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Post by Rosie on Feb 7, 2013 12:35:51 GMT
A better day today. Rather windy but nice and sunny and yesterdays snow has gone. I have been shifting the manure all morning and part of the afternoon. Put 18 barrows on the veg beds and 6 on the gladioli bed . Brought 12 bags of it home and put them on the chrysanth beds. That must keep you very fit Derek
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 7, 2013 20:17:02 GMT
Yes it does,Rosie, and I've been doing it again this afternoon. Another decent day and the wind has dropped too. Put 16 barrows on the dahlia bed and another 6 on the veg beds.Couldn't bring any home though because I coudn't go in the car. Rosemary had to go somewhere and she dropped me off at the allotments on the way but I had to walk home.It's only a 10 minute walk.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 8, 2013 20:47:29 GMT
Another nice day and I shifted some more manure this morning. Didn't quite manage to move it all but we are going to see our daughter and grandchildren in Wales tomorrow till Thursday so the rest will have to wait. There is enough room for a load to be tipped for someone else next week. Because of going away I needed an afternoon in the greenhouse. I have a friend called Alan accross the road who looks after my greenhouses when I am away.I had to move some plants about to make it easier for him in case anything needs watering.I just need him to look at the seedlings that have germinated and the cuttings on the warming benches to see if they need watering. I took the first 46 dahlia cuttings and planted the begonias saved from last year into boxes and put them into the propagator to start them off. So, no more gardening for a while.I am going to carry on with my writing and reading while I am away and do some bird watching (in between playing pool and darts )
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 8, 2013 20:50:21 GMT
Dahlia cuttings ready for taking
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 8, 2013 20:52:45 GMT
The first 46 dahlia cuttings
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 9, 2013 19:10:04 GMT
I am at Porthmadog now.I said yesterday "no gardening for a few days" but I had some time this morning before we came.I sowed some more flower seeds --pansies {giant fancy },cleome, statice and rudbeckia {Indian summer}. Put them in the propagator. Also emptied the pots of achimenes which had been drying off under the staging , to get the tubercles for re-planting. Didn,t get time to plant any though.Disappointed to find that some pots contained no tubercles at all . I should have enough though.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 11, 2013 19:38:14 GMT
I told you last year about a man called Geraint who Heather (my daughter) does some jobs for. He is keen on gardening and has a veg plot and a greenhouse. He is only 51 but he has M.S. and can,t walk . He is in a wheel chair all the time. Heather helps him with the garden but he has a friend that does the heavy work like digging. She took me to meet him last year and she took me again this afternoon. I didn't think I would be doing any gardening this week but we tidied his greenhouse out.I emptied several hanging baskets from last year and potted up some plants from them that I thought were worth keeping. There were some begonias,surfinias and diascias. He was thrilled to bits. He said it cost him a fortune to plant those baskets last year. Heather is coming to our house at Easter and I have told her that we will get some surfinias and other plants from a garden centre and take a lot of cuttings from them which she can take back to Geraint and they will save him a lot of money. His father lives nearby and Rosemary did him a good turn by playing his new organ for him . Heather had told her about him and she took some music and he was also thrilled to bits!
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Post by Lou78W on Feb 11, 2013 20:38:23 GMT
Thats a very kind thing for you to do for Geraint,Derek....I am sure he will be thrilled to get the plants from you...
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 13, 2013 13:28:59 GMT
Thanks, Lou. We have had two decent days here but it is raining today so I don't think we are going anywhere. I am spending as much time as I can, writing--trying to finish my new book. I have two chapters to write yet and I have nearly finished one while I have been here.Going home tomorrow afternoon ,I think.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 13, 2013 23:15:05 GMT
Something I forgot to tell you on Monday about Geraint's greenhouse. I was surprised to see by the label on it that it came from Elite greenhouses at Kearsley. I am 120 odd miles from home and I see a greenhouse that came from only 3 miles from where I live! Both my greenhouses came from the same firm and I have about 6 of their cold frames.They used to give a cold frame for a prize at our show every year and that is why I have so many of them . He got this greenhouse through his local garden centre and I have been a ride there this afternoon. I told the owner and he says he deals with this firm a lot and he said there was only about 5 greenhouse manufacturers in the country.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 14, 2013 19:45:36 GMT
Got home 7.10 this evening so back to normal tomorrow. I am at Blackleach all day though so no gardening till Saturday
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 16, 2013 22:12:55 GMT
Got 6 kilos of potatoes from the hut this morning (3 each of Winston and Kestrel ) .From the garden centre I went to in Wales last Wednesday I got one and a half kilos of Charlotte. Stood them all up in trays this afternoon to "chit". David Thornton, the general secretary of the National Veg Society sells potatoes and I have ordered 3 kilos of Maxine and one kilo of Blue Bell from him . He is coming to our veg meeting next Tuesday and bringing them. I have also taken 52 dahlia cuttings this afternoon.That's 98 altogether.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 17, 2013 21:42:33 GMT
Had an afternoon in the greenhouse. The begonias and gloxinias that I had ordered fro Dobies came yesterday.I boxed these up and also the achimenes I kept from last year and put them in the propagator. I also sowed cucumbers and peppers and several packets of flower seeds-pansies,rudbeckias, gazanias,antirrhinums, cleome,thunbergias and several varieties of African marigolds.I am trying several varieties of African marigolds because I can't get Doubloon any more . This is the variety I have grown for years.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 18, 2013 22:51:16 GMT
Nice day so I had a full day on the allotment.I didn't get time to move all my manure before I went away last week.Two other people wanted to get a load in and the rest of mine was in the way. One of these people said he would use what I had left and when his arrives I could use some of that. I have a herbaceous border at the front of my allotment. His manure did arrive while I was away but I was disappointed to find that a lot of it had gone onto my border burying some of my plants. I finished digging the trenches for my runner beans and sweet peas that I started two weeks ago. I half filled the trenches with manure before replacing the soil .I also put some manure on the top which I will fork in. I tried to get as much off the border as I could but there is still some on. Another bed that needs manure on needs weeding first so I started doing that.
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Post by derekbrooks on Feb 19, 2013 22:49:09 GMT
This morning I took 4 bags of my old compost to Blackleach for Billy, my helper to put on the fish shaped shrub bed to improve the soil. I had just two hours spare this afternoon and I went to the allotment and did some more weeding on the bed I started yesterday but didn't quite finish it. Been to the veg meeting this evening and got the potatoes I had ordered from David Thornton . He gave a talk about fertilisers which was just up my street, being a qualified chemist myself.I gave a similar talk a few years ago.
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