The all new good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2020

unrecordings

Mild dry morning here. Just tried photographing a lacewing on the window, need more tea to focus maybe I'll get outside for a bit later on for a bit of pottering, mulching & workshop cleaning

Pablosmummy

Well my garden seems to have survived so far, used some spare ropes from our tent to tie the trug and cover down which worked well. Braved the wind this morning to move some overwintered primrose plants but that's it. It's too cold and windy for anything else. I did notice that my first tulip of the year has shot up from nowhere overnight so that was a nice suprise. 
Basically I'm hiding inside until the weather improves...

unrecordings

Managed to get another couple of hours under my belt this afternoon. Garden was mainly untouched by Dennis & Ciara - there's a bit of leaf raking to do though. Mrs Un pruned the hydrangeas and I made good progress cleaning the workshop. I've also around four months of trailcam footage to review (assuming it didn't flake out on day two again), or capture 3000 images of of grasses in the breeze)

spadoosh

Didnt get to the plot this weekend as weather was atrocious. Did make it to a local potato fair. So got my first and second earlies. Got some red duke of york which im really hoping do well.  

Picked up some piroska red onions shallots and garlic. A blackberry and a couple of tayberries. Got a rhubarb and cant remember the variety at all, think it had 'red' in it, but candian red doesnt sound right? 

And then a few bargain seed packets. The allotment are having their potato day this weekend i think so will try and grab a couple of extra varieties. I remember the lady telling me these where freebies offered by the allotment so rude not to try a few of them out. 

Still struggling on the water collection front (iv got a feeling im one of very few people currently worrying about lack of water in the country!). As make shift im taking a water barrel and a tarp this weekend, at least its something. Spoke to a few others on the site and sowing the seed of being worried about lack of water, one of the guys, another newbie on the site had about 5 IBC's collecting water so depending on what hes doing and his requirements might be able to ask if i can use some of his. 

Suffolk_lass

spadoosh said:

Didnt get to the plot this weekend as weather was atrocious. Did make it to a local potato fair. So got my first and second earlies. Got some red duke of york which im really hoping do well.  

Picked up some piroska red onions shallots and garlic. A blackberry and a couple of tayberries. Got a rhubarb and cant remember the variety at all, think it had 'red' in it, but candian red doesnt sound right? 

And then a few bargain seed packets. The allotment are having their potato day this weekend i think so will try and grab a couple of extra varieties. I remember the lady telling me these where freebies offered by the allotment so rude not to try a few of them out. 

Still struggling on the water collection front (iv got a feeling im one of very few people currently worrying about lack of water in the country!). As make shift im taking a water barrel and a tarp this weekend, at least its something. Spoke to a few others on the site and sowing the seed of being worried about lack of water, one of the guys, another newbie on the site had about 5 IBC's collecting water so depending on what hes doing and his requirements might be able to ask if i can use some of his. 

Red usually just refers to the colour of the stalks but you might have Canadian Red if you are in N America - it is apparently very popular in New England! Victoria was the most widely available and has red/green stalks. If anyone offers you a bit from their garden it is likely to be this old variety or Timperley Early, for an earlier crop

spadoosh

Suffolk_lass said:

spadoosh said:

Didnt get to the plot this weekend as weather was atrocious. Did make it to a local potato fair. So got my first and second earlies. Got some red duke of york which im really hoping do well.  

Picked up some piroska red onions shallots and garlic. A blackberry and a couple of tayberries. Got a rhubarb and cant remember the variety at all, think it had 'red' in it, but candian red doesnt sound right? 

And then a few bargain seed packets. The allotment are having their potato day this weekend i think so will try and grab a couple of extra varieties. I remember the lady telling me these where freebies offered by the allotment so rude not to try a few of them out. 

Still struggling on the water collection front (iv got a feeling im one of very few people currently worrying about lack of water in the country!). As make shift im taking a water barrel and a tarp this weekend, at least its something. Spoke to a few others on the site and sowing the seed of being worried about lack of water, one of the guys, another newbie on the site had about 5 IBC's collecting water so depending on what hes doing and his requirements might be able to ask if i can use some of his. 

Red usually just refers to the colour of the stalks but you might have Canadian Red if you are in N America - it is apparently very popular in New England! Victoria was the most widely available and has red/green stalks. If anyone offers you a bit from their garden it is likely to be this old variety or Timperley Early, for an earlier crop

Ive managed to find the price list from the nursery, its 'Red Champagne'. Theres a rhubarb already doing quite well on the plot and i think another that doesnt look too good. One looks like a rhubarb plant the other looks like dying bulbs with nothing in the way of foilage so gonna give that one some time and see if anything happens. Was originally going to plant the rhubarb at the plot to replace the one that looks dead but now thinking ill use it as a filler in the back garden. Im guessing the one at the plot is an earlier variety too as it looks well on its way so thinking spice things up a bit by having them in different places. 

unrecordings

Another hour or two out there today and finally getting on top of things. Pots ( both clay & plastic) nearly all cleaned out & stacked. The card saved for a bonfire that never happened all boxed up for recycling, couple of broken pots smashed down into good sized crocks, old compost full of bits of twig decanted into a £1 Homebase bucket for use as mulch on some of the front garden. I also took delivery of an Einhell grass trimmer thing which should hopefully have an impact on some of the manual tasks I can't currently manage with only one functioning hand. Can't wait for dry weather to try it. There's some badly overgrown winter savory desperate for a trim. And the trailcam - 745 photos of Mrs Un feeding the crows, and it needs fixing again...

lynneee

Hi, the weather has been so wet and cold I've got nothing done in the garden sadly. As its half term I had hoped to get some planting done, maybe tomorrow! I do however have some little onions and leeks starting to grow so there's hope! Thankfully the wind hasn't damaged much, just one fence panel, so I'm happy with that, thought it would be much worse! 

bluesooz

I've been tidying outdoors, but still a bit too wet to do much.  At least we're not flooded

Had to make a quick netting cover for the purple sprouting broccoli.  They had been growing well till recently, however the pigeons have now found them so they were bent over and the top leaves all pecked at.

Have sown leeks, spring onions, peppers, aubergines, coriander and chilis.  All have started germinating bar the chilis.  Lots more seeds to sow but trying to wait till warmer weather.  Only limited windowsill space and greenhouse is full of overwintering pots and wildflower seedlings we've been experimenting with for a small.wildflower meadow.  

thanks to @euronorris advice - i have been tickling the flowers of my chili plant, overwintered indoors, and have 4 chilis starting to grow.  There were other flowers but they have fallen without any chilis forming so the plant definitely needed help.

jammy_dodger

unrecordings   winter  savoury  sounds  interesting ( and  hardy ) never  heard of that so  I'm  off to give  it a  google 
timber  I ordered  for  delivery from local  sawmill  came  today  ready  to build  new  compost  bins  closer  to the   repaired  raised  beds   so I  dont  have  to  trek  to the  end  of the  garden  with  kitchen  waste  etc.. the last  ones  did me   20 years  and i can  recycle  some  of the  slats  too  ( making  them  Geoff  Hamilton  style.). he  was my  gardening  hero 
looking  forward  to  days off  and  a  drop in the  wind  so I can get  going  with  them 
ive  sown a  few  carrots  in  raised  bed   I  put in greenhouse, may be  abit  early  but I couldn't  resist  a  sow ...though the  seeds  may be  a  bit  past  it...nowt to loose  x