What are we doing in the garden 2024

Hi there @RowlandsCastle , glad you’re out and about in the garden

 

Hi @Ladybird4 and @Bluejayway
I wasn't out for long. I was furthest from the house when the skies opened, and I got drenched just reaching the shed!!
All dried off now. Prevented me from strimming the section of the lawn closest to the house. I really must get out and buy a new lawnmower. Or maybe get a few sheep!!

 

So, today I did it. I got the raised beds topped up I also planted some foxgloves and put up a couple of willow obelisks. The geum I divided and planted yesterday was looking a little better this morning but by this afternoon when it started to get warm, it was flagging so I lifted it again and put it in some water. Hopefully by the morning it'll have completely perked up. Both lots of verbascums were wilting so they got a good dousing. Just hoping that everything will be OK in the morning. Tomorrow really needs to be seed sowing day!

 

I want to get my seed onions planted but it’s too wet here. I was optimistic yesterday about today but it rained heavily here again last night and this afternoon. I have managed to tie some string to some short bamboo sticks for the line markers though

 

Managed to get outside-jet washed the green algae stuff growing on the north side fence. Later I made up some seed compost mix and sown a few seeds-zinnia, rudbeckia, cosmos purity/dazzler, nasturtium, peas. Put them in the cold frame for now as not got a greenhouse at the moment.

 

Another wet andwindy night so everything outside is sopping wet and it's still blowy with wet stuff expected.

I've been down to let out the chooks and open the polytunnel and have fetched a tub of seed compost so I can sow my tomatoes and chillies in the comfort of my kitchen before putting them on heat mats.

@shiney We're not allowed bonfires here. OH has a few piles of neatly stacked stems and branches he's trimmed from the hedges and fallen branches. He's talking of hiring a vehicle to take them to the dump and then come back with chipped bark from a tree surgeon. I'd raher use those piles to make habitat and get the tree surgeon to cut down a poplar that is smackin the middle and irritates the pants off me. He canbring a load of chipped bark and make some more.

 

Our neighbour - an unpleasant man who's offended all the neighbours - is an ex gendarme and has loads of trees in his garden. His wife has taken note of our veg and flower growing activities and has persuaded him to thin them so she can grow pretties and edibles.

He has fires but burns green wood and doesn't bother about wind direction so, since we can't talk to him, OH consulted the Mairie. The mayor, who knows about this man, went straight round and had a chat about rules, dangers and consideration for others.

Apart from anything else we're surrounded by arable crops, beef cattle, sheep and pigs plus a few houses and, with the droughts we get here, leaving unwatched fires in a garden full of trees and dry grass is just stupid.

 

I'm in France too, like @Obelix-Vendée, but a bit further south, so no bonfires allowed here either. I'm lucky to own the small meadow at the bottom of the vegetable garden so I have a dumping ground there for garden waste. The smaller stuff goes on the compost heap.

The garden is so wet, almost impossible to do any gardening. The Dronne river is flooding into the fields and the last couple of days we've been on an orange flood alert, changed to yellow this morning.

 

@Obelix-Vendée Some people are just idiots. A couple of years ago a bloke not that far from us, decided it would be a great idea to build a bonfire during the heatwave. His neighbour went out and told him not to light it but he was having none of it and went ahead anyway. Within moments the fence was on fire and shortly after that half of his neighbour's house went up in flames

 

I hope you don't get flooded @Busy-Lizzie . It's certainly frustrating being unable t get out and do anything cos the soil and grass are so wet.

On the other hand, our garlic, shallots and rhubarb are looking happy. As Possum is at work and OH is out somewhere near Nantes playing golf all day I've had a lovely time in the kitchen sowing chillies, toms, cucs and squashes in coir pots with just a dog and a cat to "help". All now tucked up on a heat mat in the annex.

I've watered them with a solution of aloe vera leaf and baking soda - experiment to see it if helps with germination.

 

and probably the biggest IF is, if it doesn't rain...

 

Nothing outside,but pricked out the tomato seedlings and the rest of the snapdragons, some of the others not doing very well and some more Californian Poppies.