2021 - What I did today

Removed the 4 GH toms that have finished rest of plants still have ripening toms.

Fed the tomatoes in GH. There are quite a few need picking and the plants need checking for moulds but will need to leave till tomorrow. Picked a few kilos apples as visiting my brother and then daughter. Also hung up 90lb. of onions. Still have 5kg. of autumn planted onions left. (Person weigher reads in stones and pounds, kitchen scale is metric). There is also a big box with onions that produced seed heads/ don't look like they will store for long.

After planting out, last week, next door's selection of plants they ordered (I wasn't impressed with the quality of plants) one very small poppy plant was getting eaten by slugs. I mentioned it to Mrs who didn't seem too bothered and wasn't keen to kill/deter any slugs, her take on it was 'its all nature and even slugs need to eat". I kept my peace but warned that their new baby plants may be at risk, wondering how in 60 years of gardening a third of an acre she had ever managed to create anything productive/appealing. I like nature but rats/mice and slugs are on my hit list. I found at least 20 big fat slimy slugs in the top of our compost bin lid which normally I would have left be, but they went on a flying holiday to the top of next door's left to wild part of their land, a good 90m from any cultivated patch. Should we have a guilty secret thread? only joking, I might feel the need to confess, not a good idea.

Planted out 30 white foxgloves and 20 purple honesty I'd sown from seed in summer.

I planted out three summer and three autumn raspberry plants around the summer house. I have two pots of more raspberries that I brought with me from the old garden, and I got one of them planted. The remaining pot will have to wait until I can lift the concrete in the corner behind the summer house.

Cleared a few rows of haricot and hung the plants to dry, added compost and planted out beetroot.
Weeded the palm and grass bed and mulched with hedge shreddings.
Helped lug 130 tiles onto the extension roof.

Spent most of the day, bagging up and distributing the bootful of runner beans that a friend brought for me. I shared them with 4 neighbours and had o stay for a chat with each of them. Having cooked some myself this evening, I'm a bit embarrassed as a lot of them were tough. My neighbours may never speak to me again. I know now why I grow French beans, not runners!
Short interval - Spud has brought a hedgehog back again!! Dogs now in kitchen, hedgehog outside, dogs staring through patio doors desperate to go out again!

^^^ Maybe dogs thought the hedgehog might like some beans. Exactly the reason I stick with CFB, plus they're less faff to prepare.

Took some cuttings from my two perennial kales.

Planted out my red gooseberry bushes along with some William Guinness aquilegia and Russian Skies dianthus I'd grown from seed this summer. All watered in and mulched. Very satisfying.