What I did today 2018

[Dead Dogs]

Yesterday spent a hour or two at the lotty putting new guttering on the shed.

Today dug a new flower bed of the Lavender and Sweet William brought yesterday. Then into the greenhouse to pot on the first batch of Tomato plants.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Came back on Monday from a week in Tenerife to visit my parents.

Have come back to 4 healthy looking tomato seedlings just starting their first proper leaves. 5/6, 4/6 and 3/6 of my apache, padron and prairie fire chilli seeds have sprouted.

The broad beans I sowed at the end of Feb in 3” pots have gone completely leggy and fallen over. They should have gone out in the ground weeks ago but weather meant I didn’t get a chance to harden them off so they are no good now. I will just sow a couple of seeds directly outside now I think.

Was nice to come back and see lots of things in the garden starting to grow...daffodils (late flowering), tulips and alliums all shooting up, the iris leaves have started to grow and there’s signs of growth everywhere.

[bario1]

Pricked out my tomato seedlings. I'm going on holiday for 10 days, so I've hedged my bets by putting half out in the greenhouse to brave the cold weather, and kept the other half in the house under lights.

[Greenleaves]

Pricked out my tomato seedlings. I'm going on holiday for 10 days, so I've hedged my bets by putting half out in the greenhouse to brave the cold weather, and kept the other half in the house under lights.

Both lots have two chances

[Florence Fennel]

Pricked out some chillies before the heavens opened

[self-contained]

Sowed some:
Red giant mustard
Cornflowers
Pea-shoots
Cress and mustard

Potted on:
A chunk of my dragon-fruit plant (grown from seed about 12 years ago) into a big pot to see if I can make it grow big in my sun room this year.

Set up:
My golden oyster mushroom kit (rubbish instructions from Dobies, but hopefully it's okay)

Moved:
Lots of stuff into the airing cupboard to encourage germination (I usually turn my boiler off overnight and when I'm out, but I'll leave it on it's lowest setting for a bit and see if it makes a difference)

Went outside and checked on:
Rhubarb - the leaves are just appearing
Gooseberry - coming into bud
Raspberries - putting out a little growth
Honeyberry - leafing up
Winter lettuce mix - well, um, there are a few very pathetic leggy seedlings
Henry Hispi - still alive!

[Baldy]

Drove through an hours heavy rain from my mum's in Somerset - then 30 minutes of snow on Exmoor followed by 45 minutes of more rain.
The forecast for tomorrow doesn't fill me with hope.

I can sense a demand that I spend *my* first day of the Bank Holiday weekend with a paintbrush and a can of white gloss... meh !

[Dead Dogs]

Made room in greenhouse 1 by potting on the Sunflowers and moving them to greenhouse 2. Then shuffled things around to create space in the heate£ propagator. Then sowed Melon, Buntternut Squash, Spagehetti Squash, Cucumbers - Marketmore and Telegraph, Courgette Atena, Broccoli and Basil.
Also planted two rows of spuds.

[Muddy_Boots]

Have just finished shovelling sh*t that I had delivered on Thursday from a local farm which cost £70 and has been rotting down for about 18 months. Stuff is really good and needed to get it off the road onto one of my 3 plots, finished just as the rain started luckily.

[Muddy_Boots]

Potted on 80 plug plants the postman delivered this morning from two of those 'just pay £5.95 postage' offers they are all summer bedding plants for my flower borders in my rather large garden.

Also had 15 early brassicas that need potting on delivered although i'm beginning to wonder when I'll manage to plant them on the lottie with all this rain we are having.

Have just checked on the 11 seed trays filled with this years seed potatoes that are chitting nicely, just hope it stops raining so much so I can dig the area on plot 3 they are suppose to be going into.

[bikermike]

I can sense a demand that I spend *my* first day of the Bank Holiday weekend with a paintbrush and a can of white gloss... meh !

put my brush down at 11.30 today...
had a potter round the garden, drained the water out of the strawberries, planted the minibulbs(?) of a pot plant from last year (don't know what), watered and weeded and generally pottered. put some large pieces of wood end up in wood preservative to build raised beds with at some point, and now have enough space to do some stuff in the garage.

planted some old comfrey seeds yesterday too.

[Baldy]

Dodged the paint brush but was persuaded to tidy the house.
Dropped some compostables at the plot - the ground was soaked - felt like walking on a wet sponge.
Filled a potato bag with soil / spent compost / chicken manure and a couple of first earlies went in - then shifted it into the greenhouse (remember to move the bag before filling next time... )
Looks like it might be a little drier tomorrow.

[hamamelis]

Finally bit the bullet and planted my spuds, and a few other hardier flowers and veg seeds. Fingers crossed that spring proceeds without any more crazy cold now!

The broadies are popping up from the batch I sowed a few weeks back, so it's promising. The overwintered ones almost all came through OK as well.

[self-contained]

Not much yet today. I lifted a couple of Cupani sweet-peas out of the propagator. They germinated very poorly last year and I was starting to give up hope of them doing much this year either (with the seed being a year older) but the propagator has done the trick for a couple of them at least

I have quite a big sowing day planned for tomorrow. I might get a head start with it this evening if I can get myself motivated. Feeling a bit demoralised about my rather up-in-the-air work situation, but gardening is a nice distraction.

[Chestnut]

Picked up a couple of planks of second hand timber- too long to go in car though, so had to carry them to the plot on foot...
Then covered the ‘as yet uncultivated ‘ part of the plot with cardboard and black plastic, in the hope that the weeds will weaken and make it easier to dig out the rest of the carpet next winter