What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2019

Cut the grass, finally- it has been raining so much that I haven't been able to do it for 3 weeks. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of new growth. The feed, rain and warmer weather may possible have something to do with that.

Did some therapeutic weeding (a very nice job after the rain when everything is easy to pull up and the soil smells great), and hacked out a binful of Brambles. The Ivy/ Brambles ratio in the wild corner is now perfect. Bled copiously. Tended to my wounds.

Potted up the Semprevivums, I'm quite pleased with how the pots turned out. They are made of air dry clay, spray painted and heavily Modgepodged.


The plant in the middle is our "Baby Football". Mama Football was discovered in a corner of the kitchen of our previous house, all shrivelled up and thrown into a plastic pot with some spoonfuls of soil still attached to the roots. I gave it a drink or two, and in some weeks it had grown so much that the babies were growing not just from the top of the opt, but through the bottom drainage holes. It has suffered years of neglect, being forgotten in the garden, eaten by slugs, drenched in water for weeks... indestructible!

So Mrs Football was a keeper. Now she is dominating a washbasing size bowl in the living room. The Baby Football was just a broken off bit I chucked into a spare pot last summer and forgot about. Guess what, Footballs are hardy!

So now Baby Hardy Football has his own hand made pot. Sadly, Footballs also have the ugliest flowers ever, sparse Agave- type pale orangeyish-browny ones which drip nectar all over the place and are a sensation amongst the UK greenfly population. Footballs faithfully flower every summer over a long period.

The Rosemary is superb right now.



Our potato field:


A lovely day

 

@Selleri I love your rosemary. I am having the dickens of a time trying to get some seeds to germinate. I'm on my third try. Did you grow yours from seed? If so, please share your success tips

All I've done so far is pull out a cold frame (the first small one I bought) and cleaned it up. I know my oldest son would love to have it so during my show this morning, I gave it a good cleaning. When he comes by tomorrow to switch back vehicles - he's using my 7 seater this weekend - he'll find a nice little 21"x41" cold frame waiting in the back seat of his car

 

Planted three pot-grown plum trees (Victoria, the President, and a mirabelle de Nancy). Got a little thoughtful in the process...!

 

Easy- find a house with established Rosemary bush, move into the house.

I grow a lot of herbs from seeds, marjoram, basil and thyme are very easy. After having a non-success with parsley, I started to buy potfuls from supermarket and divide them into larger pots to grow on. Typically there are around 5 potfuls doing rota. Some people like parsley with everything, tops with cheese sandwiches for example Never tried rosemary from seed, and obviously now the need is not very pressing. Perhaps cuttings or supermarket pot herb would be easier to start with?

The shrub had flowers here and there even on Christmas

 

For the first time I'm growing tithonia, it's a new variety that only grows to 3ft. Does anyone know if I have to pinch the top out to make it bushy? It's sort of bushing out by itself with leaves up the stems.

 

Hiya Logan
I grow T. Torch.....I pinch the tips out as I do most everything. If I grew a dwarf variety I would still pinch it out.
No downsides to pinching....flowering is simply slightly delayed that’s all but on the plus side you get more shoots, thus more flowers, and a bushier sturdier plant

 

Hiya Verdun and thank you, I'll do that tomorrow.

 

Planted tomatoes. Planted out runner beans plus a few tagetes for whitefly control. Planted out a couple of thalictrums. Watered plants in pots and in gh. Lawns to mow later.
Added to my “collection” of hackonechloas with Sunflare and duly potted it on
Cosmos Purity now in 3 litre pots and well branched ...pinched several times now....ready for planting out later

 

Did the “walk of death” aka weeding along the edge of my turf banking, by walking along the steep bank below the turf, cutting the long grass, and weeding as I go. Also cut all the dead wood out of the rhododendrons (two died right back last year, in the drought, but then started to shoot from the base again), and weeded the “normal” side of the turf bank - ie the extended flower bed by the patio.

About to reward myself with a sandwich lunch, next to the pond, to see how many dragonflies are about. Not seen many so far, just the ones emerging from the pond and waiting,for their wings to harden.

 

Yay!! There were two pairs of small red damselflies, busy laying eggs!

 

Planted out 6 tomato plants and pinched out the tithonia, a new variety called Tithonia rotundifolia Fiesta del Sol.

 

Moved the 4 pots of Sungolds from the top tray of the mini GH to the ground floor as their tops were touching the roof . Still too cold to harden them off outside but the top lid/vent is always well open during the day. My 4 x Gardeners Delight ( grown from seed from @JWK ) are growing well and still able to grow further before they touch the roof/vent. I wish the nights would warm up as it's getting a bit crowded in the mini GH now.

 

Planted out the dahlia tubers that have been coming on in pots for the last few weeks. Sweetpea seedlings have also mostly gone out; there are a handful left over, as always, that I just can't squeeze in with the rest. I'll give it a couple of days before they go into the compost just in case a brainwave strikes with somewhere else to put them

 

Nice warm day today 19 - 20 C not a cloud in the sky, got my tomatoes planted yesterday in the GH, the GH is looking really full now. Potted on tithonia - cleome and others this evening and planted out indigofera pendula - echinops T and two sanguisorba.


Tomatoes I planted yesterday

 

Wow!!
That is the understatement of the century!! I thought we had lots waiting for the last frost to have passed...