The even newer good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2021!

Suffolk_lass

I know what you mean about that feeling that we are all getting somewhere as things in the ground start to show, @Caitykinss - so far only onions and broadbeans showing that are in the ground here (not even the potatoes yet), but we have planted up the strawberry bed with the new plants (it's a double-sized butler sink with all sorts of rubble in the bottom and about 10-15cm of compost! Just outside the back door). Meanwhile a variety of plants are being nurtured in the greenhouse - the cosmos had tiny buds on so I picked them all off - they will need to go in a tub on a table or the rabbits will see them down to stumps. 

Yet more wildlife in the garden this morning, with a pair of partridges, strutting around alongside the regulars - the rabbits, wood pigeons, magpies and crows (none of these particularly welcome in the garden as they deter the smaller birds). The blackbirds and robins are robust defenders but the wrens have not been seen for a while and there are fewer sparrows, tits and finches in our garden.

The squashes seem to be going well in the cold frame (still without rodent intervention!). We are off tp the dump this morning with the trailer on the car so I will suggest we return via the nursery and collect some of their (too smelly for the car) farmyard manure to give things a bit of a boost

carinjo

There is something to be said for a quiet morning in the backgarden with a mug of coffee watching over your plants in case the cat mistakes the leeks for grass! The hardening off of the tomatoes and leeks have started. 

Suffolk_lass

Speaking of hardening off, I have all the squashes and beans in my cold frame. The tomatoes will have to wait as there is no more room!

Still so cold here down the east side of England with arctic winds that everything is a third the size it usually is. The farmer's fields are all just earth (except the 10cm winter barley) too, so it isn't just us.

Ganga

Suffolk_lass said:

Speaking of hardening off, I have all the squashes and beans in my cold frame. The tomatoes will have to wait as there is no more room!

Still so cold here down the east side of England with arctic winds that everything is a third the size it usually is. The farmer's fields are all just earth (except the 10cm winter barley) too, so it isn't just us.

We had snow ( well hailstones ) this morning ,we live in the North East of England ,i think that anyone who has planted any bedding plants etc might be worried if they were not hardened off.

Suffolk_lass

Rabbits have recommenced battle here with a 20cm diameter hole in my lawn! little gits! - the lad with ferrets is doing exams before Uni in the autumn so has sold his ferrets and eagles  so I have to find alternative control method. A neighbour knows someone who has ferrets (and charges more than a litre of homemade cordial plus the rabbits he catches) and another friend is offering me rabbit cage traps. The ground is quite undulating and I do fear for undermining of foundations on out buildings and of shrubs and trees.

Lots of excitement meant we did not do what was planned. one of our hives of bees swarmed at about 11.30 so that was us for the rest of the day. We did retrieve them and persuade them into an empty hive, and then transported them to our friend's farm where our bait hive is located. We must go back and put a syrup feeder on this morning, so the new foundation in the empty hive is drawn out ready for them to make brood and store food. Fell into bed about 10.15 after a v hot shower and my back is still sore this morning!

Hopeful I might clear out and tidy my greenhouse later today as there are blue skies overhead

Kantankrus_Mare

I had earmarked next Wednesday to clear my dining room table of all plants and move to greenhouse at the allotment but so nervous of my healthy plants getting a shock and dying on me. Really itching to get everything in its place before I go back to work on the 17th. Blo*dy weather!!

MovingForwards

I've transplanted the squashes into individual pots.
Set up netting round the cabbage, cauli and spinach and put marigolds in.

Next weekend I get a bit of space back by my windows as I'm dropping some peas and tomatoes to 'MIL'.

Only 3 more shared tomato plant pots to split into individuals. The ones I've split I've sat on cleaned meat trays for ease of watering.

carinjo

For all of us who have been hoping for rain i wish you all a very wet bank holiday monday! And fingers crossed for the wind, my zippy greenhouse being tied down and all the plants moved inside the house.

Just over half of the "big seeds" planted last weekend have now germinated, including the crown prince, bush marrow and one of the courgettes.
One of the fellow allotmenteers offered me some advice and some of his amazing tomato seedlings. Their fruit grow about the size of a big fist. So now i have backup in case mine fails. 
Btw, the propagator lids on the plot helped the chard and cabbage under it germinate a few days earlier, so will use the idea again. 

Suffolk_lass

Well done everyone. Our efforts are still in short bursts thanks to the weather with DH moving some compost down to the greenhouse and me potting on my pots with five squash seedlings, into individual ones. I was reminded that I do the same every year (do I?) and grow far too many squash and tomatoes. I have about the right number of tomatoes but the squash thing was because of the mouse feasting (then two or three germinating from a fragment that the mouse missed. I don't know why I am justifying this to you instead of him (maybe you listen more...)

bluesooz

we're always good at listening here Suffolklass - much better to have too many plants than not enough.  Have your older asparagus shown themselves yet or is the husband still in the doghouse?