What are we doing in the garden 2024

Oh dear @Fat Controller, I hope you find peace in your greenhouse.

 

Life's fun at times eh @Fat Controller
We had a situation last summer when some teenagers decided to have a rammy with all their pals, just along from us. 18th birthday or summat. Long story short, there was a carful of them parked outside my house, windows open and stereo blaring, at after midnight. I wasn't putting up with that, and went out to tell them so. My younger daughter has to get up at stupid o' clock for work, and I wasn't having it.

Several people made it clear to the parents - when they eventually returned home the next day, that it was totally unacceptable. The police had been called as well, because of a situation with a boy and girlfriend and a lot of screaming.

 

I've not found any (yet) in our new garden, but, my wife planted out some rocket yesterday, so, .....

 

I've never succeeded with aspidistras either @Mrs. B. and never understood why

 

Our Whitebeam is coming into full leaf.

 

That's lovely @RowlandsCastle , the young foliage is so fresh and encouraging!

 

Been out for two hours repotting old Mandevillas and T'other Half watering. I was not aware Mandevillas have tubers! Must go read about them.

 

They are lovely trees @RowlandsCastle, the bark also looks good close up!

 

Whitebeams are among my favourite trees @RowlandsCastle . I passed one today - just starting to sprout

One of the reasons I love rocket is - the slugs don't touch it! I only grow the wild one though, so the cultivated types may not be so slug repellent.
The bees love the flowers too, so it's worth having one or two plants you can leave to get to that stage.

 

Did what I intended to do today, that was to tidy up the back of the shed, rearrange the bins, and spring clean the wormery. I've ended up with a pretty heavy bag-for-life, half full with worm castings. I'll use half of it for random top dressing, and the rest will go in the tomato bed mixed with commercial and homemade compost. Presently the tomato bed has a polythene tunnel over it and is being used as a makeshift cold frame. I've also had a good tidy and sweep up of the patio. We're in the early stages of wondering if we need to buy a power washer, I'm not sure we do. Think the pavers we have will always look a bit scruffy no matter how clean they are.

After a nice deserved bath, with dinner on the go, and a nice cool prosecco in hand, all's well in my tiny world.

 

I was woken up at 5am too @Fat Controller but it was a fat white pussycat poking my nose because he wanted cuddles! Persistent beastie.

Spent the morning chopping vegetables and getting work tables ready for the afternoon kokedama confection but left after lunch as I was so tired. Came home and had a snoozle and then checked the babies in the polytunnel. I now have a goodly thicket of assorted brassica, choggia, chard and escholzia seedlings needing to be pricked out and lots of healthy basil and coriander coming thru.

They'll have to wait till Tuesday tho as I'm busy doing patchwork homework for tomorrow's class and am out all tomorrow.

There are rules here about being noisy with tools - no gardening or DIY machinery outdoor before 8am and after 8pm or between noon and 2pm on weekdays, none between 12 and 3 on Satrudays and none before 10 or after midday on Sundays. That includes indoor DIY too if your house or apartment is adjoining another. In some council areas in Belgium no machines at all on Sundays.

Dunno about drunkards tho, or family rows.

 

OH and I spent an hour or two...or three....helping daughter no. 1 and her hubby start laying the brick edging on the lawn, weeding and thinning unwanted plants as we went. They moved in to this house going on for three years ago, garden had been very neglected for many years - having been well-loved once, there are/were some lovely plants, including a spectacular acer that was so mixed in with overgrown pheasant berries, fatsias, and who knows what else that you could barely see it - and it's taken a lot of work removing overgrown and past-their-best shrubs and trees, pruning back what can be saved (a huge euonymus and a phormium Red Robin tree have had some reduction this weekend) , replanting borders etc, and putting up decent fencing to stop their houdini of a pup from escaping. I've also rescued a few aquilegias from their garden, and OH rescued a couple of self-seeded pheasant berries to grow on for our field. My back is now screaming at me!!

 

I started 6:30, and prepared the beds for the tomato/ wildflowers and the former tomato bed for growing beans and peas. if you think that both need different soils, indeed, that was done after 1.5 hours. There is nothing better than a bit exercise early in the morning
I planted the wildflowers and some others that I had grown and can go out.