What are we doing in the garden 2024

I like the colour of your shed - very cheerful. Mine is vert dark blue, almost black.

 

Yesterday, the adult blackbirds spent a couple of hours giving the recognisable 'danger' or 'worried' squawking.
Today, there is no sound of baby blackbirds twittering, from our front hedge. I have no idea whether a magpie or cat or something else, got them. They were not yet ready to fly the nest.
On a positive note, we now have sparrows galore in the jasmine bush right next to the front door. Perhaps they've found the significant supply of blackfly, residing in the rose bush on the other side of the door.

 

Squirrels here are starving at the moment, so if you have them, they would be my prime suspect!

 

Squirrels I wouldn't have suspected. Magpies, we have. There are foxes about, but they'd struggle to get in the hedge and up to the nest. There are one or two cats around, but I've not seen them often. Of course, it only takes one visit.
We have sparrowhawks, but I'm not sure they'd get into the hedge easily - and out again with prey. They are certainly in the field at the end of the road - and we ARE the first house.
Hedgehogs wouldn't go for them. It's a real shame, whatever got them. Even the parents seem to have gone now. I miss the twittering of the young.

 

Picked some more broad beans and spinach.
Picked the plums, very poor harvest this year but better than nothing.

Have kept some for eating in the next few days, the rest stoned and sliced and in the freezer otherwise they will rot before they can be eaten. Not enough to bottle/jam this year.

 

I sat and did some knitting. Occasionally jumping up to dead head or tie up when things caught my eye. Now back inside with coffee.

 

Shelling year old walnuts....

 

Been trimming back a few things that have finished flowering. Gives a bit more room to move out there. The temptation to start cuttings had to be resisted as I have quite enough plants to be going on with.

 

Weather's dull and it is raining so nothing much has been done outside. My new purchase arrived this morning so was dunked in a trug of water pending planting. Dragged my potted olive tree out from under the eaves to get a good watering hopefully.

 

Had lunch in the shade under a tree, and it was only as I tipped my head back to drain the last drops (of water) from my glass, that I saw a nest directly above, with a wood pigeon sitting in it.
Recollections of doing a similar thing a few weeks ago, below the jasmine, and seeing the same thing. Only, once the young had flown the nest, I dismantled it - with a hoe handle, I believe.

 

@wiseowl I love your colour scheme. I am guilty of painting lots pots and things in bright colours . It makes things so much more cheerful.

I spent some time with a little paint brush
Applying a strong mixture of round up to quack grass. I had dug it up prior to this but it came right back so the poisoning began.

I also cut back some branches that were bullying my clematis and whilst doing so, accidentally tested the electric fence wire. Yup, it still packs a jolt It didn't really hurt, just surprised me.