Grow Your Own Magazine

Not much planting, but yesterday for tea I picked our own salad. We had 3 types of lettuce leaves, beetroot leaves, coriander, mizuna, spring onions and radishes - first serious picking (although we've had a few leaves for sandwiches over the last few weeks) Yum!

Planted out the pumpkins and last couple of courgette plants yesterday. Put in supports for the outdoor cucumbers and tied them in, they are about 6in high now. Had a look at the autumn planted garlic and it has started to bulb up so will start using it direct from the ground. Planted some early leeks, the plants were small but running out of pot space. Planted out a third row of dwarf french bean plants, still got one tub of plants to go in. Three rows of spuds have been planted to close together and I am having trouble earthing them up, had some empty tubs so cut bottoms off and put one on each plant on the middle row. As potatoes grow am earthing up the tubs with compost, this leaves a bit more room to earth up the two outside rows.
Recieved a free blueberry (Chandler) and a £10 voucher from T&M should have been 3 goji berry plants but they seem to have run out of them. Fortunatly I had bought 3 goji berry plants so was not to dissapointed. Potted on the blueberry. Tomatoes are just showing the first truss of flowers. Tomatillo also coming into flower.No sign of flowers on either the peppers or aubergines. Took the fleece off the brassicas and weeded and watered, put the fleece back over the cabbages but left it off the braccoli and calabrese. Seed sown onions seem to be growing better and bigger than the onion sets and will definitley be growing from seed again next year. Will be harvesting the last tub of potatoes sown just before Xmas, should be enough for at least two meals. Well worth the effort, will do an extra tub next year.

Ian

we had our first salad leaves the day before yesterday. Did new sowing today as we eat salad every day and it's a welcome challenge to keep up with the planting to ensure the constant supply! Hoping to plant out courgettes later if the weather stays fine. I'm also hoping to get some pea shoots going in shallow plastic trays.

Had to meet a man from the council pest control division at 11.30am. He dropped a 10Kg tub of rat poison off to be used at the allotments. Not a great fan of rat poison but some of the guys have chickens and we are close to houses so the rats must die!
Luckily I ain't seen any around so I don't personally have to use it.
I had allotmenteers around me like bees round a honey pot. Went back to work and returned to the allotments later when things had quietened down.

Mixed up three wheel barrow loads of my John Innes type compost and planted some more tomato plants in buckets. Only growing 3 Gardeners delight this year as I like to eat them straight from the vine only.....hence the name.
I have 10 Shirley, 10 Roma and 5 Tamina as well as the GD. When I'm feeling a bit more energetic I'll pot up some more Roma methinks.

Had my first strawberry from my plants in the greenhouse and must admit it was a bit bland!

Potted up four perennial caulis which had got leggy and been decimated by greenfly. Put a bit of soapy water on the greenfly but hope i haven't killed the plants. Put them in a sheltered spot to recuperate.

Watered all my indoor and some of my outdoor plants (like to grow them hard if I can, that way they will send down roots to find their own water). Most of the watering was done from the numerous water butts I have dortted around the plot

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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)

Yesterday, went to the lottie in the evening and took Himself for a look around. It was far fuller than last time he went! He erected another wigwam for the yin-yang beans (still a bit small to go out) while I planted out 10 Sub-Arctic Plenty toms in one bed and 6 Tiger Tom and 2 Black Krim in another. There's just room for 2 Golden Sunrise which I'll take down today. He watered (and rescued 2 more frogs from the tank - or maybe it was the same two I rescued the day before? Not known for their brain power, your average frog (or even Prince for that matter )

Today I will be mostly planting flowers.

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Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon!

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated July 16th 2008

Had a relatively productive day yesterday given the gloomy weather. Sowed some more baby spinach as the slugs had helped themselves to the majority of my last lot. Also sowed some kohl rabi as the first lot never germinated - not really giving off vibes of success here am I????

Sowed the following into tubs: chantenay carrots, white lisbon spring onions, sugar snap peas (to replace the ones that never germinated or where devoured by mice) and normal peas for their tips. I also sowed some more salad leaves as my first sowing didn't seem to like the cold then the extreme heat and are now a bit weedy and just asking to be pulled up.

I planted out a spaghetti squash in the hope he will trail all over the fruit bed and rockery and a courgette 'tricolour' (although this is false advertising I'm sure as they have all been yellow so far!) in the hope that he may climb up a frame. Not sure if he will but the way he has grown makes me think he could give it a go.

Decided to leave the rest of my squash and courgettes in their tubs as the chicken manure on the soil needs to wash in a bit more and there is no hurry.

Last night, the toddler came in with a lettuce leaf - she wanted to bring lettuce to the creche for her afternoon snack!! So we duly went out and I picked her a couple of nice leaves, and then went back in to get the tub to collect some for my own lunch today (which I had done the night before with the toddler just watching). I have to do the picking yet, as the lettuces are still small so its very selective pickings.

Then I went out and watered everything as it still hasn't rained here.

The plan for the weekend (assuming OH has time between correcting exam scripts and it doesn't rain) is to bring a bunch of tomato plants to the plot, dig over their space and plant them. Hopefully also sowing some sweetcorn seed direct, and possibly planting a couple of squashes and maybe squeezing in a few more calabrese plants somewhere. With a harvest of PSB and another cabbage or two (might call into my grandparents en route home with one).

The toddler already has her backpack packed for this outing - paper, crayons and a teddy to join her on the rug for a picnic!! She wouldn't finish breakfast this morning until it was packed

constructed tubing over mini beds painted and then covered with netting.tied in peas and stuck a load of canes in then watched gardeners world and now know how to construct a pea support properly!put some french bean tender green in mini beds and also some yellow kinghorn wax. bit scared about this week as temparatures at night or dropping and i am going away to berwick upon tweed for a week and oh is in charge!

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joanne culyer

Although overcast today it has stayed fine and the lottie is dry enough to get out and do a bit of digging. Im in between at the moment as I have done some digging but have to have regular breaks. Want to get the rest of the bed dug today and get the rest of the cabbages and broccoli in. Have planted out the last of the dwarf beans out if I can find the space I may sow a few more. Sown another row of beetroot and a row of spring onions.

Ian

gojilottieupdated 16/05/08

Cold and rainy day today so decided to put the wood burner on, have about 10 cups of coffee and tidy the main greenhouse out. Managed to get things shifted around ready for the growing season ahead. Used paintstripper on another three glass panels to get off the white gloss a previous tenant had applied to the glass for shading purposes. Had all the windows and door open as the fumes were terrible. That done, and greenhouse vented I planted up some Roma tomatoes and Jalapeno peppers in the raised bed inside. Used a hot poker to burn holes in the containers I will be using for my other peppers. Only have about 4 foot space for my toms and then a shelf with peppers taking up the upper 3 foot. Should be ok as Roma don't need side shooting and are bushy rather than tall toms.
Planted some leeks before I came away. Sowed PSB and Autumn cabbage. Ate another ripe strawberry for desert!

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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)

Went down the lottie with my heritage Negritos beans - 9 out of the 10 I got from the Hertiage Seed Library made it through. Watered them, took some rhubarb to a friend and took the 1 lb 11 oz of Lady Chrystl I emptied out of the second greenhouse tub to my Ma and Sister (because we're having tea there today.) Remind me to do more next year!

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Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon!

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated July 16th 2008

Planted out the last of my main crop spuds - Golden Wonder
>>had cup of tea
Planted a row of sunflowers along the fence, these will be no more than 5' high
>>had cup of tea
Planted out Pumpkins, courgettes and sprouts
Finished flask of tea

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aka
Suzie

Finished planting my Mammoth leeks. Planted my Kelsae onions.Planted more Gladioli in between shallots and broad beans. Swapped some tomato plants for a scotch bonnet chillie. Chopped a lot of timber and used it to heat my greenhouse and boil my kettle. Emptied out a tub of Winston tatties hoping to emulate flums success, to find i only had five useable taters!
Weeded three beds and pathways. Sowed four rows of Swedes to go with the plants I set away earlier indoors. Prepared a bed for more tatties and gladdies.
Hoed' up 3 rows of tatties which had broken the surface in case we have another frost as we did last night!

Watered everything that needed it and I'm now back home with a well earned cheeky little red!

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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)

Inlaws came round for an hour & wanted to go the the garden centre up the road - "oh well, if you insist says me!" MIL insisted on buying me 2 lovely hanging baskets - don't ask me what the plants are called but the are now up on their hanging things looking lovely. Once they went i earthed up my seven tubs of potatoes, re potted a variety of other flowers and sowed a row of turnips & beetroot in the veg bed. Then re-sowed some climbing & dwarf french beans, sweetcorn & courgettes in modules to fill in the gaps of the failures from a few weeks ago - had a terrible germinate rate with the lot. Greenhouse gets delivered tomorrow - woo hoo!

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Newbie,
keen but clueless

I earthed up my potatoes in bags, repotted a couple of leggy tomato plants, mowed the grass. Strimmed the jungle at the back of the garden, shut up the greenhouses early and had a very large cup of coffee and half a packet of biscuits. Just received telephone call from my sister with frost warning, legged it out to find my fleece to cover the peas and broadies, dragged the apple, pear and plum tree in containers into the greenhouse along with the gooseberries and tayberry in pots - hopefully they will be ok, dont want a disaster like last year when my new cherry tree got frosted and died. Now going to have another large cup of coffee and the other half of the biscuits.

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Kim



http://kimbos-veggies.blogspot.com

today I did this, with the tesco flower buckets the Dobbys blagged for us.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Yo an' Bob
Walk lightly on the earth
take only what you need
give all you can
and your produce will be bountifull

Git to the plot for 1030am, rotovated the new plot's greenhouse, then applied chicken poo pellets, growmore, bloodfishandbone, and then a generous dressing of 2 1/2 yr old well rotted pony poo from the front compost bed on the new plot! After giving it a good turnover I then planted 8 toms, 2 chillies, 4 peppers, 4 french marigolds and a marketmore cucumber in there, so hopefully it will do as well as the greenhouse on our older plot is doing!

Did a bit of hoeing, then it was time for the Allotment Societies AGM, so went down and joined in. It was a good meeting, with quite a few good ideas coming forth, and it was also decided that we form an allotment committee, which I found myself nominated to become a part of! (Thankfully I was able to persuade them to include me as a non executive committee member as I work full time, but I do have a feeling they have already earmarked me for fund raising duties! I did offer to do anything website related, but as most of the committee are not terribly computer literate, they declined for the moment!)

After that we had a BBQ, with plenty of red wine, so not a lot more work was done, but an enjoyable afternoon (if a little chilly in the wind!)

Mr D made it to the plot for 520pm, and we then had to wait for his workmate to arrive for his set of keys (he's taking over our half plot and is ok for us to keep our onions and spuds in it until they are ready to harvest, so we're going to split the harvest with him!)

I'm back to work tomorrow, but Mr D is going to the plot til 3pm when he has to leave to get ready to go to work, he's hoping to finish clearing another of the beds on the new plot and finish planting out the onions from seed, and perhaps dig another bed ready for planting later in the week!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 13th July 2008

Impatience got the better of me today and I had to dig up one potato plant to see what i had got. Picked the biggest plant, "Rocket first early" with two pretty mauve flowers fully out. Got five small spuds, largest about the size of a golf ball, smallest a marble. Note to self, " must leave for 12 weeks in the ground, not ready at 9 weeks"

Finally planted-out the last of the main crop potatoes (note to self: when buying in December remember not to mix ambition with capability and that devoting a third of an allotment to potatoes alone is not that great).

Other than that, I got all the pea supports in, planted out the celeriac and tidied-up and weeded between all the plants. My major panic is now where to put everything thats still waiting to go in, bearing in mind that I've used the area I had mentally set-aside for brassica's with the spuds.

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'People don't learn and grow from doing everything right the first time... we only grow by making mistakes and learning from them. It's those who don't acknowledge their mistakes who are bound to repeat them and do no learn and grow. None of us are done making mistakes or overflowing with righteous wisdom. Humility is the key.'
- Thomas Howard

Visit my blog: http://middlefield-allotment.blogspot.com/

On the way home from work this morning I collected my trailer which had a ton of vintage manure in it and filled a 1 metre square compost bin with it to make a hot bed for outdoor cucumbers.

Time for bed now.

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Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated Monday 28th April at 11.50hrs

This weekend I've finally finished digging out the last of my veg beds in my new garden. My son took the turf up for me but I think that he had the easier of the jobs...
I dug out about a foot deep and put it on a tarp.........the soil is clay based but with a large amount of flints in it and by the looks (and feels) of it, loads of ballast. I also found remants of a bonfire about 8" down with numerous amounts of glass and iron. But I perservered and then filled it in with cardboard, paper, old turfs, the contents of my compost bins and some horsey poo that a neighbour gave me before covering with the soil again.
Still have to get a lot of the flints out but got the biggest ones out.... trying to get a fork through the soil when you come up against 8" bits of flints isn't fun