What are we doing in the garden 2024

@Logan great that you still have red currants and gooseberries. We managed to pick some reds before the blackbirds took them all. The harvest of gooseberries very low this year and then the sawflies decimated the leaves.

 

Well - it makes a change from bringing a bottle
Those larvae will certainly be well fed then @shiney . I expect you could do without the problem though. Go easy with that fork when the ground's hard - mind your toes...
The rain's to come in later on, so I'll try and get the rest of the timber on the shed this morning after my walk. Just a couple left to attach. I've left a gap of about 4 planks at the front corner, so that the resident bees aren't compromised. I'll have to do the little bit of concrete there too, and I need to wait until they've moved on for all that. They're seriously fed up with me! Yesterday was good weather for getting most of the planks cut and painted.

Lots of you have some nice fruit production going on. I'm looking forward to a decent crop of raspberries later. Plenty forming

 

Not a lot going on here. Too wet and windy. The garden looks even more of mess, everything is sodden and flattened. Awful.

 

I weeded, tidied up, deadheaded and planted some Busy Lizzies in the front garden yesterday. Ground elder keeps coming through the fence from next door. She thinks ground elder, bindweed and willowherb are pretty, which I suppose they are. Shame they are so rampant.

 

Is it just me or have capsid bugs done less damage than normal this yr? My caryopteris has never looked better and the fuchsias are also largely untouched.

 

Nothing today its lashing it down . Yesterday I had a mad do planting out better late than never I suppose . Planted up probably all the summer pots except for some odd little ones I may use for the odd single ornamental plant . Dug some allium globemaster out of the hot border I have to many in there , I'll find a new home for them or give them to mum , planted some rudbeckia Sahara and move some agastache kolibri in that bed . Dug out a large clump of primrose and divided and replanted elsewhere put a salvia amino in its place . Just need to empty the GH of the rest of the summer plants .

 

Nothing outside as far too wet. Repotted a bromeliad given to us by our late son.

 

Installed our latest Green Man, bought yesterday in Grassington

 

Nothing done today, garden sodden with heavy rain overnight and a light drizzle nearly all day.
Hope tomorrow's going to be better, I want to mulch some of my flower beds with manure now they've had a good soak.

 

I like your Green man @Bluejayway
Nothing done in the garden today. In fact, not even been out there.
We have blackcurrants to pick ... mañana

 

Thank you @Penny_Forthem , if you ever go to Grassington check out the shop at the top of the Main Street. So many desirable things ….

 

Started potting on the wallflowers.

 

Has anyone else noticed a lack of

Butterflies and Swallows/House Martins this year? Are they late or is it the weather? In Normandy there is lively discussion re this abnormality in the Gardening Press. What's it like in the UK?

 

There's been quite a few people saying they have fewer butterflies @Biofreak , but we seem to have a pretty normal amount of swallows round here. We don't get housemartins anyway though, so I can't judge those.
Butterflies tend to come in two separate stages here where I am - some ragged peacocks in late spring that have overwintered, and small torties. The Red Admirals, along with more torties and peacocks, are usually from later July onwards. Those are the main ones we get here, along with some of the whites. I've not seen as many torties as usual though, despite the better temps in May, and the generally drier weather [for here] into June, so the slightly irregular weather patterns and conditions may have affected them.
I don't know enough about the lifecycles though, and we had a very unusual summer and autumn here last year, so perhaps that's all part of it? I certainly didn't see lots of tortie caterpillars last year, and there's usually loads of those.