What I did today 2018

[burnie]

Just cleared around 4 inches of snow from the paths so I can get to the wood, coal and greenhouse without needing wellies on.

[Lumpy]

Thought about my broad beans - looked out the window - result is they can wait!

[nickdub]

The best I could do today was to look at the garden from the kitchen window. I saw several fieldfare jumping about under our Bramley apple wnere there are still a lot of apples lying on the ground (I brought in 6 about a week ago for an apple pie). There was also a thrush smashing some snails it had found and the visitor in the picture. He looked a lot handsomer than the picture shows. Not sure if this pheasant is a welcome guest or not. It seemed to be eying itself up in the greenhouse glass. Not too much for it to eat now but not sure what they do eat given the chance.
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Cock pheasants are very territorial at his time of year - he was probably wondering if he had to fight off a competitor for the hens. I can often watch them squaring up to one-another in my garden and this occasionally escalates in to a full blown fight.

[bario1]

Nipped in to the plot to dump my kitchen waste and rescue my brassica cage from the snow (see 2018 calendar thread)!

[Dynamo]

I'm trying carrots (Nantes) in pots this year. I saw a you tube video where a guy sowed the seeds into a pot using a grid as a template to keep the seeds evenly spaced out. There's 69 seeds in this pot thanks to the grid. I'm not sure if they are a bit too close together and I've sowed too many. I guess I'll find out when I crop them in 4 months. In the meantime they are in my greenhouse. I'll put them outside when the weather warms up.



I got my idea from this video.

https://youtu.be/AAWlpPAx2nk

[self-contained]

I knew I'd forgotten someone on my gardening YouTube channel list! He's great.

[Chestnut]

Pruned/coppiced a hawthorn I found behind an unwanted shrub I took out last year, and had a bonfire with a couple of old broken pallets and the prunings - I don’t fancy finding those thorns in the compost, but the wood ash will be useful
Even remembered to keep back a few of the larger bits to dry out and give as ‘yule logs’ to friends who have fireplaces!

[muck lover]

I am also copying this method of growing carrots. The same guy grows potatoes in pots too and experiments with different compost mixes. I’m trying to reduce expenditure on bought in multipurpose compost. Today I sowed a large pot of flyaway carrots in polytunnel on the grid pattern.
I also potted up some chitted potatoes in leafmould that I started far too early. I just need to keep them alive until I can plant them.
I sowed my first tomatoes today- sungold, tumbling tom and Roma. And a wee pot of basil on kitchen windowsill. Also some kale cabbage and purple broccoli. Roll on the spring.

[Dynamo]

I made another template today. This time for these smaller trays. In the first tray I've got Red Peppers and in the second I have parsnips

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Today I ordered one of those Super 7 plug in propagators from Amazon. I intend to use this with chillies, tomatoes and anything else suitable. Hoping my seed delivery arrives in the next few days so I can get them started.

I also ordered a few more bits and pieces - some seed potatoes (Orla, Nicola and Casablanca), some Cucumber seeds ("Perfection") and some Ishikura bunching onions:

https://www.quickcrop.co.uk/product/...ikura-bunching

I've also ordered some of the Seafood seaweed and poultry manure pellets from QuickCrop to see how they do in the raised beds as a general purpose slow release fertiliser.

[1Bee]

Dawn session on the plot: bliss.

Dug up the last of the leeks, dug over their patch, and dragged in a few trug loads of manure from the heap I need to move.

Tidied up a bit of rubbish from last year and played with the kitten who came to visit from a neighbouring garden.

[muck lover]

Well muck lover still being mean and attempting to reuse compost today. I turned out a big container I had strawberries in last year. That container didn’t do very well and I think I know why. I put too many water retention granules in and possibly I suffocated the roots. There were a few vine weevil larvae too. I squashed all I saw but of course there will be some I missed. Although I use nematodes every spring I’m still hesitant about using this compost for strawberries again. There are so many water retention granules the compost has the consistency of a large blancmange

[muck lover]

Otherwise today I potted up a few containers and one hanging basket of strawberry runners. I still have to put up some flat leaf parsley seedlings. Some curly parsley that I propagated from a bought supermarket parsley pot has been doing so well that I have planted it out in the garden.

[Dynamo]

I finally finished doing the edge of the raised beds in the new greenhouse.



Last year I collected about 20 bin liners bags full of leaves and put them in a greenhouse. Today I got a couple of builders hard-core bags and put the composting leaves into them so I can use the greenhouse for plants, then I covered them in a layer of cardboard and doused them in water.

[self-contained]

Off work ill today, but I'm not good at sick-days so have been trying to get stuff done despite a fever/chills and other nastiness. I've actually managed a few things, with some long recuperation breaks between tasks!

1) Repatriated worms from the wormery sump (hardly any in there, so they may have settled in at last).

2) Fed worms fresh food for the first time (I've had the wormery for a fortnight and just been giving them a couple of handfuls per week of the supplied dried food up to now) after chopping it into small pieces: apple cores, broccoli, fennel, pear, celery and ground eggshells, with a handful of extra torn up paper. Only gave them half as much as they should manage in a day and I'll give it a few days before I try to feed them again. My wormery is indoors so they should be reasonably active.

3) Tore up more paper/card for wormery.

4) Sowed some strawberry seeds in my heated propagator (seed modules were already prepared, so this took very little effort).

5) Planted some ginger root.

6) Plonked my pineapple top in some water. (I twisted it off a few days ago, trimmed it, then left it to dry out for a few days to reduce the risk of it rotting like my last attempt.) I probably should have planted it straight into a pot, but I ache all over and I just couldn't face it. I'll stick it into compost as soon as I see new root growth to avoid disturbing them too much.

7) Watered seedlings and small plants that needed it: lots of peashoots, cress/mustard, french sorrel, red veined sorrel, a solitary hispi cabbage (hoping the other cabbage seeds I planted are just taking their time) and the (probably ill-advised) impulse-buy mixed cabbage and mange tout plants I picked upat Lidl last week.

8) Looked forlornly at my mushroom kit and heated propagator contents (chillies, peppers, dahlias and papaya) that are doing very little.

9) Gazed happily at my potatoes that are merrily chitting away and my oca that are just starting to throw out shoots after several weeks.

10) Browsed RightMove and day-dreamed about having a real garden of my own.

It sounds a lot, but (apart from the day-dreaming), that's probably filled about an hour of the nine hours I've been up, and yet it's been enough to make every bit of me ache. Think I'll spend the rest of the day curled up on the settee and then aim for an early night.