WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

I spent an hour or so on the balcony this morning retying the strings from the top of the railings up to close to the ceiling. I have a wire stretched out along the front of the balcony to which I tie the strings. I did about half the length of the balcony when I ran out of string! Now I will have to see if I can get some more to finish the job!

 

Watering. I poured buckets of water around the young trees despite having hosed the entire garden first thing yesterday morning.

 

Watering, if the forecast is right for the last time in a long time outside.

Moved some turf that had been dug up when I expanded my patio into the allotment to compost. Wondered why my raspberries look so bad. Picked a garlic (waitrose British garlic, massive softneck) I had stood on in the greenhouse and it still needed a couple more weeks, compared to the primor garlic I picked almost two weeks ago its quite a difference in maturity, they were both planted at the same time.

 

Early this morning watered the potted blueberries, tomatoes, rhubarb. At 10.45 planted 3x3 potted oriental lillies in the front border that's along the drive, got too hot to plant the cosmos and snapdragons.

 

Spent this morning cutting the nettles down from a bank roughly 20 ft by 6 ft remaining length will be done at the end of the summer.

 

I don't know where so many of you get the heat tolerance to do so much work!!! I've just come back in after half an hour (25C) of essential watering of pot plants that were wilting. Again. (thanks a lot, marigolds...) plus topping up our small and medium sized ponds. I could have done more, but would have felt it later.

Two Hidcote lavenders that were planted out a few weeks ago were mobbed by bumbles, as are campanula, red valerian and sedums in pots. Plus, it's a delight seeing large tadpoles, very small frogs, and damselflies at the pond. It's great stuff.

 

Hi,

We have few dandelions in our gardens @NigelJ years ago I found a useful tip on the web; just put a drop of white spirit into their crown and watch them disappear but don't splash the white spirit around; I found it a good way of getting rid of my dirty white spirit.

Yesterday was an 11 hour grafting day in 26C hot sunshine; good job no one watered me otherwise I'd now be ten feet tall. I removed more very heavy branches then logged them the logs collected very quickly; the brash I spent the afternoon shredding and it's being used as mulch.


Some of the brash and logs.

This is a huge tree towering only a few feet away from the bungalow; I'm removing the large heavy branches from the bungalow side and it's a nightmare; it sure gets hot and uncomfortable in the afternoons.


This mornings work; two more heavy branches coming down under full rope control. I'm balancing the weight in favour of the garden side; this tree would cause considerable damage if it landed on the bungalow roof.


Here's the top wildflower meadow in bloom but it really needs a good soaking; our site is a steep valley side making standing upright a major challenge.

I'm having a rest this afternoon otherwise I could hurt myself doing such heavy work in this heat. A new full set of strings has arrived for one of my violins so I'll wander into the studio and fit them; time is too precious to waste.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Mostly watering and feeding pots and potting on various plants, Bougainvillea cuttings needed new pots along with some Brachychiton rupestris and a couple of Erythrina crista galli from my own seed last year.
I know strange stuff but I like growing them.

I hoed between the onions and sweetcorn early so that the weeds die off in the sun.

 

@Retired 1) I don't have any dirty white spirit and 2) If I had why would I contaminate my growing space with it?
I just push in garden spade or fork lean back and lift out dandelion.

 

Nothing on the balcony today other than watering a basket or two. But I did spend at least half an hour watering in the church gardens! Many of the Calendulas I planted some weeks ago were wilting - at 10am!

 

There will be more watering again today along with deadheading plants.

 

Hi

I too wouldn't want to contaminate my soil either @NigelJ ; I only use just enough white spirit as a spot weedkiller and have never had any problems; I tried the idea having seen it on YouTube and it works for me; just passing it on.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

I had the hose out at 07:00 and spent 2 hours drenching all the beds, pots and tubs before the sun got too hot (for me, not the plants).

 

I planted out the last couple of Runner Beans, started planting the French Climbing Beans but the heat beat me.