The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[Tyto Alba]

Painted garden fence and put up trellising.

Then sowed in pots and trays, peas, french beans, curly Kale, lettuce, broccoli, chillis, spinach and runner beans. I'll sow a lot of the same in-situ too.

Potatoes tomorrow.

[Waffler]

Spent another few hours digging out couch grass - I swear if left unchecked, it WILL, one day, take over the world! Launched chemical warefare on the couch grass on 2 of the other sides of the plot (the idea being that if it doesn't kill it, it may at least suppress it temporarily until I get chance to dig it.)

Planted some more garlic - the sainsbury variety this time - for interest's sake as much as anything.
Sowed 8 varieties of tomato and some land cress.

Watered everything and cut dead wood out of gooseberry bushes and checked them for nasties (all clear... so far...)

[Peter]

After I had taken up all my carpet and woven plastic squash bed cover from last season and stacked it up on a pallet base to finish drying out, I took my two friends Hacken-Slash and Slicen-Dice down to the allotment for a spell.
Hacken-Slash is a Merry Tiller and quite good company, though inclined to wobble a bit. Anyway he hacked and slashed his way through five rods of plot seventeen.
Then Slicen-Dice took over and minced the clods he left. Slicen-Dice is a Howard 350 and is a very noisy chap who works very hard, very fast.

So now ready to re-do in a few days, once the lumps have dried a little bit, if I use the ridger then the spuds can go straight in.

[Seabreeze]

I have just read today's posts here with great interest and am very impressed with Piglet's poly tunnel and interested in the planting parsnips in plastic drain pipes idea. Please do keep us posted!

Despite every intention to get off to a prompt start today, I got up early, but woke up late... then, eventually sewed some sweet corn seeds in 6in plastic pots, covered them with glass and, as I am still trying to clear the greenhouse, have left them outside for a while at least. It's pretty mild now anyway.

The Sweet Million and Beefeater tomato seeds, mentioned earlier, sewn in 3in pots, have now been removed from the small heated propagator. The seedlings are well up and now need potting-on pretty promptly. Some Chili and Sweet Pepper seeds, planted a few days ago, also in 3in pots, have been moved from the airing cupboard, and put in the aforementioned prop. Some of the seeds are just breaking the surface and should be 'out' tomorrow.

Well... earlier this year I chucked a load of soil and garden compost into a metal dustbin and put it in the greenhouse - planted up with sprouting spuds that had come up outside where I was making a new raised bed. I have been watering it all well, and from time to time adding a little extra diluted, 'liquid nitrogen'. The spuds shot up, but seem to have almost stopped growing recently. I have removed some of the foliage, and the soil surface around them, (which I did top up once), is now a sea of unexpected tomato plantlets. There's also what appears to be a melon growing well among them. Tomorrow (?) I will transplant some of the tomatoes into pots before finally moving them to a bed outdoors. I will salvage the melon - this year's seeds of which I haven't planted yet. Hopefully we should be eating new potatoes from the dustbin soon - I hope... but I won't tell Catherine exactly how I 'helped them along'. I am only growing second earlies (Kestrel) this year. They are quite well chitted, so might get planted out early.

Watched Monty and his chums tonight, reminding me of the much neglected perennials, dotted around the garden, and almost neglected - in favour of veg. and fruit.


Later this evening I sewed some of the remaining Albion parsnip seeds (mentioned yesterday) onto wet kitchen towel 'Piglet-style' (thanks for the tip). Watch this space!

After the prog. I when went out to the greenhouse to fetch the parsnip seeds I passed by the pond that late this afternoon I had topped-up and aerated with a fine hose spray. (The Hozelock Ultra 6, bought cheap off Ebay). I shone a torch into the water hoping to find the recently sighted newt. No sign of it... but frogs, were very evident, frolicking about and obviously enjoying the fresh, clear water.

[mandyballantyne]

Just rescued a buzzard, see other thread and any suggestions welcome....

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ead.php?t=6191

[johnty greentoes]

Yet more celebrating.

Sweetcorn, butternut squash, purple pumpkin, courgette all germinated with 100% success rate.

Why don't they tell you how to stick squash seeds in/on compost? Spent time tucking roots into soil.

[Earthbabe]

Yesterday we sowed our parsley. One pot each. Mr EB put some reiki symbols over the pots so that could be interesting - it adds to the experiment. I've just realised I should have done a control pot, although I did sow some flat leaf parsley too separately which didn't get reiki. I shall keep tabs on these seeds. If they do particularly well guess what Mr EB will be called on for in the future - well until I've done my Reiki II that is.

[heebiejeebie]

yesterday - dug over and marked out with string one of the beds for brassicas and started on another, but the soil is really heavy clay and needs some sand or grit dug in before I plant anything. It is slow going too because every forkful has perennial roots that need removing. Despite a couple of rounds of glyphosate last summer, digging over and autumn/winter under tarpaulin, some weeds have survived!

After an hour of forking I had a break and planted seeds instead.
Hispi cabbage, snowball cauli, swede,
lettuce (red and Ice King - still got one left that overwintered. Must get it before the slugs notice!),
sweet pepper, summer squash,
peas, broad beans, nasturtium,
tomato (gardeners' delight)

Then I ran out of compost and had to stop.

Meanwhile Mr Heebie mowed the grass then climbed the apple tree (a delight to watch as he was having great fun! It is HUGE and crops well - cookers) and trimmed off as many of the untidy bits and dead ivy as he could reach to let more air circulate around it.

Today:
(1) go to Wickes and get sand or fine gravel, more compost and some kind of tool that will let me break up the clods more easily.
(2) finish the second brassica bed, dig the sand into both beds
(3) plant the JAs
Or if I CBA with all that digging there's always the onion sets to plant after I weed and fork over the already-cultivated far bed where the leeks have overwintered well. Need to do something with the compost heap too.

[heebiejeebie]

And I learned how to do a signature!

[nuggetonkhali]

Today I would have cut down all my autumn fruiting raspberries and checked through my jerusalem artichokes if I hadn't ridden my horse, walked the dogs and then decided I was too whacked to start!

Wow - your day sounds exactly the same as mine!!

[Birdie Wife]

As it's a leaf day by the lunar calendar, I sowed celeriac (hope it's not too late, packet says sow Feb-March) and did some face painting for our RSPB Family Fun Day at the reserve!

[seasprout]

Just finished weeding and cultivaing over my borders, applied pelleted chicken poop. Can you believe its a bit too warm now.

[tattiefritter]

Been busy in the garden for the last few days but have just finished turning the mess in our dalek composter! Yuck! 18 months of OH dumping grass clippings in and me dumping veg peelings in without any real thought about adding some cardboard or anything made for a very smelly and compacted heap! Broke it all up and put it back in layers with loads of scrunched up corrugated carboard so hope that helps. I'm convinced I can still smell it on myself but can't have a shower until OH comes back in case he needs help with the greenhouse base (yay!).

I'm going to invest in a wormery and a bokashi bin!

[Hazel at the Hill]

Went to the Hill for a couple of hours this morning and I:

• hoed all the chickweed which has started to grow from round the garlic, onions, peas and beans
• put a row of potatoes (cara)
• built a 4' high netting 'scramble' for peas to grow up
• sowed a short row of turnip
• went to wilko and bought pegs to peg down the above (weighed up using bricks but decided that the 99p for pegs was a good investment)

Have now tossed a coin to see whether to go back to the Hill and peg down the net, or pour glass of red, and the red's won, so have put a dozen runner bean seeds in a pot (for mum) and sowed up a trough with French Beans to plant out at the Hill in due course.

What a great day.

[Earthbabe]

I had planned a busy day of sowing stuff in pots but ended up at the market buying crystals again!!

When I tried to buy the compost I like it was no longer stocked and the whole garden centre experience this pm while Mr EB did an apiary visit was very disappointing, I couldn't find anything I wanted and that was Hilliers . I have consoled myself with a new lavender (it was nearly two ) and �14 of seeds from Nickys. It is still a leaf day tomorrow so I can hopefully crack on with the planting I missed out on today.