Grow Your Own Magazine

Hazel at the Hill · #**2136** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 05:16 PM

Went to Wilko - couldn't resist 75% off seeds - also bought some chicken pellets.

Went to the Hill and dug up the remaining 20 garlic bulbs, chopped down the bored beans, dug over and fed the misc bed where the garlic were and planted out 10 various tomato plants. Fed the various beans.

Was going to plant out the celery and sow some late peas, turnip and khol rabi, but the heavens opening and some serious rain stopped play!

Typical - sun now blazing down..........

Vegmonkey · #**2137** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 06:13 PM

Weeded the garlic, added a compost mulch to the onions and runner beans and put copper tape around all the pots....tempted to eat some more carrots!

dexterdoglancashire · #**2138** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 06:17 PM

Went to Wilkos and bought a load of seeds for next year

Am now sorting through them all and making a list. Put even longer canes in the tomato pots and tied the tomatoes to them. Bought some cat grass seed, so have sown some for Ramsey and Crosby.

Am spending lots of time enjoying myself, sourcing recipes for other grapes! :-)

louise_81 · #**2139** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 06:24 PM

well this is my first time on this board.

Have quite an established garden, we bought in Feb but only moved in about 8 weeks ago due to the amount of work the house needed. I have now turned my attention to the garden.

Everytime I go into the garden I find something new.

So far we have

2 massive gooseberry bushes, in full fruit at the minute
3 red currant bushes
5 rhubarb patches( I bought a root, then 3 plants, then found some in the garden)
4 blackcurrant (?) bushes
about 20 raspberry canes
2 apple trees

as soon as we got the place in Feb I put potatoes and onions in.

this week I bought asparagus crowns from ebay and I have been out today planting them in between the showers. I managed to get 4 crowns in outside, and I have had to put some in old bins as they were starting to mould.

I also signed up for an allotment this week, I am number 5 in the list!

I also managed to get another 1/2 pound of fruit from the raspberies.

Mrs Dobby · #**2140** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 07:26 PM

Yesterday we harvested some 2lb of strawbs and about 1lb of rasps before setting off and having a great day at Yoanbob's, helping them to tame their plot and get it back into a growable state! With help from fellow grapes Sarzwix and Digger07 we had a great days digging and made a bit of an impact, as can be seen here Wedding Prezzie for a Grape - can you help?

Today after we got home we ended up visiting a local hospital to visit a friend suffering with depression, only to find she'd discharged herself, so we caught up with her at her home, then popped to the plot for a quick harvest for tonights tea! On the menu, bored beans, swede, mange tout, new tatties, 2 types of courgette and cauliflower. Also harvested some iceberg lettuce and another cucumber, tomorrows butties for the plot methinks!

rustylady · #**2141** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 08:35 PM

There's a big yellow thing in the sky, and it hasn't rained too much today. Went to the lottie, dug some new potatoes (enough to last me and middle daughter's family for a week I hope). Picked bored beans and mangetout peas, 1 and a half courgettes (the slugs got the other half). Runner beans are looking good, flowers on and a few have just set. Sweetcorn growing well (the ones that did finally germinate). French beans looking good, climbing well, no flowers yet. Dwarf ones just sitting there. Everything is so wet, though.

sewer rat · #**2142** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 09:51 PM

We got rain today - big time ! Spent seven hours in me oilskins weeding my Edzell Blues and Maris Peers which had disappeared under a jungle of weeds.
Watered polytunnel - loads of toms forming, some baby cukes appearing and a considerable number of chilli peppers too.

Scruffy Duffy · #**2143** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 10:16 PM

Harvested loads of oriental leaves and salad bowl / /lollo rossa with a big handful of chives for salads for lunches. Noticed that the french beans have got flowers - hurrah! Still battling the slugs and snails but I think I'm winning. Going to have to do some extra sowing of peas, carrots and things, but not 100% sure if I've actually got enough room.

Looking forward to eating everything else.

SD

vicpivo · #**2144** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 10:32 PM

Collected about 300L of really well rotted horse muck from the local farm today. Went back to the allotment and put them over the runner beans bed, rhubarb, gooseberry, courgettes & butternut squash. That should keep them going for a while!

I also brought 4lbs of Ammonia Sulphate (for £1.08 which seemed a great deal!) and with water, added to a 500L bag of sawdust. The aim is to leave this until next year and use as soil conditioner.

I pulled up some spuds, spinach and rocket for my tea. The rain and done a lot of good to my plot, I need a bit of sun now to stimpulate a bit more growth....

kirsty b · #**2145** (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 11:44 PM

Worked all day yesterday and early shift this morning, so only got down to plot this afternoon. Shifted some more bits of burned shed up to the top of the plot ready to take to the tip. Checked over my beans, the runners are flowering and I noticed the first teeny-tiny baby beans have formed on them! Also spotted that a few of the Sun Baby yellow toms are beginning to ripen, like little drops of gold hanging on the plant. Had such a bad week, its a real pleasure to notice the little stuff like this. Got some more tomato plants put out. Nearly all have set some fruit now. Big jim chilli doing well. 11 cm now!

wellie · #**2146** (**permalink**) 02-07-2007, 01:30 AM

Got to bed after a delightful Pizza Party at 4am Sunday, and never heard Trousers snore once whilst I was asleep! A beautiful cooked breakfast, and we all decided that fried onions just 'dont work' with a fry-up? but acres of hot toast and Anchor Butter does. Did a well-looked-forward-to tour of someone's lotties, and drove home mid-afternoon to gorgeous jet black cat, who had a special cuddly welcome for me.
And I'm anticipating the gift of a mouse at the top of the stairs at approximately 2.30 this morning if previous patterns are to be followed.
We watched the concert for Diana on the telly tonight.
Just truly amazing....
Thank you for listening,

Sebbster · #**2147** (**permalink**) 02-07-2007, 11:22 AM

Harvested some more early carrots, a few broads, beetroot, early spuds and some spinach.

Spinach really suffering now, still bolting like crazy and I'm not really getting a large amount of leaves from it, seriously considering digging it up and putting it down to experience. Could use the row to plant my Kale or some more carrots.

Runner beans flowering away and have reached the top of their 8 foot canes. Will pinch them out later in the week.

Harvested my first broccoli so removed the central stem. Will now wait for lots of spears. Have grown far too many but hey ho.

Put it some beetroot "speedy seeds" as we are using quite a lot of the few I have grown.

Cucumbers now about 3 inch long but growing like boomerangs even though the plants are tied up. Doesn't matter though, they will be nice.

Had my first courgette and got lots more growing. Only got 1 plant as the wife doesn't like them.

Onions very large now, Bedfordshire Champs from memory, another few weeks and they'll be ready for lifting and drying, assuming we ever get some sun.

Not sure what the garlic is up to, will lift one and see next visit.

Poor guy who was 2 feet under water is still 2 feet under water and no signs of it going anywhere. Worse than this it flooded his shed and took the petrol and oil from the rotovator and spread it around his plot. Looks like he may lose the lot, pots already rotted. Feel sorry for him, next time I see him I'll dig him some veg from mine.

Two_Sheds · #**2148** (**permalink**) 02-07-2007, 09:34 PM

Today I returned from Londinium, paddled round the garden, drained the container plant's saucers (twice). Discovered ... OH, THE IRONY...that the water to my flat has been cut off by the pesky builders downstairs. FOR FOUR DAYS!
Do you think I can boil the rain water for a cuppa

dixeychick · #**2149** (**permalink**) 02-07-2007, 10:35 PM

Today I did very little except the usual walk around the garden just to check what has been eaten

and what has grown

as it has rained, again, pretty consistently since I got back from work

sewer rat · #**2150** (**permalink**) 02-07-2007, 11:39 PM

Measured how much water I collected from roof of my shed last night - 75 gallons !!
Finished weeding Maris Peers and Edzell Blues, sowed 600 lettuce in cell trays, sowed 100 calabrese Marathon.
Got rid of last of Young Plants grown for Garden Centre (supposed to have been collected in May !!)
SOLD NEW POTATOES TO MY FIRST PAYING CUSTOMERS

Farmer_Gyles · #**2151** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 10:09 AM

don't post here every day, so over the last few days ...

not done much, mostly watering greenhouse veg every day and pulling the odd weed here and there outside (weed control sheeting keeps the weeds down) - tied up cucumbers / tomatoes etc

yesterday went to garden centre and bought sprinkler and hope connectors (can live in hope that the rain stops!)
sowed swede in small pots / plugs to be planted out when they've grown a bit

hoping rain stops soon cos i want to dig over a patch to sow carrots and beets and plant the swedes out

Mrs Dobby · #**2152** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 10:24 AM

Managed to get down to the plot yesterday, and found ourselves sheltering from torrential rain and thunder storms for most of the afternoon! Did a bit of side shooting in the grenhouse, and watered in there, but other than that, planting out a few chilli plants into Fort Tesco and harvesting more bored beans, rasps, mange tout and courgette, we got nothing done! Desperately need some sunny dry weather for our crops, and desperately need to do some weeding, but its far too wet to even touch the beds!

moggssue · #**2153** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 12:38 PM

Not much happening on my ikkle plot - just watching tatties, toms, broads, cauli, french beans all struggling to grow for me without any sunshine. Retied one of the toms to a bigger cane as it's gone mad and doubled in size and resisted the very strong temptation to furtle in the tatty bag or eat the baby carrots just yet!

pigletwillie · #**2154** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 08:24 PM

I harvested razzers, and a great trug of beetroot for pickling between showers. As a trial I have also planted out some self blanching celery, it will be interesting to see the result as I have never grown it before so fingers crossed.

It was "judgeing" time on all of Leicesters sites today (and tommorow) to find out each sites best plot and those of the city as a whole. We were best plot on our site last year but came nowhere in the city as a whole but have raised the bar this year as the plot has matured and got much better for it. The results come out next week so we shall see.

Back at the ranch I module sowed some cabbage and some more bulb fennel.

wellie · #**2155** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 08:27 PM

I was hoping to get to my Noo Lottie, but we had absolute torrents this afternoon, followed by 10 minutes of gorgeous sunshine, followed by thunder and lightning, torrential rain, then sunshine for 5 minutes, etc. etc. etc. etc.. So I thought my time would be better spent pricking out and potting on at home. I managed to sow two small troughs of the french lettuce mix seed that Piggy gave me at the weekend, and prick out the Florence Fennel seedlings, and pot on the Swede & Kale seedlings.

I DID receive (today because of postal strike) GYO Admin Dave's very kind Let's Grow Veg magazine with ALL those lovely seeds, wallchart, labels, disc, and wow! blown away, thank you SO much Dave. And so I sowed some of those seeds too today. The rest I shall be saving for next year now.

With very few opportunities over the last few weeks to take any photos of 'The Pretty Garden' at home, in between showers today, I did, and have just finished updating the blog.
Thank you for listening.

JennieAtkinson · #**2156** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 08:50 PM

Had a salad of fresh leaves and my first iceburg lettuce for lunch. Splendid afternoon of warm sunshine, so weeded the borders. Sadly alot has died off, so great big gaps now the weeds have gone. Had to keep looking for the dog as she kept going walkies on her own!

Harvested my first pot of Jersey Royals - bit disappointing in terms of size and amount, but VERY tasty. Also harvested my first courgette which I had for tea with a Kohl Rabi (and potatoes and fresh salmon), still on my own so can eat anything I want. Sun went behind the clouds at 5, so watered the borders to give everything a bit of a chance, the ground being incredibly dry.

sewer rat · #**2157** (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 08:52 PM

Hand weeded my first sowing of spring onions, hoed my lettuce beds and then hoed my courgette bed.