What have you done in the greenhouse/polytunnel today?

freebird wrote:

Sparhawk wrote:Planted some more broad beans, ready for spring to arrive...

Me too. But stuff I planted in the greenhouse about three weeks ago (when we had a couple of milder days) appears to have been raided by mice. Sigh!

Funny you should say that I had 4 different sorts of spudz chitting off, some purple ones, some Charlotte, some Cara & some apache ones.

Went to the greenhouse the other day & the apache ones have disappeared...

Planted a load of Alderman peas that I had been soaking overnight, in small degradable pots...

Lots of things planted in shed because it's quite warm and light in there - peas in pots, potatoes in a bag, nasturtiums in a pot and all kinds of things in modules. I have daringly put some over-wintered caulis in the raised bed, and must rush off now and cover them in fleece...

Put some mushroom casing on some rotten straw, experimenting with home grown button 'shrooms this year.

Oyster 'shrooms last year were successful to a point, just didn't get that many of them...

Do you get them as a kit, Spar?

The oyster ones I didn't, got some spore on fleabay & grew them on wet straw in a large plastic tub, got a couple of nice flushes, I'll have to look the pics out, but it was all part of the learning process.

The button mushrooms I have bought as a kit from the local £ shop & am trying to grow them on some rotten straw in a large plastic tub that I found lying around...

I have based what I'm doing on an article I read in a mag some time ago, with a few subtle Sparhawk type adaptations too...

Would be interested to see pics. What kind of temperature do they need?

pricking out indian spinach (malabar ) to grow in the greenhouse .just sown squash ,courgettes,sweetcorn,peas in cells, runner beans ,french climbing
cherokee indian beans, dwarf beans nautica and one other. put my broad beans and onions as well as leeks in the cold frame to harden off .

I hope your broad beans fare better than mine Warlock - I sowed them in the autumn, and was determined that they would survive despite the prolonged cold and damp. They have lived in my shed, the porch and in our front room, depending on the weather, and then graduated to the cold frame. As the weather got warmer last week I lifted the cold frame carefully off them, and they seemed to be OK. A few days ago I looked in horror, and realised that my chickens had somehow reached them (through the chicken proof fence...) and had stripped a lot of the leaves off. Will spray with seaweed feed, and hopefully they will continue to survive. Those beans are going to taste amazing!!

mine are hardening off in the cold frame so should be ok

Dandelion wrote:I hope your broad beans fare better than mine Warlock - I sowed them in the autumn, and was determined that they would survive despite the prolonged cold and damp.

I was digging over the plot where I grew my broad beans last year, and to my surprise found five self-sown seedlings, all quite a good size. I am amazed that they came through the winter unprotected. I have now dug them up and transplanted them to the new bean plot, where they are under cloches - not for weather protection (they hardly need that!) but to keep the foxes from digging them up.

The broad beans in my garden plot were sown in autumn, and have overwintered with just a few gaps. The ones at the allotment, sown similarly, are very sparse. The difference is that the garden plot is sandy and light - built up over years from greenhouse bed spoil, whereas the allotment is Bedfordshire clay.

i am potting up tomatoes pricking out fennel and beetroot and have just sown some achocha .have also done over 4.5 hours digging over the allotment this weekend .my squash seeds are starting to come up as well
as my early french beans and runner beans in modules.

Have you grown achocha before, Warlock? I was given a couple of plants by one of my garden buddies at school a few years ago, and managed to get a couple of fruits. If you have grown them before, what did you do with the fruits?

Blimey Warlock, you're doing well. I've spent most of this weekend trying to finish clearing the greenhouse from last year! I have got some things growing in there, however.

Finally got back into the greenhouse today - did some cleaning, some pruning (got a great grape and kiwi in there) and sowed Milkweed and Chilli seeds

A busy weekend indeed. Time for a big greenhouse re-shuffle. I planted the tomatoes out into their final positions, And, although about 3 weeks behind my usual schedule, they look quite good plants this year. Potted on indoor cucumber Cuicino, sowed basil (from the seed swap, thanks whoever you are ...), then sowed a good assortment of varieties of winter squash - Conneticut field, Butternut, Squashkin (a butternut squash/pumpkin hybrid I'm trying for the first time) and a few others I've forgotten, using the dibber I turned for the job on the pole lathe last weekend

Chilli head, I do believe you're making up for lost time...

Indeed Dandelion. I think I'm probably the only gardener in the UK who is glad of the late spring ! I would have been in trouble otherwise. As it is I had the family all helping at the weekend, cleaning plant pots and sowing.

Potted on the greenhouse tomatoes into their final home. I'm especially pleased with this, as this is the first year ever that I have filled the pots with homemade compost, instead of bought-in stuff.

Very good - let us know how it goes. I found that my homemade compost was just as good as New Horizons.

Sadly this year my tomatoes are all in New Horizons - I have been using homemade for the lst few years, but at the critical time my wrist was not up to digging out the compost heap . They do look quite good this year though - I have marble sized tomatoes on at the moment.

Chilli-head wrote: I found that my homemade compost was just as good as New Horizons.

Oh, well that's interesting. I used New Horizons exclusively last year, and have come to the sad conclusion that I just can't get on with it. I know it was a difficult year, but it seemed to perform poorly whether I used it to plant seeds (sieved of the coarse stuff) or to transplant into, or for mature plants in the greenhouse. Nothing did as well as usual, and some things didn't germinate at all (most notably, my sweet corn).

I've been using John Innes for seed planting this year, not having tried it before. I haven't anything homemade that is suitable for seeds.

My homemade compost will, I know, be riddled with weed seeds, but using it for my large plant pots in the greenhouse shouldn't be a problem. I has a good texture and appears to have far better water holding capacity than the New H.

freebird wrote:

Chilli-head wrote: I found that my homemade compost was just as good as New Horizons.

Oh, well that's interesting. I used New Horizons exclusively last year, and have come to the sad conclusion that I just can't get on with it. I know it was a difficult year, but it seemed to perform poorly whether I used it to plant seeds (sieved of the coarse stuff) or to transplant into, or for mature plants in the greenhouse. Nothing did as well as usual, and some things didn't germinate at all (most notably, my sweet corn).

I've been using John Innes for seed planting this year, not having tried it before. I haven't anything homemade that is suitable for seeds.

My homemade compost will, I know, be riddled with weed seeds, but using it for my large plant pots in the greenhouse shouldn't be a problem. I has a good texture and appears to have far better water holding capacity than the New H.

I made my own seed compost for the first time this year (two parts leaf mould, one part sand, one part homemade garden compost) - on the whole it has been OK, but in the cold conditions we've had, fertile fibre coir compost has given better results.

Dandelion wrote:
I made my own seed compost for the first time this year (two parts leaf mould, one part sand, one part homemade garden compost)

I never seem to have any leaves I can gather up easily. I think I may have found somewhere I can collect from in the autumn, but it will still be another two years before they are any use as compost.

While we are on the subject - has anyone else noticed that avocado skin has some miraculous anti-rot property? It doesn't matter whether it's been through all three layers of the worm bin, then in the bottom of a potato trench, or whether it's been through the composting cycle of various bins - out it comes, whole and intact. I'm sure somebody ought to be investigating this. It might have some wonderful use for embalming, or something!

I tend to spread a layer of compost on my raised beds and cover with polythene over the autumn and winter for the worms to take it all down into the soil. The down side of this is that in the spring there is an unattractive layer of debris on the top, and yes - avocado skins are in there! The other thing which doesn't rot down is the paper from tea bags - it sits on the soil like debris from Miss Havisham's house, white and wrinkled and old! I keep meaning to write to the tea firms and find out what the material they use for tea bags is - it doesn't look like paper.

Tea bags don't rot because the paper is plasticised. If you leave them for a long time, you end up with little plastic nets everywhere. I empty them all out and compost just the contents. Some (including Mrs C-H) might think this a bit extreme ...