What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

That's annoying, isn't it?
I am having the same problem with a conifer just behind our fence, I think that will rob the tomatoes of up to two hours of sun at the end of the day, compared to last year.
But then, when we moved here 7 years ago, in the same spot there was a 60 feet beast. A beautiful tree actually, it would have made it impossible to grow any veggies. I did not do any gardening at the time, so it was actually quite pleasant to lay on the grass under that huge crown, quite an unreal feeling for a London garden.
Then they cut it down , and I felt sad. Now the little brother is growing to size, and I am annoyed at the shadow. Basically I am impossible to please I guess

 

My new wellies work just fine, so I braved the rain and spent several hours cleaning the garden, fixing the storage area at the back and generically making it borderline comfortable looking, from afar.
The plan being to lure my kid and wife into using it.
I have a bad habit to turn it into a costruction site of sort at the beginning of the season, lots of pallet wood, compost and pots all over the place. It makes it easier to pop in there and keep working as soon as I have a second. But it makes it very uncomfortable for the rest of the family, so I gave myself up to the beginning of May to clear it all.
I even trimmed the grass, even if our grass, with no direct water to the garden, is a lost cause. A few years ago I spent a month carrying hundred liters to the garden every week just for the grass, but it was too much work and it did not even look great, so I gave up :D

Anyway, I am glad that most of the critical work is done.
I still need to fix two small raised beds, securing the top of my "slug free" veggies bed, preparing pots in a few corners which I never tried before, fixing the planters and the baskets, maybe add a few shelves, perhaps some self watering pots, fixing a compost heap and some mushroom stuff.
But if I were to stop now and just get on with planting and let them all grow, I would still have more plants and a bit more variety than last year.
So I am happy

 

Pricked our toms and potted on French Beans. Planted out Sugar Snap and Mangetout and also sowed a fresh batch for succession planting. Planted out radish as well. Then started to make tiered strawberry planted from scrap wood, got the planters 90% done need to run angle on bottom boards and build stand. Also my compost thermometer turned up today, inserted into heap and she is running at a very nice 55deg C.

Rusty

 

Great pics Amandii. I see you share an interest with Nigel. As you are aware. I have also turned my attentions to Irises. I purchased several varieties of Dutch Iris etc from Parkers and they all grew. These along with the Bearded types, I planted in pots in the GH. Of course those varieties having rhizomes prefer that the tuber sits on the soil surface and they enjoy being baked in the sun. Whereas many of the Dutch varieties are bulbs and require planting. Here I have found a hic-cup with the basic gardening codes.

Even the experts state that bulbs need to be planted double their own depth. In a garden border, I have some bulbouse irises planted, and overtime mulching etc has actually caused them to b planted way below the suggested depth.

In the GH. My newly aquired rhinezomes are plante in six + pots and simply pressed into the compost. These are doing fine and a couple already have flower buds, or should I say. Flower swellings. The Dutch varieties, having been planted at double their depth. These have rampaged away and this has resulted in the bulbs having been drawn to the surface. This has induced an imballance so much so that the foliage is hanging over the pots and trailing everywhere. I notice som stem swellings...flowering portions. At the same time these plants are covered in bugs of non descript shape etc. I have sprayed them and also attempted to use split canes as supports.

 

That's the same as us @shiney ...with only a couple of houses up our lane the cost was high to dig up the lane to our house. We had Gas brought up to us, but at the time couldn't afford main drainage pipes to be laid as well, as this was 40yrs ago and we were also knocking down most of our property and redesigning it. But even with the 3 children, it was / has never been a problem, we have an on going contract with a company and they just turn up every so often and attend to the necessaries.

 

Been up to the greenhouse and moved out a selection of plants to harden off in the cool, calm weather. Later some stuff to go through the shredder, things to mulch as the ground is damp. Prepare area for French and Runner beans.

 

Took a lot of Fuchsia cuttings yesterday and also potted up a lot of Bacopa cuttings that I had rooted in water. Did a fair bit of pinching out too. Hopefully today...now that I am the proud owner of......compost..I will begin planting up our big pots.

 

That's a shame..
Also, a bit surprising to me, in my ignorance I would have expected a plant that tall to have such deep roots to be pretty much immune to drought.
Where I am from back in Italy the alaternus is not unusual in gardens, so I assumed it would be tolerant of drought and high temperatures in Summer, but then perhaps they water it. We never had one in the garden.

 

Are you using the Berkeley composting method, out of curiosity?
I mean, the fast composting one which requires turning the heap every 2 days for a few weeks.

 

No. I have been watching a lot of Charles Dowding videos and have decided to go no dig, so need compost to be right. This years batch although it looked and felt right has had a lot of seeds in it that were not killed off by the heat. So I decided to get a thermometer to check progress. I will be turning it in the next week. In fortunately I only have room for 2 x 1m square bays, this gives me enough compost, but could really do with a third one to be able to turn into when one is closed up to do its thing.

Rusty

 

Someone's nicked most of the potting compost I made up yesterday........... CAROL!!!!!

 

@ARMANDII how do you get your carnivorous plants looking so good? Mine have been growing new stems but then the ends go brown. Any tips? I've had these about 2 years-never potted them on. I brought them in the greenhouse over winter even though the grower said they can stay out year round. Any hints and tips?