Grow Your Own Magazine

Bit windy today but sowed some chives and gherkin seed.......planted some first earlies and tidied up.

Big project on Monday, move new greenhouse onto plot and move old one onto another plot. Then plant out potatoes.......

So excited about getting a glass greenhouse lol.........

Now resting and going bowling with family tonight.

end of 7 days of non-stop activity in the veg patch after nearly 6 months of neglect!

Mon - dug over half bed apprx 30 sq mtrs and thoroughly weeded on hands and kness all day!

Tues - shredded a large fur tree that came down in the March storms - plenty of chippings now

Weds - dug over the other half of the veg patch - again approx 30 sq mtrs - planted new Rhubarb crown and six Asparagus crowns ( in tubs - see how that goes) - Purchased a 6 bird hen house!

Thurs -weeded the area dug over yesterday - well half of it. Got the bean canes up - order new fruit cage

Fri - weeded the other half of what was left - planted a 4 mtr row of garlic bulbs - i know its a bit late but.........

Sat -Built myself 2 compost bins from reclaimed pallets, each about 1m cubed. Also found some old broken paving slabs in the undergrowth - perfect for step ways through the veg bed.

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Cheers

Gary

Dont let the weeds grow under your feet

Didn't realise how much having shingles was going to slow me down. Everyone keeps telling me to rest so....

....all I did today was plant out 5 rather pathetic caulis which have been in pots far too long. Reckon they've got two chances in the ground! Put cut off plastic bottles around each for slug protection.

Other than that, just admired the rest and retired to the sofa to watch Bond movie...

I am pooped.

Kazzi and I Met lottie dolly and her charming OH this morning on site and had a wonderful meander about and a good chinwag.

Before they got there I had unloaded a ton of finest vintage manure into the beds and planted out lots of tomatoes in the new tunnel. Onions (banana, rose de roscoff and mammoth) were planted out and watered in and a bed of brussels were planted out and netted over.

Kazzi had a job and a half cleaning the old glass in our new (old) greenhouse but now only has 2 panes left.

Everything is finally getting into the ground, freeing up greenhouse space at home so that I can sow my sweetcorn this weekend.

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Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

At last some veg in my patch..........

planted out some onions sets and garlic, some beetroot and some radish....

dug over and added compost to where the the runners are going, de weeded the flower bed (in the rain) and generally worked hard today. Put fleece over my veg patch, hoping that things will germinate!!

Made some home made slug traps and got them some lovely beer< so they are now in as well..........

I am gonna pot up my sweetcorn tomorrow (in the greenhouse). and also plant out some carrots in big tubs tomorrow as well.............

SS

Hard work but

Took some pallets to the lottie with the landie and finished off constructing two compost bins! Cleared three barrowload of broken glass into the landies pick up bed ready to dump in a skip i have access to.

To crown it all, went to the allotment associations AGM and came away as the Hon Sec!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Planted my onion sets. 120 turbo, 60 Red Baron.
Took some rubbish to the skip and went home to have a quiet drink whilst looking on here. Back hurts a bit though. Hope to get the rest of the digging finished tomorrow if the weather is ok.

Today I:
Sowed:
30 modules marigolds
30 modules beetroot bolthardy
20 modules purple sprouting brocolli Rudolph
10 modules brussels sprouts Brilliant
6 seeds Pepper Big Banana

Potted on:
6 San Marzano tomatoes
5 sub artic toms
5 Harlequin toms
15 super roma toms
6 pepper big banana
9 4" pots of basil
2 modules of niche salad mix into a large pot (a la Wellie's salad bar)

Ran out of 2 1/2" and 3" pots, so ddn't get to pot on Rio Grande tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, coriander and spinach today. (And local DIY shop has run out too!!)
Other sowings to be done very soon include parsley, chervil, coriander, pumpkin (Dill's Atlantic Giant) and more lettuces

I should get back to the plot this week - Lease Agreements issued during the week and I should get down to LA offices during the week once thesis handed in for binding.

Plans for there are
Plant out 2nd early potatoes Anya
Plant out peas in loo rolls - meteor and possibly the spinach
Sow yellow onion sets
Sow peas - some little marvel and oregon sugar (mange tout)

Dig lots more, and weed as I go
Prepare ground for sweetcorn and beans
Harvest cabbage, lettuce, and hopefully the PSB will be ready to pick too (haven't been there in 5 weeks with lock problems etc).

Yesterday we went to the timber merchants tp spend some of the money we made selling the old shed (no, we didn't sell it to Joe form Gardeners' World!). We bought some treated timber to make frames to fit the beds I've created at the new lottie. These will have wire netting or enviromesh on them. I shall eat my OWN crops, you pigeons and caterpillars!

Soaked some cress seeds for the seed sprouter on the kitchen sill. Came in later to the peppery smell of cress - love it!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

Cut white sprouting broccoli an spring cabbage to eat with todays pork.

Planted out 16 fine, strong , hardened off beetroot plantlets, five summer cabbage ( leaving some in modules for planting on in a months time), 3 colli's, leaving 3 more for later.
Sewn into moduals today... swede, turnip, sprouts, broccoli, p s broccoli and runner bean seed that should be ready to plant out in late May if i have got the timing right.

Drunk two glasses of chilled white wine while doing all the above. Hades i love sunday afternoons like this!! *grins*

I am reckoning on my white sprouting broccoli and spring greens to be eaten up by then, and i can pop the swede an turnips in their old spot. I am enjoying the juggling act o thinking ahead

We see eh.

Wren



All

I miss read that and thought you were going to eat your own caterpillars and pigeons

Sowed sweetcorn (2 varieties), runner beans and courgettes.

Planted second earlies and maincrop in tubs need to buy more compost now

NN

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If there is no football and gardening in heaven - I'm not going.

today I spent a blissful two hours earthing up potatoes in pots (early anyas), sowing more carrot seed also beetroot. Planting out small pea shoots, sowing cucumber and sweetcorn. Just had a bonfire
.... I love spring!

The last 2 days have seen me move stack of pallets on the new plot ready for a compost heap creation. (Still a few pallet short of a masterpeice though ). Did order the anti-rabbit mesh though and hope to get that in before next weekend.
Then in the Warwickshire wind and rain, planted last 2 1/2 rows of the spuds. This makes about 90+ spuds of 1st, 2nd and maincrops planted out and is the first of our 5 rotational beds fully planted up. What's even better is that the first green shoots back in the first planted row have appeared already.
Then levelled off another of the rotational plots, gave it a quick hoeing and then planted half with buckwheet in lurvely drills, and the other half of the bed with broadcast Phacelia.
Finally moved the recently planted blueberry to a slightly better position. (Hope it doesn't object too much). Didn't have time to deweed the perennial bed as planned tho as work beckoned......
Cheers, Plot17B

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What a day.........went to homebase & B&Q bought some more compost, for my pots & planters, bought some more pots & planters and 3 bags of mulch!!!!
(thank the lord i have a big car and strong arms)

Got home unloaded and but the roast gammon on!!!!

Mulched the front & rear garden flower beds that i had weeded yesterday...then sowed cabbage, sweetcorn, a lovely jalapeno chilli pepper that i bought in HB today, also my daughters little flower seeds oh and some cut & grow varierty lettaces, into a planter, left all of these in the greenhouse.

Just been on my nightly snail/slug hunt and found my first slug and threw the other snails away, after drowing them in a bucket - dont feel sorry for them they were asking for it!!!!!!!!!!!

So loving this !

SS

After getting home from work at 7.30pm I went straight into the home greenhouse. The gravedigger peas are just coming through the soil (3 peas to a pot) as are the red and white climbing french beans.

A mammoth pricking out session saw two trays of rudbeckia, some echinacea, poached egg plant and celeriac sorted. Potted on were chrysanthemums and dahlias from cuttings and some eryngium and lily of the valley from packets found under the bench I think they came from Lidl a few weeks ago and I had just forgotten about them.

Trays of sweet pepper and chillie plants were brought in ready to go to the lottie after work tommorow. They will be planted in the tunnels sometime this week.

__________________
Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

Dug 2 trenches and planted my maincrop potatoes - Desiree. Put cloche hoops over carrot crate & covered with polythene prior to sowing the carrots in the next few days. Once they germinate I'll switch to enviromesh.
Sowed 2 module trays of cabbage, 1 of PSB, 2 of kale & 1 of brussels Falstaff, and sowed 4 pots each of Tiffany & Superbel cucumbers.
Then I potted up 3 tomato plants and 3 peppers.

__________________
Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

SquashySue -I'm curious as to how you made your slug traps - methinks I need to do that too.... Would it be poss to let me know what you did? Or is it Top Secret?! Ta, diolch

Hi there

I saved some marg tubs or chocoflake tubs from tesco (they are quite delicious ha ha and pretty deep) then i planted these flat into the ground and then put over the top of them ice cream tubs (neopolitan are really good ha ha !- kids eat that quickly) i cut a whole each end of the tubs, the snails are getting through and so are the slugs, i placed these over the tubs in the ground and put a stone on top, so they dont get knocked and so the beer doesnt get ruined by the rain - i used a beer yesterday from tesco it was something like "furry ferret", but as the hubby doesnt like it, i used a bottle which was cheaper than 4 cans and it smells really strong, either that or i bought my hubby some wheat beer (german stuff) from Aldi and that is so wheaty smelling they loved it.


Hope this helps, the slug traps i have seen today in B&Q are £4 each and i have made mine for free, as they are working, i am really pleased, i am also using coffee granules and my lettaces are all intact so far, i have asked the garage down the road to save them for me! they think i am mad, but i dont mind lol.

Let me know if the traps work :-) SS

Made repairs to our allotment shed door....i't appears some "yoofs" thought it would be fun to try and set fire to it, and even funnier to lock a mate inside for good measure (door panels kicked outward ?) lucky they closed the drawer with burning paper in it, as this suffocated the flames.

We don't use a padlock as theres nothing worth pinching and we don't want to give that impression, just a stick through the hasp.

Yesterday:

Planted second batch of cauliflower plantlets - Avalanche and Candid Charm
Planted second batch of cabbage plantlets - Protovoy and Pyramid
Planted first Kabuki calabrese
(all the above protected with fleece for the time being)

Planted lettuces - salad bowl and Bijou (second batch). Protected from pigeons with netting.

Planted more International Kidney and Anya potatoes in large sacks with garden compost and a little manure.

Planted spring onion seedlings grown in plugs.

Potted up Bright Lights chard seedlings to 3 inch pots
Potted up youngest tomatoes from modules to 3 inch pots

Sowed Boltardy beetroot (second sowing)
Sowed Maestro carrots (third sowing)

Harvested some leaf beet from overwintering plants.

Cut down the last Claret purple sprouting broccoli plants.

This morning I set up my 3 spud tubs, and planted Harlequin potatoes - 4 in each tub. Also found a biggish planter and put in 4 Anya.
Then I went into town, and bought a 4kw Eden gas greenhouse heater (£99.95, not bad I thought) as an early birfday pressie from my Pa, and the necessary gas bottle to go with it. Took it to the lottie & got it set up & ready to go. Just need to take the max/min thermometer down and spend a few days getting the temp somewhere near right, then I can start moving the tommy, chilli & pepper plants down there. SO EXCITING!

__________________
Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been ha