What have you done on the plot today?

[Bledlow]

Something's been eating cabbages, but no sign of caterpillars. Snail trails on leaves. Still, plenty are thriving. We've just eaten the first one.

The cucumbers seem to have died! They were doing very well, cucumbers galore, then the plants started shrivelling up. Now they've all gone. What's gone wrong? Disease?

Leeks looking good, dwarf french beans yielding well, & the old daikon seeds I chucked in en masse because they were well past their use by have germinated far too much. I've had to compost loadsa seedlings for lack of space to transplant them to.

[ElyDave]

Tom's, cucumbers, courgettes, chard, runner beans all going like the clappers

Bumper crop of fruit this year and all early, figs, raspberries, apples, pears. My raspberries are an autumn fruiting variety, but in full production now and the apples are not far off.

I've pressed two big supermarket bags of apples from mils garden today and have a gallon of cider on the go, should be pretty strong as well if it ferments out, good sugars in the fruit already

[Bledlow]

Tomatoes are blasted by blight. Bugger! There are a couple of plants with a house between them & the rest that are untouched so far, but the rest are done for. I've got a few tomatoes off then, & I'm holding off ripping up the least blighted plants for a little to see if I can get a few more. We've had perfect blight weather. Luckily we got a decent crop of potatoes before it struck.

The cucumbers finished early. The plants wilted & died. A disease, I think, but what? I'll plant as far as possible from that patch next year. Ah well, we had a lot for a short time.

Japanese cabbages are flourishing, but Mrs B thinks they don't taste as good as last year. Daikon is looking good so far, but it has a while to go. I'm worried about the leeks. Looks like the beginnings of rust.

I'm not happy. Why is everything diseased this year?

[ElyDave]

The only time I had any success with outdoor tomatoes was in a courtyard garden with plenty of sun, in growbags. Every time I've planted into soil I've had blight. All my Tom's are now under glass.

How tf does this correct growbags to brisbane ffs?

[SteveC]

We're lucky with tomatoes. There is a gully between our garage and our pond, so the tomatoes (in grow bags) have a south facing brick wall behind them, and are protected in front, but the ends of the gully are open, so there's usually a bit of a breeze. Seems to keep them fairly blight free. I do have some in the greenhouse as well.
The only thing I managed in the garden yesterday was to paint three fence panels. Needed to do it yesterday as the weather here is horrid today.

[De Sisti]

Put chicken manure pellets all over my lawn to improve its quality and that of the soil. Worked well last time I applied it.

[Bledlow]

The only time I had any success with outdoor tomatoes was in a courtyard garden with plenty of sun, in growbags. Every time I've planted into soil I've had blight. All my Tom's are now under glass.

I've had more than I knew what to do with some years, but not this. Ah well, the few we have taste good, & there are still two plants, the last two to go out (makes superstitious gestures).

[ElyDave]

disposed of the last of the pyracantha massacre into the green waste bin this morning, and while I was out there, pruned all the most recently planted fruit trees.  They've been there about 4-5 years now and starting to develop lots of fruiting spurs, so looking good for next year.  Need to get a ladder out to take the vertical leaders out of two of them.

Found an unnoticed courgette over he weekend, of marrow like proportions.  Stuffed it with mince, with the tomatoes from the greenhouse, sage and thyme from the herb patch, baked in the oven. All very tasty.

[Quisling]

Sunday we pressed a load of russet apples and left the juice to stand for 24 hours to settle out.  Russet juice is very fibrous and experience shows it's worth not bottling it straight away.  Yesterday we filled and pasteurised 31 old wine bottles full.  It normally keeps for a year if required but rarely avoids being consumed before that long!

Next job, gather in the pears and some bramleys and make some mixed juice and/or perry.

Last night we also "did the sciencey bit" of making the rhubarb wine.  Should turn out around 12.5%, and jolly tasty if it's like last year's batch.  Which strangely has all gone...

[Jakob W]

Looks like we'll be getting a small plot at the allotments down the end of our street next month; apparently it's all rather overgrown, but we shall see. Not being a gardener myself I'm a little apprehensive, but we shall see what happens - I suppose I'll have the winter to prepare...

[ElyDave]

Sunday we pressed a load of russet apples and left the juice to stand for 24 hours to settle out.  Russet juice is very fibrous and experience shows it's worth not bottling it straight away.  Yesterday we filled and pasteurised 31 old wine bottles full.  It normally keeps for a year if required but rarely avoids being consumed before that long!

Next job, gather in the pears and some bramleys and make some mixed juice and/or perry.

Last night we also "did the sciencey bit" of making the rhubarb wine.  Should turn out around 12.5%, and jolly tasty if it's like last year's batch.  Which strangely has all gone...

How do you pasteurise?

[Quisling]

Sunday we pressed a load of russet apples and left the juice to stand for 24 hours to settle out.  Russet juice is very fibrous and experience shows it's worth not bottling it straight away.  Yesterday we filled and pasteurised 31 old wine bottles full.  It normally keeps for a year if required but rarely avoids being consumed before that long!

Next job, gather in the pears and some bramleys and make some mixed juice and/or perry.

Last night we also "did the sciencey bit" of making the rhubarb wine.  Should turn out around 12.5%, and jolly tasty if it's like last year's batch.  Which strangely has all gone...

How do you pasteurise?

Fill the bottles and stand in a deep saucepan (preferably on a trivet so the glass isn't touching the bottom of the pan). Heat until the juice hits 70C and keep it there for 20 minutes.  Screw the bottle tops on and lay the bottles down, and the hot juice then sterilises the caps.
Our digital thermometer packed up though, and I fear I may have overcooked some of the juice.  The flavour normally "softens" a bit when pasteurised (making Bramley's drinkable as juice), but the Russet juice has a hint of caramel about it so some of the sugars might have been affected by excess heat.  I've not had problems in the past though, and the juice tastes fine to me. 

[Aunt Maud]

Had the scaffolding out to hand shear the high Beech hedge I planted 8 years ago . It's now 4' thick and 10' high in a south facing garden and conceals the house nicely from the gawpers.

I love clipping a hedge with shears, it's such a beautiful sound.

[spindrift]

200 tulips planted. £4 a kilo in Wilko, about 33 in a bag.

[ElyDave]

lawn mowed.

I was just about to go back over one section when BANG, GRAUNCH as the mower height adjustment rod sheared and sent the spring through the mechanism. It's 20 years old, but the bits still seem to be available.

[Legs]

Mostly slipping about on the Nostoc commune that's infested our driveway...

[Bledlow]

Harvested leeks for dinner. We also had home-grown daikon (AKA mooli).

Home-grown tatties with lunch, & yesterday we had home-grown cabbage with dinner, & the last home-grown sweetcorn afterwards.

Plenty more cabbages, leeks, potatoes & chard.

[Aunt Maud]

Mowed the leaves up for the second time and made a few piles around the garden for the birds to root around in over the winter.

Mowed the small wildflower meadow and am going to sow Yellow Rattle to keep the grass down for next years display. Hopefully it'll just get better and better as the Yellow Rattle does it's thing on the grass.

Thinking about coppicing more Downy Birch for next years firewood. Hopefully I'll get 30 cubic meters of it cut this year.

[SteveC]

Mowed the lawns yesterday for the first time in far too long.
Today I have moved all the tender plants into the greenhouse for the winter, moved the lawn furniture onto hard standing, played with my new (very antisocial) leaf vacuum and started this years collection of leaf mould, planted some cyclamen, and sown some sweet peas.

[campagman]

At the allotment where I volunteer somebody had sown a whole packet of leek seeds in a raised bed. The leeks have come up well but needed thinning. That was my job today and the unwanted leeks have been transplanted to my patch.

[campagman]

Planted some garlic cloves in-between the Leeks planted ^^.

[MikeFromLFE]

Removed the covering from a bed I'd foolishly covered with free horse muck, dug it, and it's still full of viable couch grass roots.
Dug yet more potatoes from my raised bed experiment (although some are getting a bit manky now - wood lice I think).
Tried unsuccessfully to have a bonfire (too wet)


Tapatalk puts this signature here, not me!

[Aunt Maud]

8 bare root roses arriving any day now from David Austin.

3x Jude the Obscure
2x Alba maxima
1x R. Complicata
1x Crown Princess Margareta.
1x Charlotte

Jude The Obscure, Crown Princess Margareta and Charlotte are for the front and the big brutes for the bank round the back.

[ElyDave]

Did a bit on Monday, mostly winter pruning of the fig tree, and a bit on the apples/pears and cutting back to ground a bed of Japanese Anemone, about 2ft deep by 10ft long, the last of those patches.  Also took out a few more stems on the pyracantha I massacred earlier in the year, and reglyphosated the remaining brambles underneath it. 

All really prep for the winter project of creating an area as a small Japanese gravel style garden using some of the trees that I intend to train as bonsai later on. I'd like to get some of them out of pots to reduce maintenance.

[Bledlow]

Pulled up some leeks, a cabbage & some big white radishes yesterday. Leeks with dinner last night, cabbage tonight.