What are we doing in the garden 2024

We've had drought every year since we arrived on October 1st 2016 so I'm not about to complain about last year's wet winter or this year's cool, damp spring. We had some very hot days here this summer but nothing like the days on end of 44C in the shade of previous years.

It's raining again today and we're expecting much more in the next 36 hours. That'll top up the aquifers and water table nicely. I can always sort seeds out ready for sowing now as it's so warm or with bottom heat in early 2025.

 

Rotten day today so not much done . Spent an hour in the GH pricking some seedling out they were a lot more than I thought and I potted up all of them because I am being to soft to compost them , so I've got abut 20 Thalictrum flavum I don't even know where one plant going let alone 20 , and 25 Primula candelabra but I should find a home for them somewhere . Potted on 3 digitalis parviflora and sowed some seeds Peony Rockii and some Kiwi .

 

I'm the same @Perki - prick out and pot on every little baby but then I swap or give away excess plants. The garden club has an annual plant exchange for members and I've found some fellow gardeners in the patchwork club.

 

It's always the plants you really want that don't germinate/grow @Perki , whereas the ones you're not so bothered about, and sow a smaller amount of, all go mad and germinate and grow at a rate of knots!
I'm not so sentimental though. They get thinned and binned [compost].
I did quite a bit outside yesterday, as the rain went off early on, and it was really weirdly warm. Dug up and moved a hydrangea, plus a few Centranthus I'd grown from collected seed. The hydrangea was replaced by an Acer I've had for a little while and was in a pot. It should do well in the site. Emptied the last bit of stuff from the compost bin and mulched the front garden bed with it. Dug out a couple of raspberries which I knew would become a problem in the site, and they'll get properly planted up elsewhere. Also took out a fennel from the same site, and will put some bulbs in there, and possibly my clem. Julka, although I'll leave that until spring for planting. Got another pot prepped for more bulbs, so I'm hoping for a nice display next year.
Today will just be more of the same deadheading and similar, and I have another shrub to lift, which is for the front garden, although I have to remove a very invasive, tenacious geranium first to get it in. I may lose the will to live with that....

 

Beautiful sunny and warm day here so we got out in the garden to prepare our 3 raised veg beds for a sowing of winter manure. Raked all the leaves off first, emptied a bag of soil improver we'd had left over, divided into all 3 (10 x 4ft) beds. Got them roughly level then I divided the large packet of seed into 3 jars and broadcast each jar - lots and lots of seeds. Unfortunately a couple of magpies flew into the large tree nearby (probably smacking their lips) so I hastily covered all 3 beds with as much plastic netting as I could find. Between the mapgpies, starlings, sparrows, seagulls and pigeons which are all in abundance here, as well as the squirrels, I'm not too optimistic we'll actually get any seedlings at all. Will have to wait and see.

 

Finished trimming the yew hedge and swept up that plus a load of leaves. Planted a few left over Alium bulbs and just fiddling about before deciding if washing will be as dry as it will be today.

 

I've been planting stepping stones through my woodland today. Sixteen done on Tuesday, another eleven today and fourteen left to go. I also had the first half of my concrete sleeper edging for the lawn. Twenty two stones delivered and another twenty four to go. Those are a job for Spring next year.



While out working in the garden, I noticed my Lupin is having one last go at flowers before the winter sets in. I've already harvested quite a lot of seeds from it this year, so plan to add more to the railway area next year.

 

A nice dry sunny day here, harvested the squashes, removed the finished plants and cleared the area where the courgette and the sweetcorn had been.
Removed the nasturtiums from various places, dead headed a Japanese anemone and cracked on with weeding.

 

Dry in the morning, so no waterproofs needed on my walk, but the showers started almost as soon as I got home. They were more constant spells of rain in the afternoon, so it was a hokey cokey sort of gardening spell - in and out. Got some more pot painting done, but had to keep covering or shifting them. Good for the arm muscles I suppose.
Managed to get lilies and daffs planted, where I'd taken out the fennel and rasps the day before, and replanted an Actea which I'd lifted recently, but it was getting to the point of needing a waterproof jacket to carry on with anything else later on.
Today is to be drier this morning and into early afternoon, but the high winds are to come in with the rain later on. Everything is well tied in, which is always necessary here. Sunday and Monday are to be worse though, so that'll probably finish off most of the sweet peas.

 

Yesterday I was looking for Arum pictum and couldn't find it this morning I noticed it almost where I'd thought it was. However it was almost as if it had exploded. Over the years it has produced more shoots, but I have never seen the tuber before this time it was at the soil surface as a shell supporting the various shoots. This afternoon I will excavate and replant.

 

The problem here is not finding it! Seedlings all over the place, despite me trying to be vigilant and get rid of the berries before the birds distribute them.

 

Had to clear yet more ivy on one of the fences as it tends to move towards the house.

 

Arum pictum now dug out and replanted, looks like I'll miss out on flowers this autumn.
@noisette47 I've never had A pictum set seed let alone pop up elsewhere, unlike A italicum and A maculatum which can be bit of a pain.
Increasing rain then stopped play as the soil was already plenty wet enough to be paddling on, after the rain earlier in the week.

 

I started lifting spuds before lunch but ended up distracted by the need to make a safer stepped entrance to the polytunnel when I fell flat on my face. Having done that I then sorted all the pots that end up lying in loose piles by the door.

After lunch I dozed off so OH has dug up the rest of the spuds and it doesn't seem like a lot. One wheelbarrow load. Dunno if that's a poor crop or just OH's idea of digging up spuds. We'll see when I go to plant the next crop.

 

Nothing today it's raining.