The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[Mrs Dobby]

Got up to a grey, rainy and windy morning, so spent some time side shooting, feeding and watering the toms in the plastic greenhouse in the back yard, whilst Mr D did some potting on.

Rain stopped for about 11am, so with lunch made and a hot flask of coffee we set off for the plot, and have just this minute got back!

Between us we've dug over the 2 beds that we've harvested early spuds from, dug over another 15' by 4' bed, weeded the 9' by 30' brassica bed, fed and watered inside the greenhouse, and done some planting!

A total of 12 sunflowers, 54 assorted brassica seedlings, 29 celery seedlings and 290 leek seedlings were planted out, bringing our total of leeks growing to 330 and our total of growing brassicas to about 100!

Squealed with delight also today, after spotting the first two of our cauli's with edible curds! Bent the leaves over to protect them and weeded round them, one if about 4 mouthfulls big and the other about 2 mouthfulls, but hopefully they will soon be a bit bigger!

Plot1 is once again full of growing crops, and plot 2 is full apart from 2 beds, which (if the rain holds off for a bit) will be planted up this week!

Now its time for food, both starving after 9 hours on the plot!

[shirlthegirl43]

Harvested all my blighted spuds, got enough for maybe 3 meals!! From 30 buckets that is tragic.

On a more positive note, I finally conquered enough of the bramble patch to sow a row of kohl rabi. Not much really but it feels like an amazing achievement. I have attached a picture so that I can look back and see the progress. The kohl rabi is under the carpet so the cat can't re-sow it!

This time last year the brambles (behind the peas in the picture) covered the whole area in the photo - to a depth of 6 foot.

[kirsty b]

Fitted a new gate on the chook run. cut down the nettles at the front to make space for the rubbish I'm going to stack up there till I take it to the tip.
Got a marmande tom getting bigger (my only on of those so far), put some young leeks back in their hole where birds have pulled them up. Going to sow some more carrots and beetroot tomorrow when I've cleared enough room.

[Mrs Dobby]

Weather looked nice when we got up, so after a quick trip to pick up the piccies of Yo and Bob's wedding we went straight down to the plot! The plan was to finish the weeding on plot1, sort out the herb bed and plant it up with seedlings, dig over the 2 unused beds on plot2 and plants some more swede, turnip, carrot and parsnip!

On arriving we were approached by one of the other plot holders and asked if we'd like some cauli and cabbages that she'd got spare, so of course said yes, then found ourselves with another 40 brassicas to squeeze in! As one of the spare beds on plot 2 had kale in it when we took the plot over we decided instead to try and sort out the asparagus bed (which has done almost nothing this year, apart from 3 ferns of asparagus that are visible), sacrificing the little asparagus we have (if needs be) to plant out the brassicas!

Mr D started to dig it over, its been sadly neglected with a lot of thistle, dandelion, bindweed and couch in it, and did manage to safetly remove the asparagus, also finding another 3 crowns that hadnt grown, so then the problem of where to plant them?

We decided that as there was only the 5 crowns that we'd put them into what was going to be the herb bed, which has been covered over with weed control fabric since we transplanted the 2 foxgloves into it (after double digging) back in November. On removing the weed control fabric it was to find lots of weeds, so I started to dig it over, then as I got half way through it started to pour it down!

So, we finished digging, raking, compacting the soil and planting the brassicas out in the rain! So, a productive day, even if we got nothing that we'd planned done!

[sewer rat]

Sowed the final two drills of carrots, two of beetroot and one of Swiss Chard.
Sowed 10 double rows of late peas, then planted out some Charita Lettuces.
Started to clear the weeds from round my brassicas as they are beginning to get smothered.
Came home, shower, supper the took Iona to see Red Arrows at our local Gala.

[pigletwillie]

I pricked out a second sowing of bulb fennel, some basil, lavatera and helenium. Nine achillia were potted on into 1 litre pots ready to be moved to the allotment coldframe.

After that I tidied the plant pots and trays and erected three pergolas ready for the weekends bash before it started raining.

[wellie]

Very exciting day - so please forgive me mods if I ramble a bit? Promise not to ever again until the next time?
Officially took over my first allotment. The present tenant has paid up until March '08, and declined my offer of financial contributions, only wanting to harvest the crops between now and then that are his. He is perfectly happy for me to start weeding (!), cultivating and planting straight away. And given all the hard work he has put in over the last three years to bring the plot up to a perfectly acceptable standard of cultivation, I shall be going there for a few hours tomorrow afternoon, to weed in amongst his growing crops for him, and the 'untended' areas for my own use (ie. Trousers and I). Trousers wants to grow Dahlias, which is great, because he has memories of lovely Dahlias from his childhood, and, on the odd occasion, it could win him Smartie Points, when there's no other visible way out of The Dog House? No, I'm joking. He's my everything.

Piglet has some black Kale and french letters, sorry, french 'lettuce' plantlets for me. I must improve my pronunciation....? and Hazel today sent a package through for Fert & Liza containing a Vegetable Jotter Book and a wonderful array of 'Traditional Allotment Collection' seeds. The jotter is going into (my truck) JLO's glove compartment, so that I've always got it with me. Fert & Liza and me sowed the Parsnip and Carrot seeds this afternnoon, as they won't keep till next year. The rest of the seeds you will be able to watch grow next year from your armchairs.
Hazel is determined to discredit me with my Postie?
"Fert & Liza Flobalob"
Holly Cottoge
etc. etc.

My life just gets better every day, and so I thank you.

Thank you for listening,

[pigletwillie]

Between showers I laid down some more memnbrane and planted carnival squash through it. Also into a bed went a tray of Fench varieties of lettuce and some spring onions and lastly up came a bucket of new potatoes.

[sewer rat]

Put guttering up on shed with downpipe into IBC tank. Fed toms and cukes with chicken manure pellets dissolved in water, weeded cauliflowers, found out was gonna be a daddy.

[Mrs Dobby]

Woke up to find a strange yellow glowing thing in the sky, folks were running around in the street pannicking, thinking the end of the world had come, but after checking with the Met office we were all amazed here to discover it's something called the Sun, and is natural! Not something to worry about, tho the Met Office did say that normal grey wet weather would resume shortly!

Got to the plot late morning (I'm on holiday, so am allowed a lie in, honest!) to find that the plague of wabbits had decided that most of the brassicas we planted yesterday were earmarked for them, so lots of nibbled stalks! Grr!

Fed most of the hungry crops with chicken manure pellets and then watered inside the greenhouse with tomorite! Spent a couple of hours side shooting the toms and thinning out the foliage a bit, they've gotten a bit wild in there!

We finished sorting out the asparagus bed we dug and planted yesterday, and planted some herb seedlings and french marigolds we had spare above the asparagus, to provide some ground cover and stop the weeds taking over again! (Did feed the bed very well before planting, so the asparagus should still get enough nutrients for next year!)

Weeded another half bed, can now see the lettuces and beetroot again now, then decided to use some of the scavenged perspex to make a wabbit proof enclosure around the remaining brassicas, its now known as Fort Tesco (as the perspex was old trolley park covers and has tesco logos on it!)

Left the plot at 630, and am now going to contact YoanBob to see whether we are still on for tomorrows digging party, despite the rain!

[Hazel at the Hill]

After work I went to the Hill and did YET MORE WEEDING of the onion/root bed then I sowed a short row of salsify (thank you Terry) and a short row of mixed carrot.

Picked a big bowl of peas, and a few carrots.

Bought fish and chips from the chippy for tea and ate with bread and butter and a biiiiiiiig glass of white................cheers!

[wellie]

I did 3 hours weeding at the Lottie, and brought all the weeds back home in binliners. They're either docks, nettles, couch or seeding annuals, and I'm not prepared to even contemplate making compost out of that lot! So it will all go in the green wheelie-bin.
The soil on the Lottie is absolute quality. The weeds were just sitting on the top, and so the areas that I've managed to clear, are ready for planting now.
With all this rain, I'll do a soil-test for nutrient level next week in various different places, just to get some idea, and a pH test.

And I've had a lovely offer of some Purple Sprouting plantlets today, which I have got 'just the place for'.

Tomorrow morning, I'm taking Trousers to the Lottie to show him, so that if he wakes up on a sunny Sunday afternoon on his lounger at Holly Cottage, and wonders where 'The Skirt' is, he'll have two educated guesses!
He's going to love his Dahlias, I just know it! and I suspect he'll be getting into growing a few more of Sarah Raven's Cutting Garden Plants(!)

So, here's hoping we can all keep relatively dry this weekend? And happy gardening.
Thank you for listening,

[sewer rat]

tied in toms and cukes, pinched out toms, staked my Jalapeno chilli plants, nipped growing points of my broad beans (have chocolate spot and two had first sign of aphids. My mate reckoned I should spray (he would, he's a rep for an agro-chemical contractor), told him no, ladybirds would deal with aphids and choccy spot was not really that much of a problem - and anyway, I am trying to grow all my crops without use of chemical sprays.

[Vegmonkey]

Pulled the first carrots that we planted from seed back in february and transplanted out mid april...a bit wonky but they look great. Also pulled the first turnip! Looks amazing too...cannot wait to get stuck into them.

Going to be cauliflower cheese with a carrot and turnip mash. Lovingly prepared by the Mrs...i hope!

Planted more turnip - purple top milan, swede - magres, rainbow chard and 2 varieties of cauli - winterwalcheren pilgrim and all year round, and covered them with fleece to help them germinate.

Repotted the sole chilli plant that germinated and potted up the 6 sweetcorn plants into one pot, i hope this gives them enough room, as i know they need to be planted close.

[rustylady]

Opened the greenhouse, closed the greenhouse, opened the greenhouse, fed the guinea pigs, got wet, closed the greenhouse again - finally gave up and went to my friend's birthday barbecue (guess what we ended up indoors). I can't believe how much rain we've had over the last month - I don't think we've had one whole day without rain of some sort. Home now, glass of vino, probably bed soon as guess what - it's raining again!!!!!!!!