What I did today - 2019

[Small pumpkin]

Polinating isolated chillies.
Weeded all beds
Thinned out swede, turnips and parsnips.
Tied up sunflowers.

[happyhumph]

At the weekend constructed a temporary fruit cage around the currants. Works for keeping birds out but not the dog......

[burnie]

Went to see someone else's garden today...……………………….the Queens at Balmoral Castle, nice looking plot and the soil looked good too, but I think they needed more staff, bits of it looked a bit neglected and frayed round the edges. Stuff is a bit later than mine, but the veg looked to good, had a chat with one of the gardeners, everything grown from seed on site, the cut flower bed was impressive too, no pictures I'm afraid.

[1Bee]

Watered.

Discovered that all of four pumpkins are deciding the trail in the 'wrong' direction. Encouraged them to change their mind.

Dug out more of the shed base space. The pace of this, with various injuries, is making me weep. Piled up spare top soil on a sheet of black plastic and covered, so I can top up raised beds and builder's bags at the end of the season.

Weeded onions. Harvested some to thin out the rest. Rescued sundry bumble bees, mostly successfully, from the bits of wood I float in the flexi-tubs of water I use for quick watering. Wish they'd stop dropping in.

Tied up sunflowers. Weeded here and there. Tied up raspberries.

Harvested strawberries, peas, potatoes.

Went to cut the comfrey for the sixth time, and chickened out because I couldn't bear to disturb the bees.

[Snoop Puss]

Watered, pulled out a few weeds, put down some fertiliser, decided I needed to tie up the toms (too hot to do, but the decision is made!) and admired the peppers, which are a lovely dark green and looking very healthy, unlike some of my French beans, which are decidedly chlorotic (hence the feed). Aubergines have barely grown at all in weeks and they're in the same bed as the toms and peppers, so they've clearly got no excuse.

[Bren In Pots]

Tied in my runners to encourage them to climb theres a fair few avoiding the canes. Potted on a cucumber top that I took of a dying plant its got a good root system so it looks like it will survive
More weeding.

[elsie-scot]

Dug hole for a small preform pond. Weeded, mostly grass out of new area cleared for planting.

[Small pumpkin]

Watered tunnels.
Went fishing

[ameno]

Sowed some beetroot in the bed I dug the other day.
Dug about half of another small-ish bed, and planted in it my kale plants, then built another net tunnel over them to keep the pests off. This bed was much easier to dig. It had a fair amount of horsetail, but otherwise it was fairly low in weeds, and had no couch grass at all.

In less happy news, whilst digging I accidentally killed a slowworm. It was a tiny one, no bigger than a large earthworm, and I didn't even see it until I had already decapitated it with my spade. I think it must have been hiding in the actual soil.

[Small pumpkin]

Pollinated chillies
Fed chilli grows
Watered lots of things
Made chilli powder
Harvested lots of things for little shop, a customer and us.

[Chestnut]

Laundry, and ironing.

12 machine loads so far today. It’s been great drying weather :-)

[Small pumpkin]

Set up a water drip feed for my micro herbs / greens
Seed sowing.
Pollinating chillies.
Filled a pot with compost ready for repotting a mystery chilli tomorrow. Letting the compost warm up properly.
Moved mystery chilli 104 into the big tunnel with all my main chillies.
Filled dehydrator with a couple more chillies.

[SarrissUK]

I've watered, watered, and watered again. I potted up a clematis that was unhappy in a pot, but the roots seem healthy, so repotted in a smaller pot until it does something.
Picked strawberries
And then I went shopping because it was just too hot to be out in the garden!
I only came back out in the garden around 5pm and even then it was roasting!

[Florence Fennel]

Sowed more courgettes as the last lot failed to germinate, hoping it's not too late

[veggiechicken]

Planted a motley collection of melon seedlings into the GH bed. I only sowed them to see if the seeds were viable - most of them were! I'm not going to pot them up, they can take their chances at sprawling around the tomato pots.
Also planted out a few flower seedlings, Scarlet's Scabious or are they Hollyhocks and some Telekia (whatever they are!).
Spent most of the day watching the new chooks who spent most of their day lurking under the coop out of the way of Mrs New-Brown.