What I did today 2018

[Baldy]

Sowed a few sunflower seeds. Too windy to put the dwarf beans out so left them in the coldframe.
Just realised Ive left the aforementioned frame open. Darn.
Well, the beans have two options...

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Gave the lawn it's first mow in over a week, since I overseeded and fertilised it as it could wait no longer. Just topped it on the highest setting for now. Grass is looking nice and green but still waiting for the seeds sown to germinate. Should hopefully start to happen by the end of the week with the warm weather coming up.

Re-hung our rear garden gate as it was a bit low and scraping on the path and had dropped a bit so it was rubbing on the post when wet.

Started installing a new slim water butt down the side of the garage but realised I don't have the right size hole saw to cut the hole at the top for the pipe, so need to borrow one to finish that job off.

Assessed the damage from the weather over the past few days. The tulips, broad beans and some daffodils quite badly wind rocked and flopping over so I firmed them all back in.

[Bren In Pots]

Potted on toms and took them back on the window sills.
Moved brassicas, and gutter sown Telephone peas from GH to under cloches.
Potted on lettuce into guttering and others into troughs.
Weeded beds and dug dandelions from lawn.
Sown pre-chitted parsnips.

[Dynamo]

Today I companion planted some marigolds with some tomato's and some nasturtiums with cucumbers.



I also cropped 20 sticks of rhubarb for friends

[Small pumpkin]

Moved parsnips outside ( they're in a potato bag )
Moved asparagus tub to make space for the sweet corn tub.
Potted up the last of the cucurbits
Levelled some more slabs
Thinned carrots
Weeded & pruned front garden.
Started planting up front garden ( not expecting anything to do well, because of puppies)

[kobzy_garden]

A good evening on the lottie

The evening here in London was very fine indeed, so I spent a good 2 hours at the plot and enjoyed every moment of it!

Firstly, topped up the compost mulch around my broad beans (Aquadulce) some of which I sowed in November(ish) time as an overwintering experiment, another batch in February/March on my window sill.
They've been growing happily and some putting out multiple stalks to one plant (I forgot the name for this- I only learnt it yesterday!).
They've flowered really well and I'm happy with their progress... Both times that the weather has permitted I've seen bees pollinating multiple flowers - to my delight, not only for the crops but that I'm providing much needed nectar to bees at a scarce time.

With all this wet weather around, I was worried this would affect them negatively, as I didn't see signs of setting for a while. I had read up on cultivation of these and followed everything I could. I even saw some on a neglected plot nearby, and thought, 'well if they've got delicious looking long pods forming, surely, so should I?; To my delight, today when I looked closely, there were 3 tiny beans (each on the same row of flowers) on my little darling bean plants!
I've got several in which will come in to harvest, and quite a few backups ready to plant out very soon.

Other than that, I tidied up my storage area to find that I have way too many pots!
Gave a neighbour one of my freshly re-potted sweet pea flowers (she was very happy as she's recently taken to growing plants on her balcony).

Also, I set up a fertiliser tea in a large container full of various leaves. Instead of composting I've turned to liquid feeds, as I find these less hassle.

[Chris11]

Tomatoes been out in green house for first time today

About to go bring them back in, but they'll be soon out overnight too.

[1Bee]

In spite of having been earthed up (although they'd poked through) and still being under fleece (!) my charlottes got nipped by the frost. Not badly, and they're already growing on, so no harm done. Earthed them again, and propped the fleece up so it's not lying on them.

Dug over some of the squash bed, although ran out of energy pretty quickly.

Sawed some more timbers for raised beds. Little and often seems the way to do it...

Hoed the onions.

Played with Not Our Kitten, who climbed onto my shoulder and wanted to play with the hoe.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Hosed off the bird muck from the patio, cleared up cat mess (GRRR) - time to invest in some sonic cat deterrents I think.

Sowed some more spring onions, lettuce and rocket. A bit of weeding.

[Snowwhyte]

I emptied out a full compost dalek. It hadn't been emptied in years so the bottom half was totally compacted and clay like. It took nearly four hours and I got out about seven garden trolleys full but it is finally done. It has always been used for kitchen scraps and not much else but I'm going to try and make sure it gets a decent mix of green and brown material now so I can get a good usable compost out of it.

[bramble]

Spent a good part of the afternoon planting up five large window boxes.
Put all my pots of spent daffodils away and put my pots of lilys on my balcony.
Did some weeding.
Planted out the last of my sweet peas.
Potted on the last of the dahlias.
All in all got a lot done.

[Jonny.D]

Mowed the lawn and did some weeding

[bario1]

A day of planting and sowing today!

Got creative with some old wire mesh panels I had, stood them on end in a triangle formation and lashed them together. Inside I planted 3 giant sunflowers, and round the outside I planted my sugar snap peas... you get the idea! Might be a nice vertical feature if it works.
Potted on my 6 Padron peppers and put the cover back on the blowaway that’ll be their permanent home. I bought some big square pots from Asd@ that’ll be perfect for them.
Deadheaded all the spent daffs on the plot.
Sowed three rows of carrots and two rows of beetroot.
Planted out a courgette in a barrel.
Did some general weeding, feeding and watering.
Planted 8 Picasso spuds.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Once again found myself clearing up cat s*** that one of the local cats had kindly deposited and half buried in my freshly topped up and raked over raised beds. Fortunately in one of my currently empty squares and not the ones with seedlings in.

I’m getting fed up with it. They go in the freshley weeded beds under our conifers too. If you’re going to have a cat train the things to use a litter tray or have them s*** in your own garden!

Anyway I thought about getting some of those ultrasonic things but they seem like they’d be annoying as I’d be setting them off every time I was working in the veg garden and run out of batteries so I’ve ordered one of those rolls of black plastic spiked mats to cover the beds and hopefully stop them. The good thing about these is I can cut them into square foot size and take them off each square when I need to.

[bramble]

Cycling Programmer, I don't want to dishearten you but I had two cats for the best of 14 years and it's impossible to keep them out of the garden especially when the soil is freshly dug over.
Extensive netting was the only way I could keep them out.