What I did today - 2015

[kris1960]

Skipped shower and went straight to allotment before rain- am layering weeds with horse manure in a pile in old fruit area where small bed is going to be (I wont need it until next year), hoping it will enrich soil,keep weeds down there and provide more compost for next year. I may cover it with black membrane that will let rain through but haven't completely decided yet.
My grand plan is to make a large onion bed further down- deep dug and root free ready for sets in November. It has been overgrown for 20 years and consequently is covered in moss, nettles old currant bushes, wandering raspberries and embedded branches. I can see most of the ground now and have been keeping nettles down but not dug out yet. I need to dig out fruit that is not doing well, rake off and burn moss and wood (saving ash for fertilising) and then commence digging.
My pallet compost bin is at the top and tight packed - 1 cubic metre- I am thinking of putting a layer of manure over the top and tucking it in with left over black pond liner with some holes in the top for the winter.
Hoping that anyone who reads this will let me know if they think that I am doing this the right way or if my plan needs tweaking or refining or completely changing. I am also not sure what this soil will need for the hoped for onions and garlic.

[SusieG]

Everything according to plan then!
Great to get away, even better coming home! �� Your plot needs you!

[SusieG]

Wonderful! Lucky you - I have growers envy!!

[kris1960]

Lovely being back at allotment, tomatos have got bigger, melons have tiny fruit, tithonia has started flowering and the weeds continue to flourish.
Dug and put in some more potatos, manicured outdoor tomatos, fed all tomatos with comfrey and began sorting the old fruit area- its a massive job and will probably take me until autumn to finish properly.

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

[QUOTE=Bigmallly;1362184]Spent the morning feeding ducklings cos I'm pants at fishing................


The exact same reason I gave up Golf! I was "Pants" at that too!


Harvested the first main batch of onions! These were from sets!



Let em dry a tew days!

Cleared the bed! But waiting to see how the seed sown set compare!



Must admit! the seed sown seem to be doing "Favouraly Better" we'll see!

[Penellype]

Spent the morning at my friend's, tying in cucumbers and tomatoes, planting out beetroot and weeding. Harvested a HUGE calabrese measuring over 10 inches across.



Came home and potted up choy sum, mibuna and komatsuna, and sowed some lettuce, mizuna and kohlrabi. Watered the back garden with slug nematodes in anticipation of a slug fest when the wet weather arrives (it hasn't rained much here so far but it is forecast to soon). Cooked 2 large panfuls of calabrese, one for the freezer and one for tea. Still more than half of it left in the fridge, but no more would fit in the pan!

[Penellype]

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Went and picked strawberries and decided raspberries looked good too. Want to try a jam but haven't got a clue how lol

Raspberry jam is easy - see this recipe for example: Homemade raspberry jam | BBC Good Food

Its important to use the proper jam sugar otherwise the jam won't set.

[Bigmallly]

Spent the morning feeding ducklings cos I'm pants at fishing................


..............................

[pandasyard]

Went and picked strawberries and decided raspberries looked good too. Want to try a jam but haven't got a clue how lol

[marcofez]

Finally on thursday constructed 2 Enviromesh cloches and planted my leeks for one and sowed carrots for the other. Hoping that they deter the Leek Moth and Carrot Flies!

[Jay-ell]

Yesterday I planted some stuff in the blowaway. Easy but I had to build the blowaway first.

Well they're not hard to put up but I had to build the bed first.

A bit more involved but I've haf practice but before I could build the bed I had to dig over the ground.

And that's why it took me all day to put a couple of things in the blowaway - digging out all the nettles, bind weed, reel to reel tapes, videos, cutlery (none of it matching though) .

I then got a message at 5pm asking me to go to work so I never got everything I wanted to do done.

Just been down to water today and realised that sometime in the last 24 hours vandals have been on to the plot next door and chopped down his entire crop of weeds - both annual and perennial.

He'll be gutted when he gets back from whatever country he's currently living in.

[CaroleL]

We had a rather overgrown eucalyptus tree cut down the other week, and today I cleared the area around the stump. It was full of brambles and ivy but is fairly clear now. I'm going to use the area for compost bins as it's up the back of the garden, behind the greenhouse.

[kris1960]

Planted some parsley plants for my daughter but did not make it to allotments:
Had foolishly told children that I would cook whatever they choose for lunch from starters or light meals from their parent's cookbooks- got stuck with alsace onion tarts with anchovies and stilton soup. Stock, pastry etc. Saved tart for daughter which resulted in me having to make another batch! Had also promised to make old family favourite of puy lentils with smoked ham for dinner! Not much time left for anything but cooking.
Took grandson to Graves park yesterday and tried to get some manure from city farm- they used to give it away but someone had ended up with poisoned plants so they no longer could. Animals and park were great- I wish I could have chickens at allotment...and goats.....and pigs.....and

[Lumpy]

Got the last teeny weeny raised bed into the 'all new veggie area' for next years attempts.

Pulled the bolting radish but left the bolting perpetual spinach as I think the flowers will look nice.

Re potted the aubergine OH got from Asders last night for 25p

Planted 6 more herbs, thyme, rosemay, sage etc also got from the above supermarket for 25p each - bargain.

Am about to hunt on the interweb for mooli seeds called Neptune - Ta for the recommendation off the 'what can I sow at the end of July' thread.

[Snadger]

Originally was going to harvest half of my shallots which still appeared to be growing even though they were nearly the size of my onions! The plan was then to plant up the vacated area with Mooli. I then had a second look at the shallots and asked myself " How big do you want shallots?"
After convincing myself they were big enough I harvest the full 10 foot X 6 foot bed!
As I like to practice no-dig wherever possible and there is a lot of muck in the surface layer I just hand weeded it them deep hoed the whole area.
After raking I divided the plot in half and sowed three rows roughly 1 foot apart of Neptune Mooli and Mino Early Mooli. I then watered the bed with three X two gallon watering cans full of water to give the bed a good soaking and hopefully give the seeds a good start in life.

Made myself a bit sick by munching on soft fruit all afternoon!