What I did today - 2017

[veggiechicken]

Also 90 baby lavenders. I have this mental image of a lady in a pretty floral frock and a wide brimmed hat, floating through a lavender lined path, snipping stems for her straw basket. Reality then kicks in and the elegant lady morphs into an white haired old biddy wearing grimy jeans, who stumbles through the weeds with an old bucket We can all dream

Just seen this and had to share


Not quite the image I had in mind

Today, I tried to dig 3 holes for the fruit trees that arrived yesterday - a gage, persimmon and a dwarf Apple that is supposed to reach 75 cms after 7 years. Its clearly an early developer as its well over 1m high now.
Anyway, I failed to dig the holes. It was so hot and the ground too dry and hard so I retired to a shady corner of the GH and potted up some tomato seedlings.

[craftymarie]

So you`re not going to tell us which ones then? other than "red ones" lol.

You're 50% right, Chaz. 2 red ones tumbling tom and sungold and 2 black ones black krim and black opal. I was just being lazy not saying what they were lol.

3 more varieties to plant lldi, tomatoberry and gardeners delight. Weather looking good so hopefully get on with that today

[bario1]

Made a sturdy windbreak for my sweetcorn bed out of mattress packing polythene and metal poles - hopefully that'll get them off to a good start when I plant them out.
Watered stuff.

[ESBkevin]

Yesterday evening was pleasant if a little below average temps for May. So back to the plot with more plants Texas Grande Onions, First sweetcorn (in cardboard rolls), Dwarf Kale (lookin a bit yellow having been held back in small cells) and Cauliflower (again leggy because held back so planted deep), also about a dozen lettuce and eight celary plants got put in. Followed by watering, did I just say watering in the first half of May?
Because of the potential drought conditions I'm glad I'm doing a decent area of no dig with a moderatly thin mulch. I planted the sweetcorn in a no dig area, I wet the cardboard with a watering can to make it easy to pierce with the trowel then planted the loo rolls in the hole, firmed in and pushed the mulch bach around. These were watered in with a dilute of urine and tap water because if some wood chip enters the hole it can steal nitrogon and the urine might help maintain the soils status in that regard.
I'm on the lookout for more free resouces to use as mulch because I fear a long dry summer. The soil conditioner we collected at the weekend will help and I still have a couple of straw bales plus some pine tree wood chips

Tonight it will be a lot less exciting assuming the showers hold off until dark, I cut back a bit of hedge where the brambles had got out of control and so I intend to feed these through a shredder and ultimately place atop the mulch in the front garden to dissuade the local feline population.

[1Bee]

On the plot before work, watered a couple of things, but we've got rain forecast so hoping that'll sort out the rest.

Put up the posts for the strawberry rack, which turned out to be quite hard... difficult to level posts when there's just one of you and you've accidentally put too much water in the hole before the postcrete... Got there in the end though.

Added some muck to the courgette bed and tried to figure out where pumpkins will go. Wielded the hoe like a mighty, vengeful demi-God bent on the destruction of all unwanted vegetation. Planted up a strawberry into a milk jug.

Harvested the first cut of comfrey and used some of it to mulch tatties. Scattered nasturtium seeds onto the bank beside bed 6 in the hope that the rain will settle them in and they might get a head start over the weeds.

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

Had a right day on the plot!

Greenhouse now tidy n ready for the Chillies n Tomatoes, outside stuff a little behind with, but to be honest with "Family Affairs" of late, might just give it a rest this year n regroup for next!

OH had Major Surgery and just nipped for a lie down! Bless her! She is getting fed up with it all!

But Here! Whilst on my "Road Trip" Darn South a few weeks back!

Ya don't get many of these to the pound!



Call em Lumpy's! No reference to you "Lumpster" but can't offer them to the supermarket chains as they class em as "Ugly" so give em away!

Sorted!

[Nannysally99]

Came home after work and have planted out my geraniums. Will try and get a few more out tomorrow.
I can cover them up if needs be.

[Jay-ell]

Potted up some tomatoes and my Dahlias. My climbing french beans are germinating nicely - the Goldfield is storming away followed by the Blue Lake, Cosse Violetta, Cobra and Borlotta. The Pea Beans haven't shown yet but it's only been 4 days.

That left a little space in the propagator so I sowed the Dwarf Runner Beans - 16 each of Pickwick, Hestia, Millionaire and Jackpot Mixed.

[1Bee]

Planted chitted cosse violet team and cobra beans.

Sowed cosmos and kale.

Put tomatoes and curcurbits into the growhouse.

[damian1225]

Rainy day so took my Chitted giant marrow seeds and put them into compost and crossing my fingers for growth in the next few days, also potted on my Rotocco Chilli plant, had a lovely root structure and is a lovely stocky plant so chose a large ish pot for that and hoping for good things from it.. other than that nothin else done, checked the plot yesterday and my garlic has nearly all come up so I'm happy with that, spuds not broke the surface yet but the ground has lifted so also looking promising

[jasyk34]

I made an apple crumble before going out to garden. Will have a bit tonight with custard and a cup of coffee. Can't wait !!


Split some wood with bungee cord method to make it easier. Cant get another picture attached here to show this method for some reason

EDIT** Tried to edit post to add photo but must be a limit on size of photos for each post as I get a file upload error. If anyone is interested in the method its on my blog.

[cheapskate chaz]

Can`t wait till we get the technology for "smelly- vision", I love all crumbles, especially with custard....yummmm.
going up later to plant some more spuds.

[Nannysally99]

Overcast day, but still warm when the sun got through.
Planted up a hanging basket and pots that hang on the wall/gate
Had to get some more MPC, and rescued two lots of bedding and a shrub from the dead box whilst we were in BQ
Put out lots of bedding plants.
got hubby to dig up a couple of plants that didn't make it in the new flower border, and have a general move round in the flower beds.
My very first azalea is flowering lovely white flowers, thought it was pink, never mind.
Still waiting to put tomatoes out, too small still. I did look at buying some at BQ, but if I wanted to pay £6 I could get bigger than my own. All the cheaper ones were worse than mine.
So, tomorrow will be more of the same, but I need more planters, so off to the £ shop for those
Phew, that was a long story, sorry

[Jay-ell]

I made an apple crumble before going out to garden. Will have a bit tonight with custard and a cup of coffee. Can't wait !!

Can`t wait till we get the technology for "smelly- vision", I love all crumbles, especially with custard....yummmm.
going up later to plant some more spuds.

Especially for you

https://youtu.be/nseasa9yUds?t=50

[Jay-ell]

You know how it is, I get my stuff together to go down to the plot, step out the door and it starts to rain. If I'm lucky it'll be raining all day and I'll not get anything done on the plot so I decide to go shopping for compost.

Half way there the rain clears up and the sun comes out. The place I get the compost from doesn't have my usual stuff any more. In fact they didn't have the replacement stuff either. And they only had 2 bags of the stuff to replace the replacement stuff with. They did have a peach tree for £2.49. And some sweet peas and begonias for me mam.

On the way back stopped at B&M and got a Rosemary, Lemon Thyme and Oregano plant as well as two Acers for my mother.

Popped into Lidl and noticed that they had Olive trees so I picked up a couple of nice healthy plants.

Got close to the plot and the sun goes into hiding and the rain comes down again so I though I'd let the rain get on with it, hoping it would stay around and went home.

All in all, at the end of the day I'm still going to have to water the garden tomorrow and I still need more compost because I'm going to use the compost I bought today potting on the plants that I bought today. I could have stayed in bed and made the same amount of progress - although with less trees.