Scrapheap Challenge

[Nicos]

Are the moms jealous of each other/possessive or are they getting on well?
Must be weird sharing chicks!

[Snadger]

Are the moms jealous of each other/possessive or are they getting on well?
Must be weird sharing chicks!

They seem to get on fine. There are two banties plus one large foul. LF tends to sit on the banties and the chicks!

[Snadger]

Put some more ties on my tom and cuke plants in polytunnel. Harvested some calabrese. Not the huge tasteless pieces you buy as broccoli in the shops but smaller heads, much like PSB.

Dug up another shye of Charlotte spuds and got enough decent sized spuds for a meal.

Sowed a row of Spring cabbage Offenham Flowers of Spring. They were the cheapest and not F1 so they are the ones I went for. I don't think I have got any F1's planted on the scrapheap, which is an achievemnt in itself considering the seed firms are trying their best to fob you off with them.

Got a few picies of chicks. They are well disguised, but their three mums know where they are.

And of course the old man is keeping an eye on things

[Snadger]

Took the cover off and thinned my carrots to little clumps two inches apart. Replaced cover. Watered stuff in polytunnel.
Made an area for the chooks to sit in the sun up off the ground. Watered and fed chooks and chicks and gave them some brocolli leaves and spring cabbage.Watere stuff in summerhouse.

Spent about an hour mesmerised by the chicks, hens and cockerels antics. Threw a worm in for them and it stuck on the mesh roof. I was watching for it ready to drop off when I noticed the cockerel doing the same, with his head on the side so he could see the worm. He lost interest before it dropped and another chook ran in and grabbed it!

My Japanese onions are a good size and have flopped over, but tops are still green. Don't know whether to lift them or not? I have Curly Kale and Toscana De Niro kale ready to go in when they come out. I also have Mooli to sow, which is another possibility for the area they vacate.

[Snadger]

Lifted the remaining Marco garllic that I had in pots and put it out to dry on an old dog cage!

Dug up another shye of Charlotte spuds which gave me enough for sunday lunch for two.

Did a bit of hand weeding and gave the chooks the weeds a 'blown' spring cabbage which looked the worse for wear!

[Snadger]

Another shye of spuds dug for supper. Big Charlotte potatoes but would rather have the same weight in slightly smaller spuds. Beggars can't be choosers though!

Harvested my japanese onions to dry off. They have performed really well.............and thankfully no white rot at all!



Japanese red onions likewise.....though slightly smaller, and no 'bolters'.



Of course I still have my spring planted onion sets to harvest later. A lot of the red version of these have bolted and been discarded. You would think that the amount of time red onion sets have been available, they would have conquered the bolting problem?

I planted out some curly Kale plants in the area the onions had been lifted from.

I bought a couple of punnets of bedding plants from Homebase for a squid apiece. Yellow snapdragons and red salvias should fit in nicely with the cineraria maritima siverdust that I have kept for the last couple of years. The punnets only appeared to require a good watering before planting so I placed them in a water bath.



Left the plot with red and white onions,baby beetroot,garlic, new potatoes and some calabrese. A nice organic 'Veg box' which would have cost a fortune to buy. I'ts little things like this that make veg gardening worth it!

[Snadger]

The Japanese Onions I put out to dry off certainly won't dry off in this weather so I've put them onto a bench in the polytunnel today.

Weeded and thinned one of my carrot beds then replaced covers.

Dug up another Charlotte spud shye. I'm getting more spuds each time I dig a shy. I'm keepeing the original seed potatoes in an egg box and they are sprouting again. I intend having another go at Christmas potatoes, although I failed miserably last time I tried it.

I have two grape vines in pots one of which is a grafted variety which wasn't cheap.Neither of these are growing well but the grape which was originally planted where the woodburner is is growing like the clappers out of the bottom of the woodburner. This un-named grapevine was grown from cuttings by a another plotholder and I grew my grapevine on my last plot from cuttings of that plant. So this makes this grapevine the original of the one I was growing on my other plot. With this in mind, I took five softwood cuttings and put them in a pot covered with a plastic bag today. Hopefully I'll be able to rekindle my original grapevine which gave loads of fruit, albeit they had pips.

With four Charlotte spuds now harvested this gave me room to plant a row of Mussleburg leeks I have waiting in the wings. Also along the edge of the path in front of the leeks I planted a row of lemon thyme as a decorastive edging.

I weeded my Chrysanthemum plants and put some stakes in some of them. The ones I have in pots will come into the summerhouse for late flowering. I also staked some of the sunflowers i have dotted around the plot.

I potted on the last two cucumbers into pots to grow on in the summerhouse. Sorted the chooks water and food along with collecting the eggs, watered all stuff in summerhouse and all stuff in polytunnel.

Last but not least I added four stakes to the potted Passion Fruit plant on the front of summerhouse in a fan shape and tied in some of the shoots to start training it. This is seat of the pants stuff as with it being the edible version i have no idea when or if it will flower and can only guess at the training required. Its in a huge pot with the idea i can cut it down and bring it into the summerhouse for the winter, before the first frost.

Appologies for the length of post, but I'm off work just now so managed to get quite a bit done.

[Snadger]

Lit the woodburner as it was bladdy freezing.

Potted on four delphinium seedlings. Potted on one sweet Dumpling squash plant.

Raked part of the area where the japanese onions had been and sowed two curved rows of my favourite vegetable..........Mooli!, highlighted rows with Poundland vermiculite!



Filled chook feeder with last 25Kg of layers pellets and gave some chick crumb to chicks. Reminds me i must get some more food for them on Sunday.

[Peteyd]

I've been following this thread since you started it and i have to say, I'm pretty envious. I love doing stuff in the garden and tending to my own "plot" (two raised beds in the back garden and a handful of pots) and would love an allotment but have none in my village.

It's amazing to see how far you've come. keep up the good work.

[Snadger]

I've been following this thread since you started it and i have to say, I'm pretty envious. I love doing stuff in the garden and tending to my own "plot" (two raised beds in the back garden and a handful of pots) and would love an allotment but have none in my village.

It's amazing to see how far you've come. keep up the good work.

Thanks Peteyd. Its been hard work but enjoyable. I'm starting to reap the benefits now though.

[Nannysally99]

How's the chicks Snadge?

[Peteyd]

I dont mind a bit of hard work. I much prefer doing things with my veg "plot" that anything else really.

The worst is the rainy days where I cant get outside.. Bear with a sore head comes to mind.

[Snadger]

How's the chicks Snadge?

They don't like this wet weather, but luckily they have plenty of places to stay dry. They appear to be thriving and once they grow noticably (which they are starting to do) I'll try and get some more piccies.

[Snadger]

I dont mind a bit of hard work. I much prefer doing things with my veg "plot" that anything else really.

The worst is the rainy days where I cant get outside.. Bear with a sore head comes to mind.

Thats when a summerhouse with a woodburner comes in handy!

[Snadger]

Last day of my rainy weeks holiday today so back at the scrap heap trying to keep busy. I decided to try and stop the jungle that ny plot is next to encroaching on to my plot. Broke the first pair of loppers I used, so returned to the car and got a heavy duty pair. I also have a chainsaw in the boot but thought better of standing on rickety stepladders wielding a chainsaw!

Hacke away at the jungle withe loppers and bowsaw. I should have taken a piccie before I started, but you'll just have to take it for granted that at least i can see the fence now.

Poor Fred the plastic Falcon had his hanging branch cut down so i had to re-locate him!



You can see the fenceline I was working on in the background.I also tied up some of the branbles while i was on. Once the leaves die off the branches i will use them for pea sticks,

Sideshooted and tied in my tomato plants in polytunnel. I have some Toscana kale which I will be putting out as a space becomes available but in the meantime I had to pot on the plants to bigger pots. As they won't be in there long I just re-used the compost I had the garlic growing in.