What are we doing in the garden 2024

I've just had my delivery of raspberry plants (not bare root). No chance of me getting them in the ground tonight.
Typical courier. Email says they were left in a safe place - in the porch.
Cobblers! (apologies to shoe menders)
Our porch is closed and locked. They were left outside the front door!!
I'll get them in the ground tomorrow.

 

Spent a couple of hours re-siting/stacking rocks and clearing leaves.

 

That neighbour sounds like a real piece of work @Retired. Actually - he's pathetic. You'd expect that behaviour with the sweeping and then denial from a 4 yr old, not a mature adult. As for the 'emotional blackmail' wanting to buy part of your property...words fail me. I won't say here what I'd like to call him as I'd be instantly banned.
But - you have each other, you and Bron. That's worth it's weight in gold. I hope you can get the garden in shape so that you have time for Bron once the operation is done. As @CarolineL says, people can skip your posts if they don't want to read. It can often help to unload to people who you're not directly connected to physically, but to whom you have a common interest and are slightly detached from. I understand that only too well.

I carried on with the little leaf cage yesterday, and just have a separate front 'door' to add which I should manage today. That's easier than lifting it out. I should have enough bits and pieces to make that - hopefully, but it can be temporary for a while if I don't. I can then go and get more leaves from round the corner before the council chaps clear them all - they've done the footpath across from the NT garden, so I'm hoping they won't have got round to the bit that's been very fruitful so far!
Not much else to do out there unless I fancy digging out a potentilla to move into the front garden. Not sure my back and ribs will manage that just now, but I'd like to get it done before winter.

 

Expecting delivery of a bare root Gertrude Jekyll rose from DA sometime this week

 

I went to the plots again yesterday, more tidying up. Managed to harvest some rocket leaves that have re-grown, still getting a few cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse. I really should clear the last to make way for more winter salad, I have some mizuna in but it's not growing much yet. I agree about grass growing, all that cutting and strimming a few days ago just seems to have stimulated it. I started to dig at the edge of one area, where the grass path was trying to encroach. I respect the theory of no dig but when you get the amounts of bindweed and couch grass we get it needs to be done or it will just take over.
I didn't get to finish moving all the plants I wanted to at home the other day. I could do with an injection of your energy @Retired . I had a thought about your hedge situation though. At least when it was on your side you had control. I hope your neighbour doesn't decide to put up something his side that he let's get huge. We have a big Laurel hedge at the bottom of our garden. When we first moved in I did consider taking it down, but my wife wisely said at least if it's our side we have more control.

 

@Bluejayway look forward to some photos in full bloom in the fullness of time.

 

Hi,

Thanks for asking @CarolineL I'm happy to pass on the welder details and to encourage anyone to have a go at welding but with a safety caution; eye protection is a must and the mini welder comes with a useful mask; I prefer using one of these hand held shield masks to using my automatic darkening welding helmet; rigger type gloves are the ones I use; welding creates a great deal of heat and metal takes ages to cool down. I was taught never to arc weld with bare skin showing and be aware of the welding environment for anything which can burn like cans of fuel or solvents; sparks fly.

Pardon our interruption...

If you are new to welding @CarolineL there are lots of YouTube videos covering the subject; here's an example;



I can TIG weld which is incredibly difficult and highly expensive not just for the welder but the supply of pure argon gas needed if welding aluminium. Mig welding I've never tried but is extremely popular. I don't know how much welding these tiny welders will do before cutting out and having to cool down but with patience they are a great way into welding not costing a fortune. Good luck if you go ahead.


I think welding could be on topic because it can relate to lots of what is done in a garden from tool/machinery repairs and even making metal railings; the scope is enormous. Here I'm welding new steel railings for the front decking to our bungalow only costing the price of steel. All are identical due to the wooden jig.

The heavy steel frame was bought from a scrap yard just paying by weight; it was very rusty but was a fraction of new steel price; the railings are new steel and the handrail galvanized scaffolding. The paint is expensive American Benjamin Moore from Shaw's in the UK. Go for it @CarolineL after making the usual mistakes you'll enjoy welding; please feel free to PM me if you need a bit of advice.

Whilst off topic here's something else I've just bought that will prove useful;

Pardon our interruption...

I have a big pressure washer that takes a lot of setting up but I wanted a smaller one I could easily set up and use on the car; I've got this but not yet used it. To go with this I've also bought two more items to use with it;

Pardon our interruption...

Pardon our interruption...

What a lovely reply from you @fairygirl Thanks so much. I'm a member of at least ten assorted forums always enjoying exchanging ideas. The neighbour at the top of our garden is best ignored; he's now well aware what I think of him and I don't want to escalate it further into a war; I'll never trust him again and how right you are he's like a sulking spoiled 4 year old who should man up in his forties; I dislike falling out with anyone but he's an exception. Yes as long as I have Bron in my life I'm happy whatever is thrown at me; Bron's in for some serious retail therapy next year once she's fully mobile; I keep buying her things on the web making sure she's not losing out.

I'm distressed to see Bron so ill and in pain but I'm coping well adapting to the change in our lives; having Bron makes getting out of bed each day worthwhile. I'm spending time on the keyboard whilst Bron is asleep on the sofa in the front room; I don't want to disturb her she's endured another painful night last night.

Thanks @Allotment Boy There's no chance of this nasty neighbour planting anything to annoy me because the greedy former neighbours who built his house built right up to our boundary which he'll suffer if his steps become worse with subsidence; he can't use our garden to carry out maintenance on his property without our permission and I'm not being childish; if he asks then I'll grant permission.

Please be careful @Allotment Boy when dealing with laurels; not only are they poisonous but give off toxic gas. I've posted pictures of some of our laurels previously; they get out of control very quickly indeed; the ones to the top of our rear garden forming a huge very tall hedge took a great deal of time and incredibly heavy work to dispose of but I also removed the stumps and roots;


Over the years I've kept lowering our laurels which were as tall as the tree seen top left.

Here's one of the laurel root balls removed taking a full week to dig and jack out; this one had bricks and stones and even part of a 2" thick concrete path embedded in it. I cleared the entire hedge plus a huge hawthorn tree out of sight.

Got to go; dinner to sort out but thanks everyone for your friendliness and patience.

Kind regards, Col.

 

Here's hoping ....

 

Wow Col (@Retired), your energy is amazing! I hope your Bron gets her knee op soon.

My gardening efforts are meagre by comparison! Yesterday I cut the grass and swept up some more leaves from the path and drive. With this mild weather the grass is still growing so I doubt it'll be the last cut of the year, but the big silver birch across the road has lost all its leaves now so there won't be much (if any) more leaf sweeping. Oh, and I finished cutting ivy off the gatepost - that's in the green bin for tomorrow's collection because I find it doesn't compost well.

Garden to-do list for the next couple of weeks:
- trim the privet hedge so that it looks crisp over the winter.
- weed the hedge bottom - I noticed yesterday there's quite a lot of grass coming up in there
- turn compost bin 2 into bin 3. That'll aerate it so it should be ready to use by spring, and free up bin 2 so I can turn bin 1 into there when it's full.
- thin out the self-seeded forget-me-nots in the areas where they've come up like mustard-and-cress
- plant my new asters (unless I decide to keep them in the cold frame until spring)

We've a man coming on Friday to put a new door and door frame on the coalhouse which is where I keep most of my garden tools, so I'll need to clear some space so he can get in there to work - hopefully it'll be a dry day so I can just stick it all in the back garden. The old door wasn't great when we moved in (in 1988!) but now it's rotten at the base and the hinges are rusting away so it's high time for a new one. Once that's done I'll need to paint it with something - probably colourless wood preservative to start with, then we'll see how we like it.

 

@JennyJB you use the same compost system as me , i just refer to mine as bays rather than bins. I need to move mine along as 3 is empty but i only just filled bay 1 up yesterday so a couple of days to settle.

 

You're very welcome @Retired . Take care - both of you.
You've been busy too @JennyJB. I have 3 compost bins. Two are in a corner of the front garden, hidden by a constructed 'box' and I can lift the lid to put stuff in, and take the front off for emptying/mixing. The other one is in the back garden by my shed. I have a small bucket near the back door for putting day to day stuff in [mostly teabags!] and for the garden bits and pieces, and that gets emptied into that 3rd one when it's full. It gives a good amount of space for material.
Got my leaf cage done, although I'll make the door part better - probably next year. Went round to collect more leaves from the spot I'd been using - only to find the 'cooncil chap' had been round with his wee lorry and cleared it all! Had to go a bit further, to where I got some initially, and got a good car load. The robin that had appeared that first time, came back to see what was going on.
Didn't do much apart from that as I'd had a second walk with daughter in the afternoon, and we clocked the various spots that had 'leaf possibilities', and I went back afterwards for more.
Won't get much done today either as I'm away from mid afternoon. I might try and get some more leaves though - as long as I can beat that wee bloke and his lorry....

 

I got the plants moved yesterday and managed to get another out of it's pot. Let's hope they all settle in OK, it seems mad but we had to water quite a few of other pots too, luckily I have a probe thst gives a more accurate indication if a pot is dry to a depth rsther than just on top.This dull weather is deceptive , we haven't had much rain recently.
@Retired Yes I did know about Laurel, that's why I never shred the leaves, and usually dispose of any in the council bin as they don't break down in compost.

 

Nothing today it's drizzling.

 

Hi,

Thanks @Allotment Boy There were so many huge laurels in our garden; I removed a lot using a 20" petrol chainsaw and when down cut the trunks into logs for a neighbour with woodburner; car loads of them; she only lives a couple of hundred yards away. The rest were mostly shredded and have been used as mulch doing a good job keeping the weeds down; I also more recently ran full car loads of laurel leaves to our local tip; the tip is 6 miles away and the car windows were open.

The bags were rammed full and very heavy; I struggled to lift them into the car with four each trip then lift them into the skip at the tip.

Last year I ran over 80 full bin bags of English Ivy to the tip; I never want any ivy in our gardens again but we still have lots of laurels.

Kind regards, Col.

 

@Retired i have never grown laurel and appreciate the advice. I loathe ivy and the same goes for holly ( except golden king) ash ( i am surrounded with ash trees which seed prolifically) and bindweed (which invades from the field at the back ) and it seems everyone is plagued with brambles which i dig up on sight.