What have you done in the garden today?

Dandelion wrote:Now you're talking, Gunners - Costa, Wilko, and the garden - three of my favourite places!!

we love the simple life or is it the good life lol x

Last year I bought three items at Wilko (I think it was a big box of Blood Fish and Bone, some netting to keep the cabbage whites off my brassicas, and some organic slug pellets.) I then compared the prices at Homebase - I saved something like £8

yesterday i did some digging and tidying up two and half hours was long enough in the cold i think it took two half hours to warm up again lol

done some digging at allotment back here doing stuff trying to warm up 3 hours in that wind is quite bracing !!!!!

Envious, gunners. I've got such a vile cold I can't do anything at the moment. Really pleased to see some hellebores flowering, though - my NDN gave them to be last year, so I had no idea what colour they would be. A creamy white, so it lights up a shady corner.

I love Hellebores (wierd, I never used to, they just, ahem, grew on me!) I have quite a few purple, which I've propagated over the last five years, and a friend at school gave me a white one, so I'm hoping for some crosses. The earthworks by the new fence have buried one hellebore (but the snowdrops have still struggled through - not my favouriote flowers sadly, but I know saying that is akin to saying you hate Winnie the Pooh...)

Well that's my weekend job sorted. My new apple and pear trees have arrived today a month earlier than expected. They are going in the allotment, to form low espaliers along the edge of my plot. I have picked very local varieties - some were bred where I work, and the others are Laxtons varieties from Bedford. I now need to swot up an how to train them ...

more digging staked a fence post what snapped in the wind greenhouse is fine smile emoticon harvested leeks and sprouts and beetroot

Good work Gunners - probably best to get stuff dug up if the coming weather is as bad as the tabloids are hinting! (The Express was leading with tales of an 'Arctic blast' when I passed the newspaper stand this morning in Tesco!!)

katie been over allotment to see what i been up to there , she dug up sprouts and supports i prepped veg for roast lamb katie brought back rosemary, i also stripped a frame i had at bottom of garden for veg now using for katies raspberrys on allotment happy days

Today I looked at the 2 inches of snow that has the garden underneath it.

I intend to get my new fruit trees in today.  But first I needed some posts to strain wires between.  I quite like the "unilog" type which are still in the round rather than sawn square - I think that they last longer.  Took me a morning to find some,  last ditch attempt was B&Q after all the local shops had failed me.  Fortunately they had them,  and better still they were reduced to clear.  So I did !

Got to the lotty later than planned,  so I was able to get the posts in, and do some fence repairs with the spare posts.  The trees are just heeled in for now;  I'll have to string the wires and plant the trees properly next weekend.

Very muddy down there at the moment.  Must get some more wood chip for the paths,  but the lorry will not get back out if I get them delivered now !

we sowed red burgundy onion seed 3 in A module 105 modules also ring of fire chili and some other super hot chili will try some leaving 3 onions in a module and reansplant in groups chili heads idea new one on me though

loads pruning in the back garden then big bonfire wifey loves bonfires

Is there anyone who doesn't love a bonfire - or a log fire? It must be a primeval thing...

I finished off my new fruit trees at the allotment yesterday.  A couple of apples and a couple of pears, which I plan to train as two tier espaliers on wires to make a hedge along the edge of my plot.  Strung the wires, and put the trees into their final positions, and did a quick bit of formative pruning.  

The trees I have are all very local varieties, from the East of Englad Apples and Orchards Project:

Apple Queenby's glory
Apple Laxton's Adbvance
Pear Beurre Bedford
Pear Laxton's Record

I am quite pleased with how they look.  Hopefully they will grow well - I have tried some
Mycorrhizal fungi on the roots - no idea if it will really work, but worth a go.

You obviously know your stuff re. pruning, Chilli. I was out pruning the Jostaberry this afternoon, but rather than pruning it to a particular shape or form I was removing all the nuisance branches which stop me getting along the path in front of it!!

Well, not too sure that I know what I'm doing with pruning.   The problem I usually have is that I look in a book, go out happy that I know the theory,  but then struggle to see how to turn the plant I have into what I saw in the picture.   This time the trees were bigger than I expected,  so where all the instructions begin with a "maiden" - one year old tree without side branches, I had at least a 4-5' tall "feathered maiden" - ie one with some side branches already.  To get the shape I wanted I had to cut most of these off, and then to prevent apical dominance and get some energy into the lateral shoots I do want, I had to cut back the leader a lot. It is disconcerting to cut half of your new tree off and compost it !  I hope I have done the right thing.

Me too CH - somehow the trees never look like the ones in the pictures. I don't think I'm very good at choosing the right shoots to keep for the basic structure.
You lot are making me feel that I need to get going in the garden. I have trimmed back the hellebore leaves. I need to get my Polka raspberries in & a new rhubarb crown, they're sitting in a trug of compost in the shed at the moment. I'm trying a new site for rhubarb as I have always had a miserable crop where it is currently. I've got a new crown in case there is something wrong with the old plant rather than the site.

Ploshkin wrote:
You lot are making me feel that I need to get going in the garden.  I have trimmed back the hellebore leaves.

Mrs C-H did that yesterday whilst I was washing the greenhouse glass !

I alos planted out some winter Aconites that Mrs C-H bought me. I have always loved them - we had a little clump in the garden outside the living toom window when I was a child, and seeing them peek up through the snow was always a joy. That was in Sheffiled though - we don't get much snow for them to peek through here.

over the last week at lotty we have done digging bonfire pulling up sprout trees get a good woodfire going and u can burn owt lol then ash can go in the onion bed lol , we made supports for rasp caned sorted out the front where naturtians were scooped up loads of seeds still enought to self set though rest chucked on compost heap lol

Dandelion wrote:You obviously know your stuff re. pruning, !!

allotmenteers are prunes lol

chili head those canes are doing well cheers man did some gardening sun at allotment digging tidying up xxxxxx

Gritted my teeth and went into the chilly garden (I had to clean the hens anyway), but I found that after a while I got used to it and did a bit of tidying up. I started a new compost bin off with a layer of twigs (and a marrow which I had been intending to cook for tea, but when I looked it was no longer firm and green, but was very squishy with a grey furry coat!!) I then threw caution to the winds and sowed some seed, despite it being a bit early. Dutchman cabbage on the kitchen windowsill, and indoor toms and some echinacea in the propagator. And so it begins...

In between coats of paint, I made up a batch of seed compost. Leaf mold sterilised in a couple of batches with my biscuit tin and camping stove method, with some grit sand and vermiculite mixed in. I turned on the electric propagator to warm up ready, and put some of the elderly brassica seeds from the seed swap in there on a bit of damp kitchen towel as a germination test. Might be interesting.

Haha - let's hope the seed doesn't produce prematurely aged broccoli!! Not a pleasant thought...