’t done much propably because of the massive perennial broccoli that had decided to march down the bed and sit on top of it. The same thing with the Rakkyo which had managed to split to 11 bulbs. The Black Isle Blush Chives have nice light pink flowers with a bluch of colour in the centre but these only have 6 bulbs.

The Welsh Onions in the other bed had managed to increase the number of bulbs from 6 (I think) to 18 but were growing in the shade of the Chard and the Portuguese Cabbage.

All these were dug up, split apart and planted a few bulbs to a pot in fresh compost then stood on the path down on the sunny side of the greenhouse – now renamed Allium Avenue as they join tubs of elephant garlic, 4 types of walking onions and 5 potato onions.

Chopped down some of the comfrey and crammed it into a bucket to make concentrate – it’s taking less and less plants each time I fill these buckets. Even in the thick greenery of the comfrey beds weeds are growing – those strawberry plants get everywhere.

Speaking of strawberries – harvested my first of the season today of the proper strawberries (not the wild ones that are growing all over) and also my honeyberries. Only a handful of berries this year but more than I expected really as they’re just getting going.



Remembered the flask of coffee just in time to pick it up and take it home.

[veggiechicken]

Cleaned the chooks and let them "help" me in the garden, while I picked strawberries, mangetout, leeks and peas.
Planted three more tomatoes in the GH - Rio Grande, Orange Icicle and Pertseveddny. That's another GH full of toms. Time to start on another one!
Tied in the toms - I'll do some sideshooting tomorrow.
Very windy this afternoon and I worry about falling branches - so retreated to the safety of the kitchen and shelled peas.

[Cadalot]

I had two trays of beetroots in vending machine cups to get in bed three this morning.*



Normally I would use a sprung bulb planter, but I have just bought a Stainless Steel Dibber,Potato/Bulb Planter,Weeder,Soil Sampler that is manufactured in the UK and sold from a guy called Den Warren on ebay for £8.50

I had not seen and auger like this one before and was interested to see how it performed against a standard bulb planter. The answer is a lot better, it produces a nice tight hole and if you wiggle it around a little it matched the taper on the vending machine cup.

The only thing that lets it down is that there are no graduations or measurements on the side of the tube for you to gauge the depth, but that was quickly solved by placing some rubber bands on the outside of the tube to the height or depth of the vending machine cup.

The Soilfixer SF60 test buckets are doing well and it's hard to see any real difference at the moment. The sprouts in the bed behind are doing well and I will let them get a little taller before I stake them.

Full account with more photos here Alans Allotment: Stainless Steel Dibber - Potato/Bulb Planter - Weeder - Soil Sampler

[bario1]

Harvested a load more nettles and comfrey for stinky tea - didn't get round to stuffing it into the containers though. Pruned the tree that was shading my polytunnel in the evenings.
Staked half of the flattened asparagus ferns and interplanted with some marigolds and cosmos.
Planted out some marigolds amongst the tomatoes and cucumbers in the polytunnel.
Staked some raspberry canes that had flopped over.
Planted out some sunflowers that'd seriously outgrown their tiny pots and were constantly falling over.

[damian1225]

So Saturday morning was the first chance I had to get stuck into the plot for about a week, in that time the rain and warm humid condition saw my marrow bed turn into a blanket of weeds so I hoed off the entire bed and left them to shrivel up and die of their own accord, I then did the same around the rest of the plot inbetween the garlic and onions, around the peas, and next to the cabbage and sprouts.. just need to get around the strawberries this afternoon after work.
I also picked up a load of tomato plants off freecycle so I potted on around half of them that I could use and then passed the rest to a new plotholder to help get them started, also need to get the path edges trimmed up and tidy and the fence border all weeded to get things looking upto scratch.