Grow Your Own Magazine

We had a sprinkle of rain y'day morning, but then hot sun again all afternoon. I don't water unless absolutely necessary ... my beans and peas were wilting, so they got a good drink, into their bottles (watering the roots, not the soil).

Sowed AvonResistor parsnips & Virtue swedes indoors in loo rolls.

Planted out the last of my French beans (Cherokee).

Put cloches over my black kale because the pesky pigeons have found them and shredded the leaves.

Pulled up my Red Sun shallots to finish drying in the sun.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

what type of parsnips are you sowing. ive already pulled 2 of my true and tender as they were huge. i did plant them very early

Rushed out before the rain and harvested a load of peas, broadies, spuds and gooseberries. Tackled a badly overgrown border and found that the gooseberry had layered so I got 3 free new bushes! It pays to be a lazy gardener! Checked the toms as usual and found that the first Sungold is ready - will half it later today for the traditional First Tom ceremony. It's usually a Sungold. Hoped this year it might be a Golden Sunrise which was the first to set fruit. This is still lagging in the ripening stakes but will have a huge crop. Found that 2 of my attempts to cross pollinate tomatoes seem to be swelling up. The first half dozen or so just dropped off. I guess I removed everything, not just the male bits! Then it rained like the blazes so I came in to update me blog and play with me seeds!

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It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 2nd 2008

Arranged with the neighbour earlier in the week to sort out the greenhouse today. Her kids emptied it ( oops - a few bent tomato plants and the plants grouped carefully because I was short of labels are now "unidentified brassica"). We took out the shelving and replanted the best 12 tomato plants in half growbags and 4 cucumbers in compost bags. The 2 biggest cukes are trained up the side of the greenhouse. Also potted up 4 chili plants and left out 3 aubergines and 3 big pots in the hope that whoever is next at the plot will pot them on. Whilst the tomatoes were getting sorted out, the kids picked potatoes and planted out the some of the mystery brassicas. One of the youngsters was suspiciously quiet by the strawberry patch...

Cropped: Anya potatoes, broadies, peas, lettuce, courgette.

__________________
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

blog: http://allyheebiejeebie.blogspot.com/ and my (basic!) page: http://www.allythegardener.co.uk/

Finally got around to knocking up some netting on my arbour to train my peas up! They are about 6 inches tall and will soon start there upward climb. Ne Plus Ultra on one side and Purple Podded on tuther, both from my own saved seed!
Harvested a nice cabbage plus four small heads of a culiflower type plant which could be broccoli............i'll just have to wait and see. Tipped out my penultimate tub of Charlotte spuds and gathered a bit of mint to go with them. Surprisingly the birds had left me with a few strawberries which i duly scoffed.
Topdressed half my tomato plants with well rotted manure and the other half with comfrey leaves as an experiment!

Oops nearly forgot, harvested a handful of my first broadies!

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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)

horrible wintry weather today, so stayed in and sewed a dress.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Oh, forgot ... I did take a few cuttings from my fuchsias to root in water.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

I dodged the showers, and so did Trousers, to bring a smile to your faces at the start of another hard slog at the office, and The Flobalobs did too?! (See Below)
X

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With Love,
Wellie

Give it some....

http://hollycottagegarden.blogspot.com
Hubble Bubble Toil & Trubble (updated Sun 31st Aug. 2015 hrs)

I took Friday off as a friend was coming to visit in the afternoon for a seed-swap and catch up. As it was so sunny in the morning when I waved the toddler and OH off to creche and work (sailing off down the road on his bicycle, the toddler resplendent in her sunglasses!!), even though the kettle was already boiled for my cup of tea, and the bed still warm enough that I'd conk immediately, I got dressed and went to the plot (and forgot to make my tea before I went - resulting in lack of food giving me a hadache by 4pm - stoopid me!).

Arrival: 08.15am. Blissfully quiet and peaceful, and sunny and dry (although very wet underfoot). First job - dig autumn sown onions that had flopped and put them on galvanised sheet to get the best of the sun to dry. Then started weeding. 20 large trugs later (and a few more armfuls seperate to that), I had found the tomato patch again, and the path around the brassica bed, and cleared the early peas row, and tidied up the worst of the fruit bed. The dalek was totally full after 2 tubs, so there is a fairly good covering of weeds over the actively growing ones up the back (hopefully that might slow things down up there and I can reclaim that in the next couple of months!!). The weed suppressant membrane from the old brassica bed was moved as I was going planting there, so that is now covering the area where we planted rhubarb that never came up (having cleared the weeds, this might give those crowns a half a chance to come up?). And I dug up a half row of spuds - between having some visitors for the weekend and also needing the space for leeks, it seemed reasonable to do that much.

I dug over the early peas row and sowed 1 1/2 rows of broad beans (there are some baby cos lettuces at the end of the second row). I sowed 3 half rows of turnips where the white sprouting brocolli had been (em, I know, brassica after brassica, but it'll be rested from brassicas for a couple of years after baby nips) - the radishes, spring onions and carrots on the other end of that space are all growing (some better than others). The old cauliflower space (where I took the covering from) now has 2 rows of peas sown quite densely (as lots don't seem to come up and I want a decent crop of something!!). I also planted out the last 4 butternut squashes and 70 leeks!!!! (That was just one pot, and I have another 2 (slightly less densely planted admittedly) at home waiting for space to plant out).

I noticed that the summer squashes are just starting to show signs of fruiting. And the yellow courgette has some tiny baby ones - although there were no signs of male flowers yet. The climbing beans are all climbing, but no signs of flowers yet. And the tomatoes are starting to have some flowers (but I need to pay them more attention this week to try and totally clear the weeds and to some side-shooting of the cordons in the middle).

I brought home a decent bag of spuds (enough for 4 adults for 2 dinners and a helping of baby ones for a chorizo bake tomorrow), 3 smallish but perfect brocolli heads, another 20 or so onions for drying, and about 15 raspberries in a tub (which the toddler found with great excitement soon after I got home).

After I got home with the toddler, my friend and her toddler arrived and while they played, we got to have fun looking at seeds and swopping some plants. She gave me a kale, while I gave her a couple of peppers (and forgot to give her some brocollis - oh well, might find some space for them yet!).

Nothing else much over the weekend, mooched around the garden a little, rescuing some pea and bean seedlings from drowning, but mostly entertaining people and cooking my produce!! (Oh and dealing with toilet training - at least the weather was ok enough to be in the garden a fair bit!).

Today....

I did absolutely nothing in the garden (apart from walking around it in between showers).

kwa50
CraftChallenge.co.uk - Home

Went round the garden and lottie taking some photo's so will now have to get blogspot updated in the next few days.

Ian

Went up to the lottie after The Archers to do a bit of harvesting . Picked broad beans, peas, dug garlic and have put it on racks to dry under a bit of shelter (they're looking good), also picked some tayberries, logans, the first raspberries, blackcurrants and a few flowers.
Weeded (it was more like removing forest) between the spring planted onions. Noted that shallots and overwintered onions that I'd loosened from the ground can probably be lifted for drying now. A lot of the red onions bolted this year so shall probably not bother with them next year.
Also noted that the potato blight has crept up the allotment site and mine are showing the first signs so shall cut the foliage down after tomorrows promised/threatened deluge. Since we haven't had much rain this season I don't expect much of a spud harvest. The blight arrived later last year and I managed to dig enough to last me through the winter but this year?
Resolved again to keep up with the work throughout next winter so that I shan't be playing catch-up to the same extent next year. I make this resolution regularly as I look at my plot and dream of what could have been.....

Sown a packet of overwintering onions into individual pots. Only 100 seeds in packet so doubled them up and potentially have 50 pots to plant out. Its a variety called Hi-Keeper only produces a bulb of about 4oz but supposed to withstand the winter weather. Still if it carries on like today it will need webbed feet. Not much else going to be happening today.

Ian

Went to the plot early, before it started raining! Mr D has managed to do another 2 paths on our original plot, splitting the bed that we had the overwintering onions in in half. I hand weeded the carrot bed, then handweeded the peas and runner beans, all the while getting wetter n wetter and muddier and muddier! After it started bucketing it down we decided reluctantly to call it a day! Wish the weather would clear up a bit, all this rain is helping every bleedin weed seed germinate!

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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 3rd September 2008 - updated balance sheet!

Here's my first what I did today post...pretty routine!

The promised rain didn't arrive so we were able to get on with some weeding on the veg plot. Hoed between the leek rows and unwound some bind weed that had found its way into the greenhouse and up a tomato plant. Sowed some basil and oregano in pots and a few more spring onions. Dug up some Charlotte spuds and snipped mint to accompany them. Charlottes are looking a bit yellowy leaved - hope it isn't blight!

It was blowing a gale and so had a bit of July "June drop" from the apple trees.

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I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Douglas Adams

Had a root around my potatoes - Charlotte are ready to start lifting but my Lady Christl still hadn't flowered although planted on the same morning, so decided to investigate further - imagine my horror when I lifted a plant, expecting nice smooth creamy tubers to discover round tubers with pink / purple eyes
Not a happy bunny. Whilst I realise that maybe I should have checked the bags before they were loaded into the hopper on the planter, the bags were still stitched and labelled when I received them. My supplier is now investigating whilst I try and determine whether what I have got is a second early or maincrop - it better be a second early of some description or there will be blood spilt.
Anyway got over that and picked my first full box of courgettes including two yellow ones - that's two more than I got last year !!
Planted up another 50 or so strawberry runners, pulled some shallots and put them on my drying nets, started weeding my onion rows but got bored pretty quick - don't mind weeding but the soil is rock hard at the mo and the weeds have a bloody good hold - will wait for some wet stuff to arrive first before I go at them again.
Checked my broadies and ny peas - if we geta decent amount of rain between now and next weekend I'll be in full swing I reckon.
Finished day off by lifting first 25kg of Charlotte.
Went back out at 9pm to water and close up polytunnel as it was too hot to do it earlier on.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

[size="1"]Journal updated Tuesday 5th August

hi
my first post so go easy
went for job interview and when i got back i thinned and replanted my leeks, pinched off side shoots on tomatoes, sowed some pansy and viola seeds, sowed next lot of salad leaves to keep us going, harvested my first tomato (lovely) dug up about 3kg spuds, pink ones don't know the name as OH planted them and threw details away!
weeded around my carrotts and tidied the greenhouse
a lovely day!

Really windy again today (hate it, gives me a headache and a bad mood). Weeded & harvested white Kuttinger carrots; sowed some Scarlet Nantes carrots. Sowed Cherry Belle radish, though I suspect it's still too hot & dry for them.
Sowed Leaf Beet and spring onion. Planted out some Oregano, Sage & Inferno chilli plants from the back o'the greenhouse, that I'd forgotten about. Picked French beans (Tendergreen dwarf) and peas for dinner.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Not great weather today in Coventry. Went to a few Garden centres and dug a 6 foot square of ground in the back garden for some planting, problem is I don't know what to plant yet. Oh well

Potted up the aubergines yesterday.
Mystery brassicas are gradually getting planted out as space becomes available. I think I can tell which are the greyhound cabbages now and the calabrese are obvious.
Today I need to weed, weed and weed some more (and sow beans & peas).
A neighbour has offered the use of his veg patch - three beds all double dug and never walked on - in exchange for some pruning. A good deal, I think!

UPDATE:
Mystery brassicas, spare courgettte and pumpkin are now planted out courtesy of the neighbour's kids with no regard to the rotation system - but at least they are in the ground! Weeding done between the maincrop potatoes (me) and around the beans (neighbour). Florence fennel planted in some gaps. Successional sowings of various things potted on. Peas & beans sown. Blackfly-encrusted nasturtium removed and a fresh one planted. Front garden tidied up a bit.

__________________
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

blog: http://allyheebiejeebie.blogspot.com/ and my (basic!) page: http://www.allythegardener.co.uk/

Picked another 2lb of strawbs from the back yard planters (see the piccy), had about half of them with ice cream with tea, and the rest are going in a yoghurt tonight! Weather wasnt good hereabouts yesterday, and with Miss D having a cold we decided to have a relaxing day, so I updated the blog and relaxed! Now off to the plot early, to weed, harvest and tidy, and hopefully get a few more piccies!

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
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 3rd September 2008 - updated balance sheet!