What are we doing in the garden 2024

Correct

 

My painting job started badly, found the lavender paint I was going to use had solidified, obviously far too old. Oops, so got the blue paint I used for the shed yesterday and used that.
Painted a small wooden kiddies table which I now use to put the laundry basket on when hanging washing out. Did 2 coats and when I turned it over, 1 coat on the top. With a bit of luck I might be able to get 2nd coat on after dinner.
I also pruned some lower branches of a purple leaved cherry tree to give more light to a rose planted underneath - not the best of positions but ran out of space elsewhere.
After a cloudy but warm day, it's now turned sunny!

 

Been out all day , arranged to meet son and family in Bakewell ,Derbyshire made a lovely change apart from all the cursing from me other half ... ...... the traffic !!!!!!!!!!!!
Soon as we hit Sheffield it was stop n start.
Coming back was brilliant( I think it must have been better as I didn't get any moans , I fell asleep)

Arrived home and after a quick cuppa. planted on the last of the melons so now hoping for some more sunny weather .

 

Been enjoying the warmer and drier weather.
Extracting bindweed and ivy, from the fence and various plants.
Found a spider's home when I took some photos.

 

Weeded the next area in the veg plot. Sowed yet more dwarf french beans and peas this time outside. Also sowed some broad beans as the plants we have growing are podding up but not a lot. We then picked the blackcurrants. Not as good harvest as usual but still worth it.

 

I’ve almost finished doing my summer pots, seems to have taken some time this year more me being undecided what to have where than anything else.
Also managed to pull off all the stems that have finished flowering and any tatty leaves. Should get another flush of flowers coming up in the next month or so.

It’s quite sultry in the garden today so everything seems more effort today. Think I might pop out again later and deadhead the roses

 

It was one of those frustrating days where lots of things go wrong so unlike me, who normally doesn't ever sit down in the garden, I sat there in the sun, being headbutted gently by next door neighbours cat begging for attention, whilst eating the first mulberries and logan berries of the year. The loan berries might have been tayberries because I can never remember which one I planted but they complimented the mulberries nicely before I summoned enough resolve to tackle the leaking washing machine.

 

The blueberries are starting to ripen so i spent a long time covering the plants with horticultural fleece to stop the birds from eating them and a lot of watering.

 

I’ve been reorganising some plants into better locations today. I had a Nandina in a pot which looked fine over winter but then went into a state of doing nothing and looking scruffy. I’ve moved it into a light shady border where a Hosta had recently been destroyed . I repotted some small ferns into a larger pot with a purple Heuchera to cheer up the steps in my lower garden, moved a Heuchera from a border into a pot and pruned a variegated Griselinia and a small Fargesia. Finally, I mowed both lawns and watered some pots and some recently planted perennials which were looking a bit thirsty.

 

We've had the slave labour round to pick fruit.
In return, we fed them meatballs and pasta and homemade cherry ice cream.
Sitting in the garden, now they've gone home.
Zzzzz tonight.

 

I spent some of my morning digging up huge herb fennel plants with very long tap roots to clear some space in my wee herb bed next to the terrace, partly to give my lemon and orange thymes more light and air. The cleared space is barley 1 metre by 30cms yet there were over 40 snails lurking in there and attached to my owl sculpture. All lobbed across the road.

Then I had to get clean and have lunch before going off to the last patchwork club meeting of this academic year. Tomorrow I shall refresh the soil with some compost and plant a new tarragon and a plain thyme, leaving space for some oregano to keep me going till my new herb garden gets made over the summer.

 

Emptied a couple of large ceramic containers and planted them up with the reduced price geraniums I bought in B&Q. every time I pull a clump of grass up I disturb an ants nest. Never had so many.

 

Summer pruned the black grape vines in the greenhouse. Bottled and froze the blackcurrants that were picked yesterday. Found some more gooseberries (no leaves on the bushes now thanks to the sawfly caterpillars). Put them together with some loganberries and into the freezer.

 

Moved a little fern that was struggling and was going to replace it with another fern that was getting overgrown elsewhere which I moved into a pot last week. However ... it doesn't look right in the new position ... so now I have 3 ferns (having divided today's) without homes. *sighs* This is why I end up with so many pots to care for.

 

The dahlias in pots on the deck were drooping and gasping.
I've given them a jolly good drink of water from the stream, using the solar pump.
We take well within our permitted use.
I could almost hear them sighing with pleasure.