What are we doing in the garden 2024

We continued to remove and then move the ivy cuttings. Took 8 wheelbarrows to move it to our "slow compost" heap in the orchard. Still lots of ivy nearby but at least we have made a start.
Picked some spinach, kale and pak choi. Found 3 greengages that we had missed. Good size. Picked a few strawberries. Wonderful taste.

 

It’s glorious today so the Lavenders and Pelargoniums are loving it! I’ve potted my two largest potted pelargoniums to a size up, hoping they will fill those up over the next few weeks. I’ve shuffled some other pots around as the Agapanthus was so huge it was interfering with the washing line!

 

I thinned out the tomato plants, collected blackberries (gave them to neighbours), replanted the Salvia Caradonna, which I had discovered last weekend, to the place where it gets space and sunshine, took out a fern which didn't look good because it's too sunny, cut flower-heads from Salvia, Geum, scabiosa.

 

Too hot to do much, just deadheaded some roses which I hadn't had time to deal with last week and dug up some potatoes for dinner tonight.

 

Planted out some winter brassicas, eased the onions up to dry off by the end of the week. Strimmed some nettles and long grass down.
Pruned a number of shrubs that had finished flowering and were getting too big for their space.
Then weeded and trimmed edges, before watering potted plants and the greenhouse plants.

 

Moving hoses/trickle watering around is going to be the sum total of the activity for the next couple of days. 39C / 22C so it's a belated 'au revoir' to the green grass and perhaps some dead-heading in very early morning or late evening.

 

Watered the polyanthus and dead headed the roses.

 

Weeded the fruit bush beds, getting rid of endless bindweed and other unwanted plants. Garden waste bin is absolutely chock full, but at a push, I added more. I can only just move it, and I've enough to fill it again. Thankfully it's due to be emptied tomorrow.

 

Watched this video on how to use weeds as fertiliser

 

I watch Monty do a Comfrey feed every year but I don’t have any. Maybe other ‘plants’ would work just as well?

 

Nettles apparently work well, problem with anything like this it reeks, you could try bubbling air through the mix or stir vigorously on a daily basis; this might reduce the smell somewhat.

 

Nettles are a good feed for foliage, while comfrey supposedly has more nutrients, so is better for flowering or fruiting plants. I have comfrey growing in the garden now, and we have it all along the verges nearby, so I often collect some from there before they come and cut everything down later in early summer. I use it on most flowering plants and I've been using it for the tomatoes this year, but I can't really tell yet if it's as good as the usual tomato food.
Many people find the smell offputting, while it breaks down in the water, but I don't really notice it unless I'm right up beside it, so I expect it depends on your sense of smell. Mine seems to have disappeared completely in the last few years!
I have an old oven tray which has holes in it, and I put that over the bucket I use. I think it was for pizza or similar, and I used it for the bottom of one of the bird feeding cages for a while too. That probably keeps the smell down a bit, while still allowing air in. I usually have more than one bucket on the go, and I've not noticed any problem doing that, compared to the completely open one.
I think today will be light duties outside as my hands are still really sore from all the recent concrete mixing and screwdriving/drilling. Might get the grass cut though.

 

As @fairygirl says, nettles for nirtogen and leafy plants, comfrey for flowering and fruiting plants.

When Jim was still on Beechgrove he did a trial - equal sized pots of the same tomato variety fed with traditional tomato feed and a home-made comfrey tea. The comfrey fed ones did better. he chose to believe it was a fluke and rpeeated the experiment the following year. Same result.

A while ago, Monty was in a garden where the owner made smell free comfrey tea. Instead of dunking the comfrey foliage in water, she placed it in a container with holes in the bottom and a tray underneath then used bricks to weigh down and crush the foliage. The resulting liquid could then be diluted at the usual rate and used as a feed. My comfrey is ready for harvesting and I shall be trying this method.

Anyone who has a mares/horsetail problem can crush it, dunk it for 2 weeks and then use the resulting liquid to make a very good fungicide against peach leaf curl, mildew, blight, rust.....

 

I'm back in my home in France, having left OH's garden in Norfolk under the care of Kev. My garden looks rather neglected after 6 weeks, though CB has mowed, watered and strimmed. I'm lucky to have someone to do it, he was a friend of the previous owner of my house.

34C now. I rubbed in a load of sun cream and went outside this morning to do dead heading. Just come in, drunk 3 glasses of water. Haven't nearly finished but it's too hot.