What are we doing in the garden 2024

Raining here too, but I'm off to Dublin tomorrow to the National Botanic Gardens, and to the Bloom flower show on Thursday, so I'll be sowing some just-purchased runner bean seeds this afternoon. I'd sowed 16, seeds left over from last year, in root trainers at the beginning of May, but only 2 have germinated, hence buying a new packet.

 

@Liriodendron , I also bought new runner bean seeds this year as I didn't have much success with last year's seeds. Hope you enjoy the shows.

I only sowed 8 bean sees and 7 germinated so OH planted those out last weekend. I now need to sow some more (having accumulated more loo rolls!) but it's raining at the moment.
This morning, when the rain had stopped briefly, I erected a small fleece tunnel over the dwarf French Beans I sowed yesterday - in the hope they will germinate better if they have some protection but mainly to keep the pigeons away.
I was also able to weed the slate path and square, easy to do using two kneelers, one in front of the other dot and carry fashion.

 

I have some planting I need to do in the garden, but every time the sun comes out by the time I have finished my row of knitting it has clouded over again.

 

Sowed some more french beans in pots in the polytunnel. Sowed some rocket outside. Managed to clear weeds along the path by the herb garden. Removed the prunings from the Azarra serrata from yesterday but torrential rain stopped us from clearing up. Cleared an area around the new buddleia being taken over by Salvia turkestanica. Weeded the peabean plants. This all done in between the rain showers. Has summer been and gone?

 

By the time I'd sown the beans the rain had stopped, so I planted out the sweet peas and gave them a wigwam support. Then I found a lot of annual willow herb in the borders, pretending to be phlox, or something...

 

I earthed up the potatoes and did some hoeing in the veg garden. Then I prepared the tomato patch. The earth was pretty compacted after all the rain so I dug in a bag of compost, then banged in the support posts and planted 6 tomato plants.

 

@Liriodendron I find willow herb and that big Canadian thing are very good at masquearding as proper plants. Very frustrating but good for the compost bins I suppose.

@Busy-Lizzie I've asked OH to earth up our potatoes with compost and fresh "hay" from the long grass he's cutting. It will, in theory, suppress weeds as well as feeding the soil and shading the tubers.

 

I'm considering chucking it completely this year. I'm going to cut the asters to the ground as there's nothing left of them anyway. The clems are all devastated, even a newer one which has been pretty resistant. Nothing unusual there as they get chomped as soon as they appear, but they aren't getting any decent growth at all. I've dug up several and they're potted and in 'moats'. The slug population is beyond horrific because there's been no winter to speak of, which at least keeps them a little bit more manageable. Actual gardening of any kind is taking 2nd place to slug lifting/dispatching.
There are loads of plants that will be lucky to grow at all, never mind get to flowering stage.

Willowherb is a particular horror, and it does look like lots of other plants. If only the slugs fancied that a bit more.
I'm wondering if I could train that greedy pigeon to eat slugs instead of bird food....

 

i ordered some replacement Mouse Hostas for my daughter's birthday present.

It took all of my will power not to order dozens of delicious new varieties for myself. Not even one. I feel practically virtuous

 

Does it count? Picked some lovely elderflowers this morning which are now infusing for 3 days ready to be made into wonderful elderflower wine.
Had to put a wire cage around one of the newer dog woods as the rabbits are eating the stems lower down.

 

This morning I dug another bag of compost into the courgette and cucumber patch. The soil was quite heavy. Then it started raining and I got cold and wet so I didn't plant anything.

I bought some French marigolds, to plant between the tomatoes, on the way home from the restaurant where I had lunch with friends.

 

Didn't have time to do much today but i finished weeding the border that i started yesterday.

 

I cut both lawns again. Feeding the grass creates too much work! I also cut the six foot Griselinia hedge alongside my seating area which provides a good thick screen and makes the area completely private. I usually use just secateurs but it’s about six years old now and needed a closer cut with a hedge trimmer. That was easy, it was the clearing up afterwards that took time, trying to remove the trimmings without removing the bark mulch! I should have pushed the mulch away beforehand but only thought about that afterwards!

 

I tidied up a stone trough on the terrace, staking and tying in 3 Gauras I planted last year as an experiment. Weeded it and encouraged the winter flowering clematis across to the trellis behind the trough. Might hoik out the two pots of nerines and substitute two pots of red geraniums perhaps.
Then I hunted all over the garden for a very small packet of green cable ties I had used a day or so ago putting new labels on my roses but couldn't find it anywhere so used some bright red ones instead to hang labels on most of my shrubs. It's very strange, I used to label most plants when we opened for the NGS but lots seem to have just disappeared.