What are we doing in the garden 2024

I hope you get a chance to enjoy your new site @Sheal. Hopefully, the weather will play ball through September [which is usually the case] and those slugs will follow suit, but don't hold your breath! I look forward to seeing pix, and we can compare notes on those slug eaten leaves

Not sure when I'll get my grass cut @Perki, as it's been so wet, and it's grown a fair bit since being done last week. Might be one of those wet cuts that we frequently have to do.
It's supposed to clear up later, so I hope to get a few things done out there. Not possible yesterday with the weather, and the wind today might cause a few problems again, but I can always get on with the shed interior. Not too much more to do with that until daughter dismantles her bookcase for me to use as shelving, and there's a few little bits to finish off with the gutter on the shed roof, so I might get that done as well. The bigger bird cage feeder could do with some revamping due to squirrels [] so that's a possibility, and I should get some more hedging pulled out and chopped for the bin tomorrow, but the garden itself is pretty much fine for now other than deadheading, and some 'planning'....

 

Well done getting car @Perki - you can pick up even more plants at garden centres now!
Yesterday I had to get some general herbaceous/shrubby stuff for a patch in a friend's garden. I thought I'd get some cheap stuff , but supermarkets seem to think we've all stopped gardening already!
Surprisingly, B&q had some decent plants even though a bit pricey

 

At last! I have 1 runner bean, 2ins long. I look forward to making a meal from it!
There are now more flowers coming but they are above the height of the wind break I put around them so with the storm coming in later today stand a chance of being blown off.
I am convinced side shoots grow overnight on tomato plants. I have checked my plants for 3 consequetive days and found new ones as well as huge ones missed previously.

 

Been away for a week , cut every flower and bud off the sweet peas before leaving and my courgette plant had some small fruits . Checked the garden when i got back last night - sweet peas exploding all over with colour and the courgette plant carried this monster which is 1.2 kilos . Interestingly the other courgette fruits were sat no bigger than they were before , intimidated by the size of the big one. Mrs B has suggested making it into courgette cake ; i have no objections to that.

 

Thanks I got a van cost me an arm and a leg to insure etc but at least I can push the whole sale rack into the back no problem

 

@Perki I've had a van for years and really enjoy being able to shove just about anything into it. It has those "stow and go" passenger seats that collapse flat into the floor and provide me with one big empty box to fill. Does your have the stow and go feature too?

 

Today just watering a few things.

 

We're just about straight indoors now @fairygirl and I've also been working towards family staying for a week in early September. The weather hasn't been too bad here over the last month and at least we're seeing some sunshine. I hope to spend some time outside next week - but I said that a week ago about this week and it hasn't happened. The garden is full of shrubs so very little for the slugs to munch on at the moment apart from a lonely Hosta and a Primula.

 

I wonder why your plants, in particular the Heleniums look still so good, like Perki and Plantminded. My ones have started to fade already. Probably down to the fact that we had no rain for the last 8 weeks.
Apart from watering the newly purchased plants, I don't have anything to do now in the garden with all the changes done. What they don't tell in these gardening programs is that if you buy plants in peat-free compost now, you have to water them all the time to keep them alive.
I need to wait for the Autumn storms to get new branches for the paths. (It's not that I haven't the money to buy borders, my target is to add artificial stuff as little as possible, but use natural stuff like tree branches that rot down, and contribute to the soil.)

 

Shrubs are always the best solution if there's lots of slugs @Sheal. All my gardens have been predominantly shrubs/trees, partly because it was lower maintenance when I was working, and/or when the girls were young, but also because of that slug problem. I think the weather's to pick up a bit here towards the end of next week, so fingers crossed that it's the same with you. East is much drier generally, although the eats has had a lot of 'our' weather over the last year or so.
I may not get much done today, due to iffy weather, but also because it's younger daughter's birthday, so she's coming over later for cake and maybe a wee fish supper her favourite treat.
If it's not great for outdoor stuff, I'll do the inside of the shed. I got outside jobs done yesterday while it was dry - more hedging pulled out and cut up/binned, and all the boundary tidied, plus some small loniceras planted along there, in with the new hedging. Ideal to do it then as I didn't have to water them.
The usual minor things were done - deadheading etc, and some more supports put in for sweet peas in one of the beds, because they were struggling to stay attached to the plants they're growing through because of the weather. The same with a couple of the clematis in pots, but mostly tying those in more securely to their supports.

 

Not much today, just picking fruit.

 

On close inspection @simone_in_wiltshire the leaves on my Heleniums are fading but there are still flowers on the way. I try to keep mine going by making sure that they don't dry out at the roots, regular deadheading and the occasional feed of tomato food, plus mulching with organic matter and bark. After increasing the number of Heleniums in my garden this year, I've had a rethink, it's too much work, three clumps are enough! In addition to the watering, deadheading and feeding, the leaning and wind damage plus need for support are encouraging me to look for easier alternatives. So far, Rudbeckia and Anemones are proving less hard work but I'll still be growing Heleniums next year .

 

I'm going to be taking more cuttings of my geraniums, coleus and lantana. The lantana is the hardest one to do because there aren't many non-woody stems.

I have a little bit of tweaking to do to the irrigation lines at the back deck rail and then picking up apples. The person behind me has an apple tree that, every year, drop these hard unusable apples which also carry lots of wasps. I have to work my way through the back borders to find the dead fall and get it out of there because it also attracts vermin and I don't want the garden smelling like a cidery!

 

Went out to tackle the conifer approximately 15ft high.
Not going up a ladder in the strong winds. So I stripped it from as high as I could reach, of the side branches. Then I started to saw it off at about 5ft up. With the top swaying in the wind, I suddenly realised why the previous owner hadn't removed it. The trunk was growing through part of the framework of the lovely archway, about 7ft up.
With possibly a little more luck than judgement, I got it down (wife was out, thankfully). Actual height was a couple of feet more than my estimate.
Wife was surprised - she thought I would tackle the smaller one today!
I have a lot more sawing to do, to get it all into pieces that'll go in a wood burner.

 

Many people just leave the fruit on the ground i cant understand it myself. I have an excellent Canadian apple , Eden , fantastic fruit , probably my best tree. I understand it even stands being frozen on the tree in Canada.