What I did today 2018

[Jonny.D]

More watering & pollinating, looking into getting a soaker hose

[Jay-ell]

Compost Fairy came last night - left a water butt

Down the plot today a lot of mulching, mulching, mulching.

The hot weather looks as if it's done in my onions - they're all starting to fall over. Those that aren't falling over are in flower.

Added the strings for the CFBs although they only look like FBs at the minute.

Watered most of the stuff. The potato beds which are heavily mulched are still nice and moist so they didn't need watering.

Popped some walking/welsh onions/chives that were in pots into a bed temporarily so that they can come back in Autumn and should last through their summer sleep without drying out. I'll sort them a new home later on. Still got a few more pots to do.

Pulled a Magpie out of the pond - all wiggly and squidgy

On the bright side

[bramble]

Pulled out all my veg today that were growing outdoors.
They simply gave up due to lack of water.
Only potatoes left outdoors now.
Tomatoes, peppers, chillies and one cucumber left in the greenhouse.
Struggling to keep these watered.

[bramble]

Forgot to say, I still have a patch of sweet corn growing.
Not holding out much hope but we will see.

[Chestnut]

Watered
Finished building a small brassica cage for short stuff
Watered
Sowed some oriental veg seeds and late beetroot at home
Tied in outdoor toms
Watered some more...

[Jay-ell]

So mad dogs and English Men go out in the midday sun however I'm sure that the ad dogs are sensible enough not to dig the Dock roots out of clay soil which hasn't seen a drop of water for over a month.

Weeded - talk about microclimate, I'm probably the only grape who had to scrape moss off one of their beds this week (and not the onion bed which is mulched with it).

Watered the spuds in pots and in the bed, sweet potatoes, onions, JA, vines, fruit trees. Apart the JAs the soil was still nice and moist but I might not get the chance to give them a good soaking for a few days.

Weeded some more.

[1Bee]

Watered.
Facilitated small boys dunking themselves in water-filled trugs and playing with supersoakers.
Weeded half a bed.
Got bitten by horse flies.

[Chestnut]

Watered -lost count, but definitely over 50 cans/buckets/saucepanfuls (reusing wherever possible/sensible). Also harvested some spuds, courgettes, peas, broad beans and 2 french beans. Runners are flowering so won’t be long before they get going too ;-)

[chillithyme]

Watering and harvesting courgettes, wanted to sow a few things but it was too hot late afternoon

[1Bee]

[Yesterday] Went morris dancing and took a large carrier full of broad beans and two bunches of sweet peas, both very well received.

[bikermike]

pretty much all I set out to do on the weekend
I also managed to largely empty the steel site box I was given when I arrived, so I hope to be able to give it on to another starter in a couple of weeks

What did yesterday was water the garden using grey water (I reckon there'll be enough to do one more watering, then it will have a few days to dry out before re-filling), and look at my sprouting purple-sprouting broccoli, which was nice.

Oh and drink a G&T in the garden on Sunday

[chillithyme]

-first tomatoe feeding of tomatoes and chillies
-planting into large pots Pepper Cajun belle, Chilli Cheyenne, bougenvilla red
-planting on the allotment, Pepper and Chilli plants as above, rosemary bought from asda herb section, achillea flowers, bought from reduced section in homebase
-moved out to harden indoor sown beans and cucumbers
-watering of pot plants

[Jay-ell]

Despite digging the bed the other day and watering the bed first I still needed a crowbar to plant my potatoes. So I dug a load of little holes for the spuds and filled them up several times so the water could soak in a bit.

Popped the spuds into the holes and watered again.

Hauled a few barrow bags of compost to mound up over the spuds and build up the bed and Watered it in.

Mulched the bed with straw and watered it in to keep it down.

Had three bags of trimmings from the Compost Fairy plus a bokashi bin to add to the compost.

Cherries are nearly ready. Almost 3 dozen this year.

Watered the beds. Cucumbers and courgettes are starting to bring their flowers out so soon I'll be over run with them.

We got about 7 pounds of raspberries today so that's about 19-20 pounds total from them. Still loads to pick on Sunday (about the same as we harvested today) with more that should ripen next week and guess what - the next round of raspberries is flowering. Can't wait till end of the year when I can cut them down

Goosegogs will be ready for picking on Sunday. Looks like there's still a couple of pounds of blackcurrants ripening to be picked on Sunday as well as a handful of redcurrants. Rumtoff here they come.

Strawberries are just about done by the looks of it - got about two and a half pounds today.

The grapes at the front of the New Territories look as if the flowers have now opened. First year with grapes so I'm not too familiar but they look like the grape in the Jungle did last month. The ones in the Jungle are the size of peas now.

[Small pumpkin]

Fed chillies, tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, melons, sweet corn, Jeremy, squash, pumpkins, courgettes, three sisters tub and indoor hydroponic thing.
Pollinated chillies
Weeded beds 1 to 6

[Jay-ell]

Had a painful afternoon on the plot today.

It was so hot just went down to water.

Watered.

My onions have all keeled over now. Lifted some of the reds - not as many of these had bolted as I thought had. The bulbs are about the right size to pickle which is good as that patch were tightly sown just for that reason.

The Green Mountain potato onions were more of a disappointment. They've multiplied but a lot of them had bolted. The yellow potato onions only the larger bulbs had bolted.

Watered.

Harvested the stragglers off the blackcurrant bushes that weren't ripe last time - 5lbs, that's a quarter of the total harvest. I ain't leaving that many for the birds.

Watered.

Now for the painful bit.

Harvested 8lbs of gooseberrirs from the cordons. Not as torn to shreds as I would have been if they were bushes but still stabbed and jabbed a bit.

Finished watering and as that's what I came down to do I went home.