What are we doing in the garden 2024

Hello @Simone
Tomatoes do seem to enjoy Herefordshire clay , i have grown gardeners delight and cherry tomatoes with great success direct in the ground for a few years now , but , you are further south than me so i am surprised you have little success. I have always grown tomatoes in a west or south facing location with a great success rate and also with bush tomatoes in multi purpose in 20” plastic pots. Biggest problem has been supporting the plants from the weight of fruit .
The only time i gave up was when i lived in Wales when the plants were hit by blight before they had chance to give me a crop ( by early July !)

 

All I've done over the last few days is some deadheading and clearing up leaves, twigs and berries after some high winds. Most plants look as if they are celebrating an early autumn by reducing flowering which is demotivating! Instead of gardening I've been doing some home maintenance which I dislike as mistakes are less easy to rectify than if you're gardening .

I've weeded, jet washed and resanded the block paving on my drive and front entrance, causing a river of overflow down the road , now washed away by rain. Today I'm putting a second coat of Hammerite on an iron railing at the front of the house. It's good stuff but gets a bit like treacle as the temperature warms up. Luckily, no spills, just paint on me and my clothes - old ones for painting!

I've got another rail and some downpipes to paint at the back of the house but I'll pace myself with them as they are awkward next to steps. My fear is a spillage on stone paving even with adequate covers as I'm clumsy! I much prefer digging and pruning, the garden is more forgiving if you make a mistake .

 

Does anyone remember the Black Arrows which preceded the Red Arrows? I remember, as I child, we lived near Wattisham in Suffolk where they were based and on the day of Winston Churchill's funeral, I watched them fly out in formation from Wattisham, then I went indoors and saw them do the flypast over the funeral procession on the television and a few minutes later, I went outside again and saw them come home.

 

I stand corrected. It was a joint squadron of Lightings which flew from Wattisham for the funeral flypast. The Black Arrows had already disbanded and the Red Arrows didn't arrive until 1965.

 

I vaguely remember the Black Arrows/diamonds?, at Farnborough as a child, it would have been my first visit.
I seem to remember they may have flown Hunters?

 

We get our weather from the West and little sunshine and just 20c in average. Also, my neighbours start darkening my garden. The east has now 3 trees and the west side has got a fast growing ash tree. My tomatoes got just 6 hours sunshine max in June/July when there was hardly sunshine and it was too cold.
The peas liked the weather but I will now go wild (with wildflowers)

 

Hello @Simone

You must have had the weather i used to get in Wales - the temperature used to struggle to reach 20 . I take my hat off to you for trying , interestingly i didnt get a slug problem there , it was so wet i was inundated with frogs and new potatoes were the size of large jacket spuds ! Gatdening is a funny old game ! Hope to see photos of your wild flower garden next year , God willing .

 

Hello @shiney , i think that counts as “ hoovering” -dont let Mrs S know or she will be wanting you to do another type of hoovering

 

20c would be a fine temperature for toms if we had it most of the summer, but going down to mid-teens during the day and near of 10c at night is not good.

 

Thank goodness it was a long weekend!

The day started with disasters, my Amazon order was dutifully delivered to the old address (I had checked at least three times, really!) and then The Child nearly fell down the stairs and broke a designer bowl (my Dad insists on collecting them for us, great fun in paying for the duties for the parcels...I haven't told him. ) Then I won a game of Carcassonne and the day brightened up.

The visit to the old house where my Amazon delivery was waiting between the bins was useful, I had forgotten some bamboo canes and a broom there. I also took cuttings from Lonicera Henryi and scooped up some seed grown Alpine Strawberries that I had left behind on purpose but now realised will be perfect ground cover for the new garden.

Then it was potting up and sorting out time, my lovely 45cm communal succulent houseplant bowl just doesn't fit here so we started to dismantle it. Small round cacti went together into a smaller bowl, interesting and important ones into low terracotta bowls on home office windowsill (South facing ) and the tall ones are waiting for their tall terracotta pots to be delivered by Amazon

The remains of the once lovely planter:



Planted my Orchard on the western side of the Herb Garden The plum tree is a 2 years old seedling from a fruit The Child collected and asked the magic words "do you think this would grow?". The strawberries around it are seed grown Musk Strawberries that simply refuse to even consider flowering or fruiting. Musk Strawberries were my grandmother's favourites so the plants will stay.



Potted up various houseplants that really needed re-potting in spring but moving house dictated they had to wait. Potted my Dracaena together with Pothos in a big planter, the plan is that the Pothos will be trained to ramble on the fireplace wall. The plan is also to clean up a bit.

A very realistic photo of a house move in progress



Things are slowly getting into their places and the new garden plan evolving.

 

I spent an hour picking up windfall apples! Nearly all useless to use - mostly small, bit cankered or chomped. It’s a very old tree but it still produces and is a highlight in the garden. It’s not going to be a very good year for my apples though, (cookers) as the fruits are small but a bit of sun this next week or so should colour them up nicely.

 

Nothing will be happening outside today due to heavy rain and more wind, but I'm not going to be around later in the day anyway when it's meant to clear up. It's how it is.
Yesterday I spent more time in the shed because it was quite hit and miss weatherwise again. I refloored a good bit of the space that hasn't been done yet. Had to add a bit more concrete in the front corner where there was a little bit more ingress, but the rest of the shed is now bone dry. If there was going to be any leaks, they'd have shown by yesterday with the amount of rain we'd had. That corner is also the site of the bees, so once I get the outside bit done, that should help too.
Planted a couple of things later on - they'll be nicely watered in now! Split a Dicentra, ready for sending a piece to a forum member, plus the usual deadheading, and also tying in more clem and sw. pea stems so that they don't get annihilated with the wind. Too late for one on the screen though, even though it's well secured, so had to remove some stems on that. It gets the brunt of the wind though, so not much I can do at this stage.
The grass cutting will have to wait again. It'll be a foot high by the time I get to it at this rate. Just as well it isn't too warm or it would be even worse..

 

Nothing happening in my garden either. Not because there is nothing that needs doing, mind. Back has been aching and threatening to seize. Really want to avoid that if possible, so the weeds have a reprieve ... and they sure are making the most of it. Ah well. Part of a garden's rich pattern.