The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[wellie]

I made loads of Tomato & Red Pepper Relish for my store cupboard.
I made zillions of litres of Yellow Courgette Soup, and I have no idea what I did, but it's the very best tasting one I've made to date. Even though Trousers says so himself....
Thank you for listening

[rustylady]

I was going to spend today on the lottment, but had a phone call from work this morning to say that the person who was due to do the late shift had called in sick, so guess what! Tomorrow must be a better day.

[pigletwillie]

Dont forget to post me that recipe Wellie.

We spent a few hours at the plots today, managed to weed out a bed and get the savoy cabbage in at last. A huge old gooseberry bush was dug out from where it had beenm hiding underneath a sprawling mass og blackberry, two self sett plants were rescued but the daddy plant went onto the bonfire pile. Lots more bean for shelling were picked and as a bonus some Serbian plotholders gave me some of their pole beans. they look like paler borloti beans but a bit bigger. They will be grown next year along with several other new eastern european beans that I have picked up this autumn. Lastly we picked strawbs and razzers, crown prince pumpkins and a shed load of salad stuff.

The rest of the day was a rugby fest. Bring on Les Bleus

[Flummery]

Yesterday I shelled a few more yin-yang beans for winter use and next year's seed. Spent the rest of the day at 3 year old granddaughter's birthday bash. Came home with a sugar rush!
What's rugby??

[diggerdelaney]

yet again done more digging takes forever but worth it in the end planted rhubarb that was given to me picked nice fresh veg for Sunday roast (can't beat picked and cooked veg in same day)

[HappyMouffe]

Harvested: sweetcorn (oh my gosh, it's just so different from shop bought!), first parsnips, mooli, one achocha(!), runners, french beans (purple and yellow), carrots, pink fir apples, courgettes, raspberries and sunflowers.

Planted: overwintering onions, garlic, elephant garlic and shallots.

Dug and removed 2 barrowloads of perennial roots from 4 rows of digging

Went to Ness botanic gardens and saw a weasel (see blog for a piccie)

[Flummery]

Collected more seed from the garden (I blame you lot!). Spurred on by the seed envelopes available on-line (see PW's post elsewhere) I designed my own with photo of seeds from my garden. Gosh I'm feeling smug!
Collected more walnuts and several pounds each of sloes and bullaces. Sloes in a wine mash and some of the bullaces soaking in Brandy for Christmas and some in a boiling for jam. The rest may end up in chutney.

Productive day.

[Two_Sheds]

Oh Flum, please tell me how to tell a bullace from a damson from a sloe. We picked two punnets y'day, they are different kinds but I don't know which are which. They both taste sour to me, but one bush was thorny (sloe) and t'other wasn't so much, so was that bullace or damson? I've looked on Google, and ended up more confused than ever.
~Apparently damson have a "bum", a crease and sloes are perfectly round...well all mine are round, no bums in sight.

[Flummery]

Damsons are certainly "bummed" - a divine little crease - and are oval in shape. Sloes are small and the bushes are VERY prickly - prunus spinosa! Bullaces are round and larger than sloes - at least twice the size. The bushes have a larger leaf and no (or very few) spines. They are actually edible (if you've tried sloes you'd agree they aren't!). I've just boiled some up with apples to make a bullace and bramley jam. I leave the fruit overnight to cool so I can fish out the stones. It really does smell plummy. I suspect your other bush with the bigger fruits was bullace - it's the wild plum, whereas damson is generally domesticated.

[Winged one]

Well I sent OH to the pliot this weekend (I was entertaining my sister and sorting stuff at home to make way for demolition of back wall next week). I did do the shopping beforehand though - so he dug over about half of the uncultivated area, and covered all of the unplanted space with plastic (heavy grade damp proof course from the builder's providers - who are also willing to let me have some pallets!! Yay!). Then he planted both my packets of onion sets - swift and radar. will plant garlic (saved from this year's crop), peas (meteor), broad beans (aquadulce) and salad crops (lettuce, lamb's lettuce and cress I think) next week - I received the seeds on Friday (much to the amusement of my work colleagues as I am fed up going to the sorting office at terrible times). He also pulled the last of the spring onions, and said there should be peas next week.

Lots of people on the plot he said - all removing debris, digging over and some covering up for winter. Lots of people saying goodbye till March.

still ripening green toms on the window too - getting 3/4 every few days at the minute.

[Winged one]

Oh, I knew I did something else myself - went to Lidl last night and got 2 bare rooted redcurrant bushes and a second polythene cloche with hoops - will use that to cover the salad crops and hope I get some over the winter months.

And another forgot - so editing to add this time - toddler helped OH and I to save the seed from one of the sunflower heads for next year. Will have a load of them on the plot and plan a bunch in the garden too (if it ever recovers).

And also forgot to add - as part of my clearing out operation, did a load of filing and shredding, which added plenty of nice paper to our composter at home.

[Sebbster]

Work has got the better of me over the past couple of weeks so I've only been to the allotment a few times.

However, have dug most my carrots and stored them and also cleared the land where the pots were. In all spare space I have sown Hungarian Rye to grow over the winter.

Bright Yellow chard is well established now and have been picking Kale, Sprouts, Swedes, Broccoli, Turnips, Spinach, Beetroot and still runners which have just started flowering again !

Late Peas have also started producing although not may as yet.

Spring cabbage being decimated by slugs so put some pellets down and netting over them.

Blog not updated but will be over the next couple of days with pics.

[SunnyD]

Yesterday I harvested the last of my baby sweetcorn and five whole runner beans! Pulled up the sweetcorn plants and chucked them in the compost bin, along with the remains of my sad unproductive courgette plant.

Harvested a few courgettes from the remaining two productive plants, chopped them up and froze them on trays for winter munching.

Replanted my baby fig tree (bought from a car boot earlier this year for �4!) into a half barrel planter (�14 from ebay, hurrah!), where hopefully it will thrive and give me figs

Planted out my Kale and PSB pants into the bed that previously held my onions and garlic - poured lots of coffee grounds around them (free, courtesy of work), to try and discourage the slugs and snails that I seem to be breeding.

Mowed the lawns, pulled up my finished Nasturstium plants, (leaving behind loads of kernels that'll hopefully geminate next year). Picked another cucumber from my prolific Petita F1 plant. Ran out of daylight!

Today I am sitting at work plotting to harvest a bag of shredded paper from the shredder to add to my compost, and making a list of things I want to try and grow next year

[rustylady]

Finally managed to get to the lottie yesterday, picked what is probably the last of the runner beans, french beans (fresh, plus some for drying). Started sorting out the strawberry bed (a tangled mess, why do they produce so many runners when you're not looking?). Dug some more spuds (Desiree and Arran Pilot which are keeping so well in the ground I may leave them again next year instead of digging up and storing in the shed). Lots of weeding, they are still growing like crazy, specially docks, mallows and evening primrose. Green leaves on compost, roots left to dry to go on the next bonfire.

[Flummery]

Yesterday - finished off making the Bullace and Bramley jam - really tasty - and then made Bullace and Marrow chutney using my 'infinite variety chutney' recipe! Minced 2 lb raisins to add to the 2 gallon sloe wine mash. Smells gorgeous already. In the evening I went to the AGM of our Britain in Bloom group.
Too wet to garden today so the sewing machine will come out shortly.