What I did today 2012-2014

[veggiechicken]

- cut back the fig trees enough to be able to get into the garage:
-turned lots of the prunings into cuttings (not yet potted);
-cleared up all the fallen fig leaves (now naked) and immature figs (some eaten by Mary Dog so her output should be "interesting";
- raked moss out of the paving (not all as I got bored!)
- barrowed all the leaves and moss to my Trampoline raised bed and chucked it onto the heap.

[Loudbarker1]

Not much in the garden - but planted 60 wsweet pea seeds and another 90 pea seeds (Telephone, twinkle and Champion of England), but ordered my seeds for next year!

I was very restrained (honest). I went through seed stocks and listed everything I had that was bought last year and had spare stocks. The result is that I am not buying any brassica seed and hardly any carrot or lettuce.

What I did buy was:

The Real Seed Company:

Carrot D'Eysines
Leek Bleu de Solaise
Spring Onion Ishikura
Parsnip Tender & True
Tomato Latah (a bush tom and their recomendation for outdoor growing).
Tomato Legend
Pea Junos

Nicky's Nursery
Leek Musselburgh
Pea Feltham First
Cucumber Burpless Tasty Green
Radish French Breakfast
Pea Douce Provence
Pumpkin Jack o'Lantern
Dwarf French Bean Allegria

Thompson and Morgan
Tomato 'Sungold'
Tomato Stupice
Squash 'Harrier'
Onion 'Performer' (Bunching Onion)
Courgette 'Defender'
Courgette 'Soleil'
Carrot 'Adelaide'

It looks as if I have gone a bit OTT with the peas, but I am on a mission to discover whether overwintering/early sowing in a cold greenhouse is the way for me actually to manage to grow some!

Next week must plant out the corn salad patiently waiting in its plugs. Also clear and clear in the graden itself.

LB

[hamesy]

Not strictly today, but it was a late night last night and didn't get chance to jump on the computer for an hour. Anyway, yesterday me and my old man finished off one of beds we were building, planted two blackcurrant bushes and a load of rhubarb which was kindly donated by my grandad.

Our next project is to erect some fencing around the plot and to build a small gate.

[hamamelis]

There was actual sun visible today, so went down the plot. I was lucky, my shed was still OK, but the door had been blown open by the wind, there was a good inch of water in a bucket inside, and the shed had clearly been shaking so much that all the stuff on the top shelf had fallen off. Other bits of the site are flooded, and there's a tree down over the path... I hadn't realised the wind was that strong yesterday.

I need to sort out the shed before we get more weather like that, next dry day; this is not the first time the inside has got soaked, and that can't be good for the floor.

Tidied up some of the herbs and ornamentals that have needed clearing for a while, and pruned the gooseberry (and planted cuttings) and the grape (and forgot to plant cuttings, oops).
The broad beans are just poking their noses out of the soil, so I think I timed it about right this time, last year I was too early, and they all got nobbled by the cold snap.

[ladylottie]

Sun was shining here today so finally managed to get up to the lottie after what seems like forever.
Soil completely soaked but not waterlogged, so still couldn't plant the garlic.

Instead had taken up the big loppers and cut down all the raspberry canes (a 16 foot row, two plants deep - it's a LOT of canes!). When I was almost finished, we had a mahoosive downpour and I had to shelter in the shed. Waited until it had passed by then finished cutting the raspberries down.

My arms have only just stopped shaking after holding those loppers for two hours - they're quite heavy! Anyway, that's one big job done - I've only got to get rid of all those canes now

[StephenH]

I ordered my tomato seeds yesterday, from Real Seeds. I don't need to order any other seeds, because I've got loads of viable seeds of all sorts, and self-saved seeds from this year, of everything else I'm likely to grow, but I try new, unusual varieties of tomato each year. The varieties I ordered were: Red Zebra, Amish Paste, Rose de Berne, Costoluto Genovese, Galina, and Jen's Tangerine.
I selected most of them because they looked good in the photos, which is not the best way of selecting varieties perhaps, but I like unusually-coloured or shaped tomatoes. I've grown 'Amish Paste' before, in my first year of vegetable-growing in 2008, but lost nearly all of them to blight, because I didn't take any precautions. I did manage to harvest three, and so know that it's an excellent giant tomato. As far as blight is concerned, I know better now, and will grow all my toms in the polytunnel, which will help protect them by providing a physical barrier to the blight spores, and will also use Bordeaux mixture. I don't like using sprays, not even organically-approved ones, but there's really no alternative with toms. I got no blight this year for the first time, because I sprayed them with B.M. and then left it on the leaves, watering carefully around the bases of the plants so as not to wash it off again. (They were in the pt.)
I've grown 'Costoluto Fiorentino' before, and it was excellent, so I'm trying C. Genovese this year, which I believe is pretty much identical except that it's even more deeply ribbed.
I've also got self-saved seeds from this year's toms, 'Earl of Edgecombe', a yellow medium-sized variety which I got from the heritage seed library because it is, I believe, commercially extinct (probably because it's rather low-yielding, if my experience this year is any guide, but I'll try it again anyway), 'Gold Medal',a giant beefsteak with a psychedelic red-and-orange colour-scheme, inside the fruit as well as on the surface, and 'Green Zebra', which is delicious if you can tell when it's ripe!

[Snadger]

Quite a productive day all told. Spent the rainy morning indoors downloading seed packet templates from google. After folding and selotaping them up,I then got my home saved tomato seeds put into them and labelled
Faired up in the afternoon so I went to the allottment. Even though it was brighter I still confined my work to the greenhouse where there is loads to do.
Firstly I lit the woodburner to get the greenhouse nice and toasty. Had myself a nice pasty which was warmed nicely on the top.
I then proceded to strip the tomato plants out of one indoor raised bed gathering the green and other tomatoes as I went.
I then turned over the bed and weeded it. After raking and levelling I then planted garlic plug plants that I had started in modules. These were spaced one foot apart in three rows (ten per row) Gave it all a good watering and the garlic plants were standing up like little soldiers.

Hate to see empty greenhouses in winter.

[kathycam]

Weeded grass out of paths, and did 3 wheelbarrow loads of wood chip on the paths, will do the rest later. Planted some onion sets. Harvested parnip, beetroot, chard, lambs lettuce and salisfy.

[northepaul]

Mainly I dug channels to drain the standing water in my brassica bed!!
(Shakes fist at council!!)
Then it started to pour with rain, so I went home!

[Bren In Pots]

Took out my last tomato plant in the GH and planted a couple of all year round lettuce' in its place.

[frogga]

I cleared stick, twigs and 2 branches that had fell in the garden, and re-erected my poly tunnel which was destroyed by the wind from last night!

[bearded bloke]

Finished planting the the garlic & onion bed (before shortest day as instructed by Zaz)

[Marcher]

I tied up the Cordyline australis and put it in the shed when it was windy the other day. I think it should be alright in there for a few months I think.

About alliums - so some of you are planting them now? I was thinking of planting some next year, should they be done the winter before like normal bulbs though? Won't they go woody?

[Loudbarker1]

Foul weather weekend; also Mrs Loudbarker has concussion and Master Loudbarker had some childhood illness, so gardening time limited.

But I did spend a happy half-hour planting out the auqadulce. Loads of active earthworms under the compost much. Ideally I would have put cloches over the beans, but the cloches are all in use portecting winter lettuce and cauliflower.

I am sure mice have been at the second lot of peas I planted.

Finally tried the albino beetroot I grow over summer - roasted with pasnips and spuds (also roasted) and leeks. Delightfully sweet - a great success. I am sure the children will like them - but of course they refused even taste them.....

Also Miss Loudbarker has decided (her choice I promise) to take Daddy's veg to her "show and tell". So I made a up a basket with swede, turnip, beeroot, potato carrot and leeks with some tools and seeds for her to take.

[veggiechicken]

Perishing cold out so put on an old Day-Glo jacket (always makes me feel workmanlike) and raked up leaves into a builder's bag. The Kiwi fruit leaves alone filled half the bag. Soon filled it up with oak leaves and made mental note to scrounge some more bags.
Had a lightbulb moment when I realised that for the last 30+ years, leaves have been falling around the trees and been left to rot down. There must be loads of leaf mould I can collect from around them.
Then I bagged the contents of a collapsed pallet compost bin - and very nice it looks too. Very relieved that nothng small and furry darted out from underneath it
I'm very warm now