WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

Watered the garden again. Some of the plants in the heavy clay soil are drying out and wilting but I don't know if watering them is helping or just compacting the soil more.

 

It's a murky day with slight drizzle. Boring. Very boring.

I have an unfortunate corner in the front where nothing grows, even Semprevivums struggle.

I have a spare bowl.








The small solar pump without a tube nor spray nozzle went in to move the water around a bit, it looks quite nice doing its plop-plops

I need bigger stones to landscape the pondlet in better but so far I think it looks better than the struggling whatnots. Tomorrow we'll do some big stone hunting around the nearby fields.

 

All I've been able to do these last few days is water, water, water! Fortunately I'm still not at that point where I have to water most things twice a day! Even so to water & feed all my plants took the best part of 1 & a half hours!

I have to do all my watering using 2ltr bottles of water. When it's "Feeding Day" (once a week) I have to measure out the right amount of fertilizer into one bottle, dilute it, divide it between 4 bottles, fill them all up & then take them out to the balcony. I then water as many plants as I can with them & return to the kitchen to start all over again! It takes me between 6 & 8 trips to water all my plants that day. There are also quite a few plants in the house as well that need to be fed! After having fed them all I then have to refill all the bottles & put them in a cupboard till I have to start all over again the next day - sans feed!

Such is the life of a balcony gardener!!!
.

 

Went out around 9.30am to water my seedlimgs/plantlets and freshen cat water bowl under them. T'other Half watered the border on lane side of our wall with Yukkas and Aloe Veras and Bilbergia nutens in wall planters.. It was 29c then so, being sensible, we are in now.

 

Nothing doing today, the pots don't even need watering. I jut tapped a few tomato flowers to ensure they set.

 

It could be that it's waterlogged underneath, you could dig a hole by the plants and see. Part of our garden is like that in the winter.

 

Weeded part of the garden where there's 3 roses that struggle a bit. Then i watered the 3 roses and then mulched them.
Already thinking about the spring bulbs and i could order some but the one that i want hasn't come in yet, so I'm going to wait and i can order the others.

 

We have the same problem too, definitely not due to waterlogging....I wish!! It's pure 'set in stone' concrete!!
I too think watering is compacting the clay more.

 

How to test for waterlogged soil

 

Not much in the garden even if it wasn't raining I can't be bothered anyway feeling a little bit tender today .

I have sown some seeds 5 types of pansy 4 of which are trailing a new variety I got these of Premier seeds , also sowed some primula - erigeron Kav and geranium Czkzarr

 

Seen that or a very similar test done on a Monty Don programme a few years ago (not GW).

Heavy clay ( we live on the ground of a disused clay quarry....heavy it certainly is! is a different kettle of fish to ordinary soil drainage unfortunately.


We've worked very hard over the 40yrs we've been here and it's been improved a lot but we can still make house bricks like they use to here !!, All the older houses in the area ( over a 100 years old) our house included were built with them. When we did our renovations they were hard to match, the best we could do was use handmade ones.

 

Are you poorly or was it a good night out? I hope it was the the latter.

 

Self inflicted

 

Hmmm... Say no more....as I suspected!