The 'What I Did Today' Archive - 2007

[bubblewrap]

Had first courgettes yesterday & first runner beans & fennel today.

[pigletwillie]

The gooseberries mentioned earlier are now "bottled" in 0.5 litre bottling jars in sugar syrup and are cooling, the raspberries are now muffins, the broad beans frozen and best of all:-

7 x 75cl bottles of rhubarb schnapps have just been filtered, filled and corked and a large batch of limoncello is now being made, 80 days till bottling that though.

[sewer rat]

Put all my hanging basket toms outside on frames, built compost bin round my well seasoned cowsh*t - planted spare courgettes on section that I won't need to use for a couple of months. Started hoeing brassicas, sold some more spuds.

[Salina]

Did a bit of shopping: a packet of tomato seeds (alicante) and a packet of turnip seeds (best of all) from www.brownenvelopeseeds.com and then bought 2 terracotta pots from a hardward shop when we went out for a drive, they were only €1.20 each, bargain!

[heebiejeebie]

cropped loads of tatties, a few peas and a couple of caulis. Took some pics and updated my blog

[wellie]

Well, WHAT a gorgeous day! The sun shone through bedroom window and nudged me out of bed at 7ish (luckily, there was a mug of tea beside me to make the transition more gentle....) and, because I'd bought the August issue of GYO in AlFresco yesterday, I was able to spend a whole hour in the conservatory not talking to the cat or himself, until I'd properly woken up.

At which point, him and me attacked the garden/potager. Trousers took 'shed loads' of foliage off the Wisteria between the Potting Shed and the Little Girls Greenhouse, because Thursday's winds took the trellis and downpipe away with it all. Brilliant Job Trousers.....
Wellie picked more ripe white, red & black currants, and simply loads more Blueberries.
I decided to harvest all the Banana Shallots lunchtime as well, rightly or wrongly. I've noticed that there's new growth beginning to happen in the 'growing point' and I don't want that.

And I just couldn't stand looking at the powdery mildewed leaves of the very first sown courgette plants any longer, so I cut a lot of them off. There are other courgette plants in other parts of the potager to 'take over' ( I successionally sow courgette plants, because of this).

And then as the days' sun was disappearing, I persuaded a very reluctant Trousers to photograph Fert & Liza practicing for the Wimbledon Finals. Thankfully, my cat was really enthusiastic, which kind of lead Trousers into a false sense of security. By the time he'd finished the photos, he was as giggly as I was from the start. Bless my little cotton sox....!
Thank you for listening....

[shirlthegirl43]

Wow, what a day! First of all the sun has shone all day (still windy though) - wahey! Secondly, my turnips have sprouted and they were only planted on the 3rd July!! Way to go - hope they carry on growing as fast

[rustylady]

Well, we only had one shower today, but I've not been as busy as I should have been. Went to the lottie this afternoon, though, pulled lots of weeds but still lots more to go. Picked last of bored beans, more mangetout peas, 1 courgette and some more potatoes.

[heebiejeebie]

Found my parsnips!

Spent 2 hours weeding. That means the swede bed and the parsnip/lettuce bed contain, respectively, swedes and parsnips & lettuce. I removed the netting since everything is big enough to cope with the pigeons and that will encourage me to pull up weeds more often as I no longer have to wrestle with the removing and replacing palaver.

Admired the first tiny developing romanesco. The snowball caulis seem to be doing well and the JAs are now taller than me.

[GeordieVik]

After a couple of weeks of not getting to the lottie much - away on a course last week, awful rainy weather etc., this morning the sun was shining so I headed off to the plot!

Started off by using my Nemaslug - that'll teach them for eating my plants!

Planted out my brassicas - have lots of early PSB, and a couple of other calabrese, and arranged a net tent over them - I know it won't keep the cabbage white eggs off, but I haven't got anything else sorted yet they were covered by a fleece tent until today.

Put some better pea supports in - the twiggy prunings were nowhere near up to the job, planted some cucumbers out, replaced the tomato canes with taller ones, then took the shears to my very overgrown paths. At some point soon I hope to get them weeded again, and then get either membrane & bark, or slabs down.

Strawbs are disappointing - look lovely & red, but not very sweet or tasty (and I have 3 different varieties, so it's not the type) - I'm assuming the lack of sun & warmth has hindered the ripening / sweetening process.

[kirsty b]

Did a grand demolition job today with my much beloved. Bashed down and pulled apart the burnt out sheds and cleared the area that the chicken run is to be extended into, should double the size of it and give my girls much more room.
Came home absolutely rotten, black from top to toe from all the ash and dust. Lost count of the amount of times I bashed my head on bits of metal and Steve got stung to bits when he inadvertently disturbed a wasps nest, thankfully no nasty reactions to the stings apart from swearing!
Going to pop a quick update on the blog, tomorrow going to take pics of the new run once its up and the girls are in.
Plants fairly happy doing their own thing at the mo, which is just as well really! Harvested shallots today, little ones to be pickled and bigger ones to be stored for cooking. Quite a good yield. Lifted garlic too, not brilliant size wise but I'm sure it'll taste fine.
Spotted first teeny baby french beans have formed. Yay!

Kirsty

[Kimbo]

Yesterday did some much needed maintenance on my toms which have been stuck in the greenhouse at back of the garden with no water for the last few days as it was too wet to get to them, they seem to have survived ok as have the french beans which were in there with them, the beans have even flowered and are producing baby beans. They are now out in the garden for a couple of days to get some fresh air, rain etc before going into the big greenhouse.

Planted some more broadies and peas inside in propagators along with some more peppers, chillies and courgettes in the hope I might get a crop later on as the rain has all but drowned the courgettes and I dont hold out much hope - you can but try.
I need to pot on some more toms, peppers and chillies.

[Flummery]

I love harvest time! Loads of peas (Markana) broad beans, courgettes and new potatoes with more mangetout and the first french beans in the offing. Weeded loads and Mr F 'mowed' half his wildflower meadow which now looks like a bad haircut! When it's settled down he will strim it. Made 'Sleeping Beauty' for the village scarecrow competition. She goes out tomorrow. Try for a pic.
Sowed a couple of Gold Rush courgettes for when the Zuchini run out of ooomph. Have a nice day.

[pigletwillie]

I was at work, but Piglette bless her, spent all day on the plots, watering the tunnels and tieing in tomatoes.

After that job, well we do grow lots of tomatoes, she harvested some 10kg of tomatoes which will make a batch of red tomato chutney and several Kg each of red and black currants. It must be the rain but the blackcurrants are huge.

Labelled the limoncello and dated it for 40 days time for stage 2.

[HappyMouffe]

Dodged heavy thunder showers, picked mangetout, dug up the last of the Lady Christl potatoes, harvested lots and lots of sweet peas (the whole of downstairs smells gorgeous, and did valiant battle against ground elder on the new plot. Got very, very, very wet.