What I Did Today Archive - 2010

[solway cropper]

Nice sunny day so I thought I'd mix up some potting compost and put into tubs in the greenhouse to warm up prior to planting some spuds. I have the compost from the bins all bagged up and ready so I upended one bag and the compost came out as one solid frozen lump. Ah well, back to the drawing board....

[Dave & Kate N Wales]

Hubby was going to carry on reshuffling our veg patches and making our raised beds today but we awoke to a surprise covering of snow, we never get it here as surrounded by too much sea so we made some snowmen with the kids instead. Discovered that my leeks had started popping through, i moved them from our back porch (which we use as a cross between a greenhouse and a coldframe type space as its not heated except by the sun) onto the parallel inner kitchen windowsill yesterday to protect them from the frost. Also put some early onwards peas and some broad beans onto damp kitchen towel to pre germinate and have washed out some seed pots and trays.
Katie

[Jeanied]

This morning the ground was still frozen - WD40'd the hinges and latch to the mini grow house and cleared out a couple of shelves ready. Cranked up the propagator and have brought in the seed compost ready. Now all I need to do is start sowing - seed compost and trays waiting ready.

[sarraceniac]

Aaargh! It is snowing again. Those small but loads of them flakes that go on and on. Looks like I won't get out much so I am sowing up my house-warmed compost. All non-edibles like my new Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia which I just hope will germinate 'cos I only got 5 seeds and had to take a second mortgage to buy those. (Not really. The bank wouldn't give me one. Told me they needed the money for a bonus).

Guess I'll just be sitting around all day again, unless Lady S. will let me take her for a pub lunch.

[Aileen35]

Tidied the lottie yesterday, was going down there today to dig it all over, till we opened the curtains and its snowed, again ........ oh well, never mind

[COMPOST CORNER]

Went to Focus DIY and got myself a maximum/minimum thermometer this morning.
This afternoon I sowed Leeks "Musselburgh improved" "Blue Green Autumn Neptune" and "Autumn Giant 3" and Onion "Rossa Lunga Di Firenze"
Never grown onion from seed, but decided to give it a go.
All sown in modules and currently in the heated germination room more commonly known as the airing cupboard.

[Welsh Wizard]

Moved my potted dwarf cherry tree up from the cellar, where it is starting to put out flowers! No chance of cherries this year: it is not self fertile, and I dont imagine there are any pollination partners available with 2 foot of snow still on the ground. My orchard house strategy has kept the thing alive despite 16 degrees c at night, but the lack of a pollination partner is a problem I hadnt forseen.

Laid out some cardboard over the snow in the area I am planning to convert into a veg patch. Got about 300 m2 of garden to play with, so have a lot of work ahead of me to get the beds laid out!

Planted 18x gardeners delight toms.

[ginger ninger]

I've sown my broad bean's, cucumbers and extra tomato's today, I was also going to turn my compost bin but snow stopped play.

[solway cropper]

Part of the garden near the house is a sort of overgrown rockery so I thought that if I removed the rocks and dug it over I could increase the soft-fruit patch and make a small herb garden. Everywhere I put the fork in I hit stones...big stones and black plastic. It seems that some previous occupier of the property had a pond there and then someone else decided they didn’t want a pond so they filled it with rocks and made a rockery. Anyway, after an afternoon spent levering out stones with a crowbar I now have a reasonable patch of ground to work with, except it’s six inches lower than the rest. Who’d be a gardener? I wish I’d never started.

[wellie]

With Trousers off 'Detecting' over the fields of The Funny Farm, I was able to just get my houses in order today.
My noo Kitchen, My Draughty Dutch Greenhouse, My Peachy-Nectarine Greenhouse.
And still bereft of my Big Girls' Greenhouse still, I had time for an 'off the wall wellie idea': There's a low wrought iron gate to the side of the house, and the Westerly Winds just WHOOOSH through there when you don't want them to? So.... In bed with my mug of tea this morning, my photographic memory reminded me that there are four hardwood louvre wardrobe doors that Trousers rescued from somewhere just propped up against the oil tank.
How cool would it be if those louvre doors formed a solid but permeable garden gate to filter those westerly winds, and protect my developing crops on a temporary basis?
Prolly for the first time in our lives, Trousers thought my idea was a good idea, and provided I buy the bits to make it happen, he's willing to run with it.
High five. Top banana. What a great start to the week! X

[nerdgas]

Dismantled the 6 x 8 shed in our back garden and then re-assembled it on the Ecobase I put down a couple of weeks ago.

Pretty chuffed with myself TBH as I managed this on my own. Didn't get round to re-felting the roof so it's currently sporting a bright blue plastic sheet until next weekend.

Oh I also managed to drive the stanley knife I was using to slice open the roof felt to get at the roof fixing screws into my thumb knuckle. Thumb has now swollen up (ouch.....).

I can now get on with ordering the Ecobase for my greenhouse! Yippee!

[selfraising]

Couldn't do much outside because of the weather so...
sowed:
Cucumber Picolino
Cucumber Cucino
Cucumber Green fingers
Melon Sweetheart
Peas Feltham First
Leeks Autumn Mammoth

[selfraising]

Went to Focus DIY and got myself a maximum/minimum thermometer this morning.
This afternoon I sowed Leeks "Musselburgh improved" "Blue Green Autumn Neptune" and "Autumn Giant 3" and Onion "Rossa Lunga Di Firenze"
Never grown onion from seed, but decided to give it a go.
All sown in modules and currently in the heated germination room more commonly known as the airing cupboard.

Are those the red spring onions?

[squashytomato]

Went and got some compost from B+Q but when i got home realised that i didnt have that many pots or trays available but i did manage to sow
tomatoes cherry and normal
peppers
broad beans
sweet peas
sprouting broccoli
nasturgens
at least ive made a start

[falkon]

Outside average temperature is still around -3 C, but I have sowed some chilli and tomato seeds finally....
i sowed following varieties

Chilli

• Jalapeno Early
• Jalapeno Tam
• Black from Tula
• Hungarian Black
• Satan Kiss
• Calabrese

Tomatoes

• Ildi
• Gartenperle
• Krim Black
• Sub Artic Plenty
• Yellow Pear Shaped
• Cour di Bue