What I did today 2026

[Peanut]

JoaoLeaftide Thank you! Containergardener I'll take every drop please! Nicos talk about being daft! My neighbour told me today, you did that the last time we set one up! My response, then you should have reminded me! I love my neighbour

This morning I pricked and potted tenderette and early psb, April spring cabbages, tom thumb lettuces and assorted sunflowers.

Tonight I rescued a hawthorn mining bee from a water filled tub trug and held him on a pyracantha flowerhead in the evening sunshine until he flew away.

[Mark Rand]

Played pass the parcel/pot/plant. Moved the pepper and one of the chillis into 12" pots, moved a basil plant into a 10" pot and a courgette seedling into an 8" pot.

[JoaoLeaftide]

Finally got round to thinning the apples on my young Braeburn today, always feels brutal removing perfectly good fruitlets but the tree will thank me for it later. Also noticed the first signs of blackfly on the broad beans, got there just before they really took hold.

[Bren In Pots]

Planted my courgettes today two in beds either the third going in a recycling box.

[Mark Rand]

Scraped off the thatch and cultivated the (heavy clay) soil a bit on some of the bare patches in the back lawn caused by not watering in Bailey the dog's puddles. Tamped in a bit of soil and compost mix into the hollows, then stirred in some seeds.

Note to self:- it might work to stir the seeds into the soil/compost mix before putting it into the hollows.

Whilst pulling up a few weeds from one of the mint pots, I noticed some snails were hiding on the pot sides, shaded by the mint. Went around mint, parsley, chive and thyme pots removing snails and stamping on them. Didn't seem to be any in the Rosemary pot, but that one doesn't have any shade for them to hide in.

[JoaoLeaftide]

Spent a couple of hours tying in the cordon tomatoes and removing side shoots. Already behind on it — the growth this past week has been ridiculous with the warm spell.

[Containergardener]

Mark Rand same issue here with patches

[Containergardener]

Managed finally to start getting my toms into final pots, 5 left to do but need some more compost.
Dismantled some of the blowaways that have been in my gh.
Got some more plants out of gh ready for planting out.
Cut grass edges after OH cut the damp grass.
OH strimmed.
OH helped me get my arch up on my veg beds.

[Mark Rand]

Last week:-
I seem to have spent a lot of time designing a Stevenson Screen to hold temperature and humidity sensors for the greenhouses and the outside world, then using my birthday present 3D printer to make them. Very inefficient use of time, but far less so than machining them out of solid or making them out of wood in the workshop:-








Yesterday:-
[MOAN] Cut down Neighbour Darren's sycamore tree. he reckons it's mine, 'cos it's on my side of the wooden fence (it's on his side of the 5' concrete boundary wall needed by the hill we're on and growing in his ground) and seeded from an oak tree that our eldest sowed as an acorn 35 years ago and cut down by me 20 years ago. Actually, it probably came from a 'helicopter' from his other neighbour Kevin's sycamore tree.

Whatever, I cut it down and will keep trimming the stumps as they grow and using the battery powered drill to make holes. I'll fill the holes with ammonium sulfamate next week and triclopyr/SBK in the autumn. Hopefully that'll discourage it from returning.
[/MOAN]

Today:-
I'm letting last year's parsley plants grow on in their pots to see if I can get self seeded ones next year. I've noticed, with amusement, that last year's curly parsley pot has got sedum growing as a weed. When I've tried to grow it in the front garden flower bed it's died. It's only one variety, but I might try transplanting it to see if it can grow on.

[Containergardener]

My neighbour has planted a sycamore

The parsley I grew in my veg bed last yr has regrown. I'm surprised tbh.

[Containergardener]

Nice handiwork