What have you done on the plot today?

[Flying_Monkey]

Over the weekend, I planted: two kinds of beets, two kinds of lettuce, black raddishes, rainbow chard, purple carrots, chinese cabbage, komatsuna, shungiku, torpedo red onions, Musselbrugh leeks, calabrese, pattypan summer squash and zucchini.

I also mowed half an acre of grass with a cylinder mower. 3 hours. Very hard work. But a good work out too. There will be less in the future though: some of this, we are going to chop out as flower and herb borders, there will be some taken over by the chickens when we get them, and there is another half-acre which will be forest-garden / orchard - many of our trees and shrubs will be arriving in the next few weeks. The lawn grass there we will try to kill off by covering over the next winter and replace it with native woodland plants and pararie grasses in the more open sections. Lawn grass is very hard to kill off though...

[Si]

First earlies have their heads above ground 

been doing beans on the anti slug bench.

and a brave new venture - the MiL's garden is large and jungle like - she is giving me free rein to tame it by whatever means necessary...I feel more veg plots on the way!   SO...a question - what's the best way to remove rampant brambles?

[clarion]

I have done nothing this weekend except marvel at the way that the spud plants are growing day by day, and take a childlike delight at the emergence of seedlings - radishes outside, lettuces, cucumber and, just this morning, runner beans inside.  No signs from the carrots or parsnips yet.  I don't mind.  I can wait.  A bit.

[clarion]

This morning, I have been mostly looking out at the garden, and going:

FROST!!!

[Wobbly John]

Frost has caught my potatoes, some of the french beans and some tomatos and pumpkins in the greenhouse. 

Hope some will recover. 

[Palinurus]

Frost got at my potatoes too. Bollocks.

They may yet recover, I'll give them a few weeks.

[Chris S]

I fed the worms. F*ck me - they've been busy; clearly all they do is eat and shag - they are chomping their way through everything I give them, and there are 1,000s of the buggers. Excellent  .

Mrs S has been beavering away in the greenhouse, repairing the damage wrought by the Great Slug Disaster of 2010. She had to resort to the garden centre for new tomato and cucumber plants. The slugs are currently enjoying drowing in some of my precious stash of beer. Things I do for the cause... 

[Si]

my spuds have gone a bit frilly around the edges due to frost too.  but I find that if you just pull the black bits off they soon recover as long as the frost doesn't linger.

Jerusalem Artichokes - just say NO.  they are easy to grow, taste quite nice and I've not noticed too much gas, but they seem to be trying to take over my plot and make a bid for world domination: buggers am coming up everywhere.

My compost dalek is full of wood lice.

Cats have had half the toms.

[Palinurus]

my spuds have gone a bit frilly around the edges due to frost too.  but I find that if you just pull the black bits off they soon recover as long as the frost doesn't linger.

Oh cheers, I'm more hopeful now. I'll get down there this week and pull the withered bits off.

[Cyclops]

Made some rhubarb crumble with the first few stalks. Planted out leeks, spring onions and celeriac. Sewed some lettuce, spinach and pumpkins.

Despite living in Scotland the tatties seem to have escaped the frost (why don't we have a crossed finger smiley?)

[Wobbly John]

Hopefully there will be no more frosts - I planted runner beans out yesterday as they were up to 18" high and starting to tangle with each other.

Pumpkins planted out under a cold frame. Lots of stuff potted on in the greenhouse.

As an experiment, I mulched the carrots with shreddings from the eucalyptus tree that I pollarded several weeks ago. I'm hoping the smell will discourage carrot fly.

[jellied]

Honestly, drop you're guard for a minute and the place is overgrown. So three sessions with the strimmer, lots of weeding.

Spuds probably wiped out due to the frost although for some reason the weeds seemed to have survived.
 

[clarion]

Butterfly borrowed next door's petrol mower again, and turned the chaotic meadow-styled weed collection into a lawn

TGL & I followed up with some weeding, earthing up & watering on the veggies.  I fear that, in quick succession, the parsnip seedlings froze and the lettuce seedlings cooked in the greenhousette   Otherwise, there's much progress.  Even my pathetic peas have some reluctant buds appearing

[Wobbly John]

Built a fruit net cage over the currant bushes, cherry tree and first row of strawberries - I used our marquee-sized gazebo frame to hold the net up.

 Asparagus is cropping well  - I can cut 3 times a week. 

Eating rhubarb from the allotment and icecream at the moment. 

Early broad beans have pods on.

I'm spending an hour or so weeding and watering most evenings, but still not on top of some areas.

[Si]

Had a Spring Fair.
Excellent turn out, loads of happy people in the sun, plenty of money for the asociation, and a hog roast almost at the end of my plot.

Apart from that: weed, water, weed, water, weed, water, weed, water, weed, water, weed, water, weed, water, etc

[Flying_Monkey]

Over the last week, I have planted a second succession of salad veg as well as the daikon and fennel. I am also experimenting with an old First Nations' technique called '3 sisters', where you plant alternate mounds of 1. sweetcorn and climbing beans; and 2. squash. It's going pretty well so far with everything coming up. We also got our rainwater barrels, which I plumbed in just in time for the first heavy rain we have had for ages. Oh, and we had a truckload of well-rotted horse manure delivered, which should help with planting out our trees and shrubs (when they finally arrive).

[Palinurus]

my spuds have gone a bit frilly around the edges due to frost too.  but I find that if you just pull the black bits off they soon recover as long as the frost doesn't linger.

Bodger you were right. They seem to be thriving again.

[Tail End Charlie]

Wired together several pallets which I had collected to make some compost bins. I still have several more waiting for me to turn them into whatever comes to mind.
A rustic table and seat is the current favourite.

[Flying_Monkey]

All my trees, shrubs and native flowers arrived whist we were away yesterday. Looks like I am not going to work today, as I have to get the trees planted!

[RJ]

A half-day at school and temporarily in sole charge of FirstBorn.  It's been dry and warm, so I eventually dragged him down to "our" quarter-plot to weed and water.  Sowed 2nd lot of peas, plus french beans.  FirstBorn dug some big holes for compost and courgette/summer squash seeds. Picked the last of the broccoli and some rhubarb.  Saw the resident fox and three trains.  FirstBorn didn't want to leave. Bribed him with promises of ice-cream   

[Wobbly John]

Did quite a bit of weeding yesterday. Planted out 2nd lot of runner beans. and first lot of outdoor tomatoes. Potted up cucumbers and watermelons into BIG pots.

Today I had the first pickings of broad beans - yum. 

[Flying_Monkey]

Well, this tree-planting business is not quick - I got 3 yellow birches, a butternut, both a shagbark and a shellbark hickory, a serviceberry and a sweet chestnut planted yesterday on another very sunny day. Only 17 to go...

[Bledlow]

All this allotment talk! For those of us with only a tiny garden, but yearnings for a bigger one, it's frustrating. Still, my tomato plants are coming along nicely, & this week we've had our first windowsill coriander & lettuce of the year - & very tasty they both were. We've been eating fresh basil for a while, having invested in a supermarket pot & transplanted it to a bigger pot. I've put in some more pick & go lettuce seeds for a late crop.

Strawberries are late, though.

[Si]

All this allotment talk! For those of us with only a tiny garden, but yearnings for a bigger one, it's frustrating.

I you can't get an allotment without a 100 year wait have you consdered things like LandShare?

[Si]

Finally earthed up my 1st earlies - this time last year they were almost ready to harvest!