[snowdrops]

Went with daughter & she painted Hillfooters slurry in the chicken palace & I painted the rest of the back of the compost bin in the run, then had an impromptu picnic of cake & scones & jam with the grandchildren when they turned up & wheelbarrow races , & wee’s in buckets, great fun.

[Lulu]

Went to the annual meeting and paid for my plot, then took on another 1/2 plot - what was I thinking but now very excited and am thinking of buying a little polytunnel.   

[andreadon]

I sowed potatoes 

[Zoejcksn]

Hello
I’m new 

Two plots had one for 6 years and second one from Sep last year it’s been a massive task but slow and steady. Today’s job was removing an old netted cage from round the new plots green house.
Building some Aldi potting benches and cutting wood for some new raised beds.

All done in crazy wind while the kids bouncy around on the trampoline.

[Hampshire Hog]

Planted out some Sturon onion sets along with broad bean seedlings.
Pulled out couch grass from my asparagus bed. Removed another plot holders compost Daley that had blown onto my plot!!

Cheers HH

[Plot 1 Problems]

Pricked out the toms into their own pots, sowed a whole host of brassicas and beetroot into modules and planted my 3 pink fir apple spuds into containers. Finally the year feels like it's got going!

[wneva]

I'm back after a long silence!  I've just retired - this week - and am hoping to get to the plot a lot more than before.

Planted shallots yesterday, and garlic today.  I read that this is the latest you can plant garlic, so I bought some corms online and they're all in now. 

In clearing a patch at the end of Bed 5 for the garlic I filled a sack with the weeds and roots, which come with a lot of soil.  The sack's v heavy - mostly my topsoil clinging to the roots.  Up to now I've been tipping this into the green bin for the council to remove.  But thinking about that topsoil made me wonder about composting it instead.  Trouble is, I had no luck with composting.  I tried making a crude bin from old pallets - it all just fell apart after a year or two, and was really a rubbish heap not a compost bin. 
Should I try one of those dalek things?  I do have quite a lot of couch grass and I seem to remember that you shouldn't compost that.  Is there anything else you can't compost? 

Any advice on how to deal with weeds without just chucking them all in the council's green bin?

[Gillykat]

Today I dug out the bed for my asparagus crowns       It sounded an easy job but once I realised it was going to be awkward with all the grass roots I took the Plan B route......put down a huge sheet of tarpaulin and chucked the soil + zillions of roots onto that!   Dug down around 12 inches then put down some well rotted horse manure & compost and, as it was getting towards dusk, I covered it all up with a piece of weed membrane and will finish it off tomorrow or Monday morning. 

  Amazing how much soil comes out of such a relatively small hole!!!      I'm really looking forward to sieving through that lot.....    

[snowdrops]

I'm back after a long silence!  I've just retired - this week - and am hoping to get to the plot a lot more than before.

Planted shallots yesterday, and garlic today.  I read that this is the latest you can plant garlic, so I bought some corms online and they're all in now. 

In clearing a patch at the end of Bed 5 for the garlic I filled a sack with the weeds and roots, which come with a lot of soil.  The sack's v heavy - mostly my topsoil clinging to the roots.  Up to now I've been tipping this into the green bin for the council to remove.  But thinking about that topsoil made me wonder about composting it instead.  Trouble is, I had no luck with composting.  I tried making a crude bin from old pallets - it all just fell apart after a year or two, and was really a rubbish heap not a compost bin. 
Should I try one of those dalek things?  I do have quite a lot of couch grass and I seem to remember that you shouldn't compost that.  Is there anything else you can't compost? 

Any advice on how to deal with weeds without just chucking them all in the council's green bin?

You can drown them in a bucket of water for 3/4 weeks or more if they still have life in them, dry them & then compost or burn them, stack them in black bags for 6 months or more but I’d get as much soil off them as you can first for option 1 or 2. Look on YouTube for building a compost bin from pallets, if you got that sorted & then learnt to get it all working you could incorporate your weeds in there along with some fresh manure.
Or you could buy a hot composting bin, John the site owner here has one & did a write up on using one. The key to composting weeds is getting it hot. The only weed I don’t compost is horse/mares tail, I let it dry by leaving it on the path & then burn it or bin it.

[Aidy]

Spent a whole day forking the plot, adding me fertalizer to the spud bed and prepping the tommy greenhouse ready.
Getting there, spuds go in two weeks time.

[Longshanks]

I took a tomato plant in pot and left in polytunnel overnight to see if it will survive overnight. I don't have much window sill space left, so need to move some on. I'm not sure how cold it gets in the pt overnight, so must buy a Max/min thermometer or leave my raspberry pi there overnight to monitor temperature.

Put in potatoes and directly sowed beetroot and carrots.

Weeding - they're back.

[New shoot]

Finished the prep for this years planting - whoop, whoop  

All various parts of the plot pruned, weeded, mulched and/or dug as needed, edges strimmed, big veg cages and net tunnels in place and we are ready to go.  Now I get to play with seed spuds and plants     

[Ema]

I’ve been given some bags of old hemp insulation so I’m mulching and mulching!!

Every windowsill in the house is covered in seedlings!! The peas are outside waiting for me to dig them a spot. I have far too many seedlings for available space and am digging up the lawn to make room!!

I’m also trying to plant a new hedge 25m long, no small task.

So pleased the clocks have changed and I’ll be able to do a decent stint in the garden after work!!

[wneva]

Weeding, weeding, weeds!  and what to do with them

A man on the top plot told me last week that I can just put my weeds into a plastic sack (I have zillions of old dog food sacks),  close them up so light and rain don't get in, and leave the sacks in a corner of the garden for a year or so.  He said the weds would have composted themselves after a year.

I've so far got 4 sacks down at the far end, behind the jungle in the corner behind the garage.  A lot more to fo0llow.

Is this the way to go?

So far, since retiring ten days ago, I've managed an hour or a half hour on the plot every day!  The fine weather helps.  I'm very optimistic for the year ahead!

[Aidy]

a bit more prepping today, started on the brassica bed, forked through and limed.
Greenhouses all ready for coming season.
A little bit of building work done, I am installing bee friendly flower beds around the plot.
Finaly a sit down with the chooks for spell having a chat