What I Did Today Archive - 2010

[marathon]

Lovely bright sunny day today but still really cold

sew spinach and carrots in the polytunnel
Cleared brussel sprouts and lightly dug over bed
Took a bin liner full of rubbish home, I can't believe where all the rubbish comes from it must blow in from the neighbouring houses.

Cleaned out chicken house and run

[wellie]

Had no intention of doing any gardening today, but ended up starting to dig a new Asparagus Bed on the boundary of our new Kitchen Garden, and the Sick Sheep Pen.

Having barrowed the manure in, I started to dig the trench, only to discover that there was a big Couch Grass Problem.

Poured myself a nice cold glass of Pinot Grigio, which was about as cold as the North Wind smacking me on the back of my neck, had a wander round, and decided on PLAN B instead.
Plan B means that the trench I've been digging all afternoon will now be Fruit Bushes, not Asparagus, because once I've planted the Fruit Bushes, I can cover the soil in weed-smothering fabric and top it with a manure mulch. But BEFORE that! I can prolly squeeze a Potato crop in first maybe? Greedy, but perfectly possible methinks!

Thank you for listening.X

[Flummery]

Today I potted on my 3rd January sowing of chillies. I also sowed one each of Brandywine, Green Zebra, Darby striped, Black Sea Man and 2 of Cherokee Purple (just to make it 6). These are heritage, mainly late season toms so I'm giving them a start. I shall sow the rest of my toms (and maybe more of these) when I can see my hand in front of my face after dinner time!

[Herbie]

This week managed to sow a few more broad beans (Witkiem Manita 24/01), thought as I am growing them to see if I like homegrown ones, may as well compare two varieties. If it turns out that I really just don't like them they will appear on the seed swap later in the year.

Got seed potatoes out of the shed and set them out to chit in egg boxes. Decided to sow some leeks, Blue Solaise, Musselburgh and some Titan. Unsure if the Titan will germinate as its old seed (2007) but lets wait and see.
Tomatoes and Chili seeds are starting to burn a hole through my pocket so will get the propogator cleaned and ready this week and start the chili's the following week.

Planning on some early peas too.

[Hazel at the Hill]

So far today I have:
- been to Ryton potato day & bought spuds and managed to give away more peas & beans in the swap than I brought home. Brill
- racked redcurrant and apple wines. Brill
- boiled 7lb of parsnips to start off this years parsnip wine. Brill - except the kitchen reeks of parsnips
- dropped demijohn into basin as I rinsed it out, thus shattering both. Very, very bad

[stella]

Sorry to hear you did that. How annoying for you and the clearing up takes forever. At least the rest of the day was good.

[Liza]

Decided its too cold to do anything outside so cleaned the conservatory and made some more space to put seedlings.

Did the big garden bird watch with my 10 year old daughter the cat and the dog.

My 13 year old son came to the conclusion that I am "weird" !

[Two_Sheds]

- watered & turned the over-wintering plants, which are leaning towards the light
- soaked sweet pea seed, for chitting
- indoor tulips are 3" high, dahlia is getting a bit tall, must take cuttings
- planted 240 Red Baron & Golden Gourmet sets in modules, in cold greenhouse
- sowed 50 Long de Florence seed in cold g/h, to see if they do anything
- sowed Lemon Drop chilli in heated propagator
- set some spuds to chit (Tesco's Rooster, Osprey & Estima that were starting to sprout)

[Liza]

- dropped demijohn into basin as I rinsed it out, thus shattering both. Very, very bad

Bless you sorry to hear that

Racked my apple today also have a ceramic sink, heart in mouth every time I wash up anything heavy.

[Snadger]

After collecting eggs and feeding chooks a bit of mixed corn to warm them up a bit, I sowed Golden Bear onions and San Marzano toms. I also sowed 15 Trafalgar F1 Brussel Sprout seeds.
I did notice the Godetia I sowed in a tray in the cold greenhoue are breaking the surface after a very short time!

[Marthaclematis]

After our first trip to the garden centre this year I went into the garden for the first time 'proper' since last October (when we planted bulbs and tidied up). Well, there are loads of bulbs in the green - can't remember what they all are now, but there are snowdrops. I cut back the rose and swept and tidied a bit and then dh called me in for black bean soup..yuummm.
Surprisingly we didn't spend a fortune on our trip. Just got some compost and foxgloves and salad seeds. I can't wait to start sowing!

[Glutton4...]

I finally got round to pruning my Dad's Grapevine - at long last! Well, when I say pruned, I mean just the cuttings that I'm sending out for other people to strike. The rest can wait, it's colder in the Greenhouse than in my blimmin Fridge!

[WeeGarden]

Today I tidied up the garden.

Trimmed out dead leaves from strawberry plants, and pulled up a few baby plants that had started rooting into the decking

Planted garlic - the ground is frozen solid, but I piled new compost on top and planted the cloves into that. Hopefully that should be ok.

Got hubs to put up a nesting box - hopefully we'll have some birds this year to brighten up our new build suburbia hellhole of a garden.

Noticed that there's green poking through in the pots of chives - hardy or what?!

[Lovely Helen]

I finally managed to get my garlic in the ground after it being way too wet before Christmas and too snowy or frozen until now. Planted it on ridges with grit sand underneath - hopefully they will do ok. Everything else I wanted to do kind of waned as the temperature dropped so went back inside.

[pipscariad]

Yesterday I cleared a few more beds at the plot (only roughly, but it's a start!). Moved chickens onto the remaining beds to do some of the work for me, much to their delight. Dug up last of parsnips (I think!),and picked a savoy cabbage (seed from Sarzwiz) to go with supper.

Today I have ordered some potatoes, carrots and shallots, all with help from Vine recommendations. Trying Pentland Javelin spuds (plus Desiree, grown last year with great success), Adelaide carrots (Two Sheds said they taste good!) and Pesandor Shallots. Getting very excited about growing...