2024 - What I did today

Yesterday I swapped out one of the tomatoes I’d planted. Planted the Bombay bronze cockscomb.

After the ritual weekly shop and various interruptions by P, I finally managed to get in the gh for an hour. Sowed DFB, resowed cucumbers. P was messing about with water butts. Because our fascias/soffits are being redone, all butts against the house walls have had to be moved out of the way. One was leaning so P transferred the water and was aiming to level up the stand, but it was the butt's bottom (now there's a good house name) that had deformed not the stand. After railing at the modern plastic rubbish these days, he's fixed it.

After an 8 month wait I finally got to have  a hospital appointment 30 miles away, to be told after they photographed area I will have to wait for another 6 to 8 months for an operation!  Methinks the NHS is in a heck of a state?

After an 8 month wait I finally got to have  a hospital appointment 30 miles away, to be told after they photographed area I will have to wait for another 6 to 8 months for an operation!  Methinks the NHS is in a heck of a state?

Agreed, Vinny.

Planted chillies, sweet peppers, courgette, giant pumpkin (hopefully giant). Put fleece round them all to keep slugs off. Got rid of 9 bags of wood off cuts to next door for kindling. Sown seeds.

Sowed seeds, topped up the potato pots and moved them out of the GH to give me some room to mess about.
Planted 2 primroses in the YS hanging basket, the other 2 were a bit motheaten so they can go in the garden somewhere.
Felled the giant chard in the GH and chopped it up for composting. Some went in the Hotbin, the remainder will feed the worms.
Another wet day when not much could be achieved outdoors.

Planted out leeks.

The pepper aubergines and cucumbers are developing OK at the moment but my tomato plants and onions are looking very sorry for themselves. I planted them in a mix of coir and miraclegrow compost. I then made things worse by watering them with a mix of diluted comfrey and urine as they looked like they needed a feed. The onions are planted out and hoping they soon recover but the tomatoes all have yellowish leaves so likely some sort of deficiency. I watered them with miraclegrow today hoping for one. Usually at this time, they would be pot bound and needing to be planted out.

Finally got pea/bean netting up. Its got more struts than an old lady's whalebone corset. If this one falls down in summer winds I'll scream. Peas on one side CFB on the other. The MT I sowed sometime in March (far too early) are a yard long/tall, they'll be so pleased to get planted out.

Before lunch planted overgrown MT and chitted seeds. Bijou, Green Beauty and Carouby de Maussanne. Prepared ground for planting out kale Dwarf Blue Scottish Curled, Brokali Apollo, Brokali Matsuri & Calabrese after lunch. All broccoli are vaguely experimental. My previous experiences with brassicas are no recommendation. If time allows I'll sow some carrots too, they usually cosy up to the brassicas so they're all under enviromesh.

The sun went to my head so I planted some tomatoes in the GH to celebrate. I've only done one side of GH1 so far, as there's still some stuff on the other side that needs clearing.
Cut some dead twiggy stuff out of the peach trees and an apple tree.
Dried a load of washing too. All in all, a good day for being outdoors.