What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

My two penn'orth on Irises. The Pacific Coast Iris I had some years back were bulbs. The dwarf Iris I have are rhizomes and they tend to make their way to the surface. To me a corm is like those of Begonias and I've not seen an Iris in that form.

 

That must torture for you both so do you just have to wait now?

 

What a lovely day. Spent a bit of time playing checkers in the greenhouse trying to squash everything in there before this week's snow comes along.

All of the residents with the exception of the primula were grown from seed this past winter.

Then I sat down with pencil and paper and figured out how to install collapsible staging and ordered the supplies I will need. I've got a back up blade for doing the metal cutting where required so it will be an inexpensive project.

10 more days of nasty freezing nights.

 

I like Dowding's approach too. If I had to start from scratch probably I would try that, but like you say it takes a lot of compost. Actually, that's why I looked up the Berkeley method.
It is very labour intensive but it takes 18 days and allegedly can bring the temperature to 85 degrees celsius, meaning that people put even bones and all kind of organic refuses in, and the heat should kill any roots and seeds.
Also, the total volume of compost is quite similar to the initial heap.
At least that is the theory, reading more there are quite a few things which can go wrong with it, like with all kind of composting I guess.
However, if you are experimenting it might be worth researching it. If it worked like described, one could make throusand litres of compost in a relatively short time.

 

Well, in the meanwhile, you look as ready as one could possibly be

 

That's awful, I hope you sort that out soon.
Every year we are in a somewhat similar situation in that our rent renewal date falls after the time most seeds need planting , beds need preparing and so forth. And of course, should we be forced to move, I cannot be sure that the new place will have a suitable garden.
Have you considered popping a few of the tomatoes into self watering pots?
It is not ideal, but at least they can go on growing and you can take them with you when you move.

As for the slugs we too have a very aggressive population here. They seem to go through anything, pretty much, killing even large grown plants, like courgettes and pumpkins.
I found this video quite interesting, in particular the suggestion to create shaded, ideal hiding places for slugs to congregate.
Basically, you make a few ideal slug hotels in the garden, then day time you lift the roof and dispose of them.

 

Pulled lots and lots of blanket weed out of the pond yesterday. Cleaned out a house. Scrubbed out one of the bird baths. Put up two window box feeders - Sparrows and Bluetits seem to like them. Sat on patio watching the clouds and reading a book. I felt something against my thigh and found one of the baby rats climbing through the zero g. She climbed onto my lap and sat there for a minute or so before climbing back down. I think she wanted to know what I was reading . She came back later on, I gave her some suet pellets for her trouble..

Too tired today after bike ride for much. Some watering and sweeping of path was all I managed. Oh, and painted a bit more of the patio walls.

 

Nice sunny day , Been potting on plants today begonia - bacopa - antirrhinum - nepeta and others, made sure all the plants in the GH were well watered and I've been out feeding the pots and the Iris

Walked down the road going on a mile or so cause apparently someone were selling plants, not much to see other than some ivy leaf pelargoniums and a bag of compost for a tenner , they is a little Garden centre not far away at all who I will not deal with not a nice bloke at all, from what one of my customers were telling me who just ordered 500 litres of compost off them they short changed her, 450 litres turning up in 75 litre bags at £9 each rather expensive I say.

I am sure I've just read something about hot compost makers , I need a big one huge so i can make a fortune be a millionaire you know

 

Thanks very much @NigelJ and @ARMANDII . I'm going to look at the Sarracenia in more detail tomorrow. But I did cut them back previously and so some are new growth. Last year I had the same problem with them-lots of new growth but before the tips could open up properly they went brown and crisped up at the end. Hmm. Going to have a good look tomorrow and report back. They definitely will need potting on though thinking about it-i worked out I've had them 3 years and they're still in the original pot

 

Hubby mowed the back lawn and i planted out the beetroot seedlings also did a lot of weeding. At the moment have to put everything in the grey wheelie bin for the dustmen.

 

Covered raspberries with mesh to stop pesky sparrows

 

Did some more potting on this afternoon, and loads of watering.