What I did today 2020

[burnie]

Morning, we still have quite a stiff breeze here, but it is warm and all seems ok in the garden, looks like we might get a bit of fresh salad later, some radish in the garden and some lettuce in the greenhouse, might even be a strawberry from the greenhouse too, SWMBO got the first one yesterday.

[annie8]

The weather was wild yesterday here. Incredibly windy. I wad nervous about branches falling down in the garden. A bit of damage to my peas but otherwise ok I think. Did very little in the garden just a bit of pricking out in the greenhouse.

[peanut]

Ameno - I do hope your watermelon stem heals over, fingers crossed it will.

I've had a very productive day today, cleared another plot for veggies, did some pruning and cut down to the ground every pesky bramble I could find, I've given up trying to dig them out as they always regrow, so now I'm going to deprive them of light and air, we'll see who gives up the fight first, me or them

[ameno]

Planted out 5 of my Marina di Chioggia squash plants in my back garden.

Went out and picked 85 heads of elder flowers. 45 for cordial, 20 for champagne now, and 20 to freeze to make champagne later in the summer.

Noticed one of my watermelon plants was flopping at a weird angle, and upon closer inspection noticed that the stem was severed to about halfway through just above the seed leaves. Probably snapped in the wind. I've carefully propped it up so that the two cut surfaces are pressed together. It looks freshly done (it was still oozing sap), it's still half attached, and the top growth isn't wilting, so I'm hopeful the two halves will fuse back together.

[ameno]

Sowed some chicory and spring onion seeds

Dug over my back garden squash patch.

Thinned my apple and plum trees. That was a hefty job, especially the Beauty of Bath apple - it had several hundred fruitlets and I wanted to thin it to one per cluster.

[Jungle Jane]

Planted a tiny tim tomato,mini sweet pepper plant & some module sown lettuce & spring onions in a little trug earlier. I’ve been writing a list of all the tomato varieties,tallying them up to see what I’ve got,43 plants minus the ones in the blowaway,there’s about fifty tomato plants,21 varieties. I sowed some old watermelon seeds last night & about 18 pots of runner bean moonlight. Last years runner bean plants are coming up next to my onions & borage.

[Bren In Pots]

Planted module sown chard and lettuce hopefully they're larger enough to withstand a slug attack.

[ameno]

Planted three of my sweet potato plants into large tubs and set them up in my conservatory.

Laid down some more black plastic at the allotment.

Watered.

[bario1]

Planted out 15 kale plants and 4 sunflowers - gave everything a water. Picked some radishes.

[Bren In Pots]

Planted toms, marigolds and basil into GH border then weeded parsnip bed.

[ameno]

Transferred most of my pepper plants and my 5 winged bean plants to the patio, where they will harden off for the next week, before going up the allotment.

Cut the grass paths in my garden with shears (it was 2ft tall in places), and then fed all that, along with some hydrangea and fuchsia cuttings, into my shredder.

Took the shreddings up to the allotment and mixed them into the compost bin. Noticed I had some mushrooms (inkcaps of some sort) growing in the compost bin.
Watered
Dug the unplanted section of the brassica bed again. I already dug it in March, but since then a whole load of horsetail has come up.

[Nicos]

Bought bags of potting compost for my tomatoes.
They will be outdoor ones but planted in Black flower buckets

[ameno]

Finished adding home compost to the new no dig veg beds. Covered my peas as some cheeky bird decided to try and pull them up.

I've had to cover all of my peas, too. It's sparrows. I saw them doing it on a neighbours plot: they nibble at the leaves. They do the same to beetroot, too, although they don't see to touch anything else.
It's just a good job peas are self-pollinating, as I don't have any spare fruit netting (used it all for the strawberries), so I had to use scaffold debris netting, which will obviously keep bees out, too.

[peanut]

Finished adding home compost to the new no dig veg beds. Covered my peas as some cheeky bird decided to try and pull them up.

[ameno]

Planted out 5 more mangetout at the allotment.

Netted the strawberries to keep the birds off.

Gave everything a good soaking.