What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

Mine does that too I have a narrow strip of Mypex woven weed membrane between the double-row which at least prevents weeds growing in that bit.

 

@Kristen Mine seem to have been planted in a clump (for optimum awkwardness when wanting to weed!) and are in the part of my plot where I want my wildlife garden to be! Do you think I could dig them all up and put them in rows somewhere else? At least they'd be a little easier to locate and keep weed-free like that!

Nick

 

Huge root system ... moving established Asparagus wouldn't be my first choice. I would buy some fresh crowns and plant in a new bed; they will need 3 years to become productive, stick to the Clump in the interim, and then when the replacement is the envy of all your friends ditch the old clump.

When we put our Asparagus bed in I decided I wanted enough crowns to be able to have a dinner party. In particularly I did not want to be harvesting a couple of spears a day, for a week, and storing them in the fridge to be sure of enough for the party - and then serving tired and knackered spears. I bought a packet of seed in the "end of season sale" for 50P and now have about 60 crowns. Of course the plants don't only produce when they know we are having a party so we have to harvest twice a week and thus we are much loved this time of the year when we go to visit friends ... well not this year, so our neighbours will have to get sick of Asparagus Season along with us ...

 

Half emptied the compost bin, my lower back started to ache a lot and that's the time to stop or I'll be in agony for a week or more.

 

Thanks, @Kristen! Oh dear, well I think I'll keep that clump where it is and plant a couple of new rows, I love the stuff and never get bored of it!

Nick

 

Had a manic week with the nutcase neighbours kicking off. Made especially worse as we should have been in Thailand for two weeks although mr snorks had managed to take the week off anyway-the evil neighbours totally ruined it.

But we managed to get the koi pond crystal clear again and I’ve been busy digging over the front garden again and getting loads more stones and flint out. I used my last bit of compost to rake in over the top to sow a packet of poached egg plant seeds around the base of the new trees-just for a bit of summer colour. I’ve also brought my divisions of Geum Totally Tangerine to plant in the front border too.

I’ve also replanted a few of the Portuguese laurels that id originally planted as a hedge. I’ve been looking at them and they seem to have got some kind of bacterial infection -they look like they have shot marks in the leaves. I had thought it was from caterpillars but it looks like bacterial canker(?) I’ve ordered a copper drench to try. Really disappointing that they've gone like this. We do seem to suffer a lot with bacterial and fungal issues in our garden. Very annoying! even my patio peach has suddenly got peach leaf curl-last year id managed to get it to a point where it was free of it. Done exactly the same this year but it is totally blighted.

We’re managing to keep the grass cut neat by mowing it every couple of days with the mulch attachment thingy-this stops having to collect the cuttings as our garden waste collection has been stopped. I’ve also scraped a few patches and reseeded. But now I’ve run out of compost to be able to sow anymore grass seeds.

I’ve ordered a few plants from J parkers-salvia amistad and some dark purple alstromerias. Thought the deep purple would look good with the calendula indian prince that I’ve sown from seen and the geum totally tangerine. I’ve also sown a few “foliage” bits to add into the mix-some euphorbia oblongata and honeywort and a type of green amaranthus (all from a sarah raven cutting pack). Hopefully they will do well.

Weve also got high speed fibre being installed and our private communal road being dug up-the idiot doing it hasnt given us the required notice and also planned to cut straight across our own drive (which has our ground source heat pump in) and through our outside border where there are a few very well established shrubs. I got into an argument with him as he tried to claim we didn’t own our own drive or border! Had to set him straight-but more unnecessary stress!

well it’s 5am now -I got up as I can’t sleep with all the nonsense going on here. Ive just heard the dawn chorus starting so might take a cup of tea outside!

 

@KFF Thanks for the Daff information. I will replant them today.

@Snorky85 Sorry to hear you are having more stress with the neighbours. Just what you don't need on top of the current restrictions. I'm up most mornings at 5.00 am, best time of day for me. I saw two Hares in the field earlier. I hope you enjoyed the dawn chorus.

 

Had beautiful walk on beach yesterday morning. I made a point of sniffing some Alexanders. They smell bad . They grow all along the lanes here.
.Cleaned out one of the houses in the afternoon. Watered baths and pots and topped up the pond. The pond is very still now, there used to be lots of activity with snails and beetles moving around and when I pulled out blanket weed there would be larvae that came with it. Just a few larger snails left now .

I got the wheelbarrow out and mixed up a bag of top soil with a bag of farm manure before adding it to the cherry tree flower bed. Planted a couple more plants into the bed. Trimmed around grass edges with the little battery strimmer. Planted a cottage pink in a patio pot - not particularly wildlife friendly but I love the scent.

Swept the patio as covered in thick layer of Hawthorne blossoms. Pointless exercise really as it will be covered again today, no doubt, but it looked good after I'd finished Zeroed it, enjoying rabbit politics, baby rats scampering around and the Sparrows in the beech hedge. They were incredibly loud.

 

Have you got anywhere for a compost heap? Seems likely you would be doing that if you could ... I'd hate to give away all that useful material, but space is one problem I am fortune not have.

Wet winter? I would want to keep all the wet off them in winter. A lid/roof and a plastic curtain at the front/sides.

Definitely my favourite. Lovely colour Easy to propagate too.

I got those a lot when i was young. Weekend and Monday mornings particularly ...

 

I think most of us are suffering from injuries from overworking at the moment. My back has now joined forces with my right arm to cause me grief ....hauling the hundreds of plants in and out of the greenhouse and cold frames everyday to harden them off certainly doesn't help matters. Never mind the time will soon be here to rest back a bit and admire all our hard work......I hope.

Planted out the remaining 10 Hellebores yesterday, that job had been hanging around a while now so I'm happy it's finally done and dusted. Also began planting up our big 'urn' type pots . Potted up a couple of hanging pots with Strawberry plants as they worked well in them last year ,we have more this year so will have to think where to put the others.
We also planted a couple of Hydrangeas in the shingle area too.

@Snorky85 sorry to hear that your neighbours are still being a pain in the ****.

 

I don't take any exercise ... I should of course. When I went for my Bupa health check thingie a couple of years ago they complained that the ratio of my waist to height was all wrong (I figure I just need to grow a bit more ...) and my lung function needed work ... and so on ... but they couldn't understand why I was so flexible.

'tis all the twisting and lifting and gardening to thank for that. I get stiff too ... but I figure its all good