What have you done in the garden today?

Want to put the peas and beans in tubes tonight. Not sure if I've enough table left to put them to though!

Planted loads more shallots
lettuce
carrots & some more onions & garlic

The sun was out all day today

Hasn't it been beautiful Pol..

I've cleared 2 more beds.. and Ol built me two more for my Entertaining veg... as in the whacky ones I love, for special treatment, like Kohl Rabi and Florence Fennel, blingy chard etc, and I'm gonna grow nasturtiums around it with marigolds and runners at the back, I can't wait!!!

It certainly has been beautiful today.

I put more soil and compost into my raised bed, sowed kohl rabi, perpetual spinach, beetroot and celeriac to grow in modules, sowed some mixed lettuce in a trough and did some general housekeeping on the large planters from the front garden. Plus some weeding - in fact any excuse to stay outside!

I felled trees and shredded twiggery. And started off more seeds...loads of them.....and potted on some tomato, okra and pepper plants .

Not much my garden is frozen solid and we are supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow. Day before yesterday, I ordered all my seeds to start in blocks this weekend, does that count?

We're having a bit of a cold snap and my seeds only got ordered this week, so nowt for me I'm afraid. Darling husband and I spent this afternoon in the bright sun splitting logs and have decided at last to get some quotes for some of the heavy work that needs doing.

I've spent the morning filling the raised beds with a mix of sand, soil from the chicken pen and homemade compost, it's loooooooovely... tidied the other beds, sorted me tin for seeds to sow tomorrow, weather allowing and am now gonna have a cuppa then go sow some more peppers I just found... wondered where the lil buggas had gone..
Then I'll tidy the strawberry beds and dream of homemade wine.... ahhhh roll on summer...

Well, haven't gotten peppers or cukes yet. Next shopping bit I think.
The garlic I potted up last week are coming up beautifully. It's just a head I got from the store, but I've got a dozen shoots eight inches tall already!

Last night, put tomatoes in 3 inch cells. Super Sweet 100 cherries (F1), Roma (OP), Yellow Pear (OP) and some purple tomatillos.
Also, put the Hollyhock we'd germinated in wet paper towel into cells. Got twenty little babies with two beautiful little seedling leafs (dicotoledon?)

Sad news, the two varieties of peas, and "Henderson" Lima beans we'd let soak went too long and went over to mush. Compost heap for them, waste not!

Been pricing organic composted topsoil to start up new raised beds in my garden. Just over a pound UK (if my conversions are right) for a 1.5 cu ft sack. About 40 lb weight (20 kg). No USDA Certified stamp, but hey ho. Sound about fair? Funny thing is, the "Organic, with bunches o' fertilizers" stuff from Miracle-Gro brand is three and four times that price! I'd just as soon make my own organic fertilizing mix anyway.

Finally got to hanging grow lights Sunday night too. Got two fixtures, 48" (135 cm), two lamps flourescent grow lights. They're in my basement over a generously tall work table. Basement stays in the mid to low 60's (14 - 17 C?). Should be a good temp for seedlings. One of these days I'll get a proper green house, sigh.... But, in the meanwhile, use what I've got (reuse wherever possible )

Had to put the little crampon devices on our shoes today just to get down the drive to the van ! The whole drive and all the paths are, literally, a sheet of ice.
Saw a little patch of green grass around the base of our old maples..*sigh* Still thick snow everwhere else.

Revamped the chicken fence to give them a bit more grass, and so they can dig over the new raised bed and de-slug it. I only had to put the chickens back into the fenced off area three times before I had blocked all the gaps and outwitted the wily birds!

Planted more early potatoes in bags to put in the coldframe until it warms up.

Felled a privet and a lilac ( well coppiced them) and cleared out 2 more flower beds of all the old stuff from last year. moved a load of partially composted leaves into one bin and spread the leaf mold at the bottom of the other two bins onto a raised bed. Cleaned out the hens and also dug over another raised bed.

Tomorrow I will plant out broad bean plants and shallots I think as well as parsnips.

Been a good weekend. I've shovelled and sieved a lot of compost - hopefully enough for the greenhouse tomatoes this year - and I've now got a sore back. Good job I'm back at work for a rest !

Glad to read compost is featuring heavily in everyone's posts

When wouldn`t it with you watching over us all.

Today I shredded a load more of the tree twiggery and filled a fourth compost bin with the shredded tree, dug over another raised bed and raked it ready to plant into, emptied out some pots and planted them up with lavender bushes and also planted up more pots with strawberry plants from the runners I potted on last autimn.

I also raked out one of the large flower beds and it looks lovely and tidy now.

And we felled a few more trees and sawed and stacked the logs.

Am tired, now!

I had yesterday off work (my birthday ) so spent the afternoon planting the early potatoes. Potato planting on my birthday has become a tradition - I know, a bit strange. And happy potatoes they ought to be - a good amount of garden waste and FYM composted together for a year went in the trench with them. Lots more work to do at the lotty - hoping for good weather on Saturday to do a bit more.

Still watering the seedling babies. Going nicely. Will have four varieties of heirloom tomatoes this year!! Think this weekend may be the big work over for the new gardening plots. Has been wet lately, but looks like dry skies, other than a sprinkle forecast for Friday, between now and then. We'll be putting in psuedo raised beds this year for most. What that means is using the bagged organic soil, punch holes in back for drainage, arrange as a bed, cut off front faces, and sow. That way, all of the sod underneath will just decay off naturally, and at end of season, just turn out the bags. Wish me luck!

Dug out a compost bin and separated out the finished compost. Raked over another flower bed and wheelbarreled away the dead stuff. Cut down several shrubs which had got to triffid size.
Dug another raised bed and added composted rabbit/guinea pig poo
planted more early spuds
Also planted out some more shallots and broad bean plants.

Compostman dug out a brick surround raised bed by the back door which was originally a herb box but has been invaded by geums so it all needed digging out.

I am going to make an annual/wildflower bed there with herbs in pots at the door end of the bed. That will help the bees!

I investigated my big herb pot this afternoon - it's amazing how much has succumbed to the winter weather. One rosemary and one sage as dead as a doornail, a dodo, or anything else dead beginning with D. Still, it's an ill wind and all that - I shall enjoy going to the market and choosing something new tomorrow.

Dandelion wrote:I investigated my big herb pot this afternoon - it's amazing how much has succumbed to the winter weather. One rosemary and one sage as dead as a doornail, a dodo, or anything else dead beginning with D. Still, it's an ill wind and all that - I shall enjoy going to the market and choosing something new tomorrow.

I have rooted rosemary cuttings if you want to come over and get one or two?

Thanks - I have a large rosemary elsewhere so I'm going to treat myself to something different. (I like to have a rosemary bush near to the washing line so that sheets brush over it and smell nice.)

Planted some more onions & potatoes today.

all in all a good garden day

Planted up another raised bed with broad bean plants and early spuds.

MOWED half the grass!!

Planted out more shallots and prepared the onion bed.

I've emptied a lot of earthenware pots which had shrubs in - it's amazing how much died in the winter. Even hardy plants like ivies have had it. But the good thing is that I was trying to reduce the number of pots in the garden as they take too much watering in the summer.

Leek seeds are sown, some cabbages pricked out into modules and I'll be sowing tomatoes tomorrow.