WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2021

Aww bless him, hope he soon picks up @luciusmaximus .

 

My job in the garden at the moment is to sit on a zero g chair and enjoy the wonderful weather . Had a very nice, early morning bike ride ..... Bunnies , a huge Hare in the fields and hopping along the lane. Also, saw a white rabbit close to one of the beaches. A domestic bunny that has been dumped or escaped. I have seen white rabbits around for several years.

Been busy with small jobs over past few days, pruning, feeding, weeding, grass cutting, etc. Trying to muster some enthusiasm for the big jobs, which just keep getting bigger the longer I leave them.

I have finished filling up the patio container bed with fresh compost and soil, but cannot decide what to put in it . I have a resin project planned for later on, so in the meantime, I think I shall just recline myself and think about what to plant

 

I'm afraid he isn't going to Upsydaisy. His kidneys are seriously compromised. I had a chat to the vet about him. There is no dialysis or transplant treatments for cats, so we can only support him as best we can until it's time to stop. I think that time is now because he is not eating much and looks unhappy. He must be in pain. Roger disagrees me and believes that if D is eating, even tiny amounts, we should continue with him. D is a shared pet, so I cannot make decisions about D without his agreement. It's a difficult situation. Having said all that D ate 2 breakfasts yesterday and this morning.

 

Well, as it turned out, I made a pond.

I have this stupid corner where nothing grows, apart from a fine specimen of Taraxacum Officinale



So I remembered I have a huge stash of leftover pondliner... have liner, will dig a pond.

After joyous hours of hacking into the rock hard clay, stomping on Vinca, sitting in Rosemary and doing serious root damage to the Viburnum I had shifted 12 bucketfuls of soil into the place where surplus soil goes to die ("just out of sight" in our household).

Like with my first pond, I unearthed some very sturdy concrete structures, possibly old fence posts. No Roman mosaics. What is it with the people of bygone years? Why did they have to build build build, and to make it worse, build something that lasts! Why couldn't they have just done some gentle cultivating, surviving and whatever else was going on in those days.

Anyways, got my hole and ventured into the garage to get my liner. Found the underlay but only a narrow strip of liner. Any sensible person would have popped upstairs to order some from Amazon Prime, but some spare plastic from a broken blowaway greenhouse caught my eye.

In it went, and so did 10 wateringcanfuls of water. The result: horror of the horrors. Apparently pond liners are black, and not transparent with white reinforcing mesh for a reason.

I tried to cover the offending plastic with spare underlay and discovered that underlay floats. In desperation, I raided the garage to find anything black or dark, and found my stash of pond liner.

Since the pond was already full, I decided to just cover the plastic with the liner, only to discover that it is nearly impossible to sink a pond liner into a full pond. (At this point The Teenager gave me a glass of wine and told me everything's gonna be allright).

Laws of physics do not interfere with my gardening, so I got the liner in and started with the edging. There's a lot to do, now it's just some spare stones and Geranium chucked in so that I can live with it for a while. A solar powered fountain pump will arrive when my Chinese friends have a moment to send it.

Actually I'm quite happy with it. Hopefully the sparrow chicks like it as much as they liked my bucket "water feature" last summer.

 

Oh dear @luciusmaximus , I'm really sorry to hear that. Very difficult situation you're in if Roger thinks differently from you. You just need to keep a close eye on him. I have to say that I'm with you , if he looks unhappy and doesn't really have much of an appetite.....

 

P ricked ( ) out some more Comos, Zinnias, Amaranthus and Marigolds. Most seedlings are now out in the greenhouse. Keep fleece close to hand.

 

@luciusmaximus sorry to hear about your pet, lots of hugs

 

Only did some watering today.

 

Drove to the garden centre (20 minute drive, 30 minute queue outside) and bought myself a fancy set of Gardena micro-drip components to do all my pots (and eventually my grow tunnel).

Discovered when I got home (after another 20 minute drive) that I'd bought the T-join component in the wrong size, so back I went to exchange (so another 40 minute round-trip but at least no queue this time, and as it was getting late I got a 50p baguette in the bakery!)

So finally now I have most of my irrigation system set up. Woohoo! It's looking pretty good so far, except I realised I forgot to by any ends so at the moment for testing purposes the end dangles in my watering can in order to make use of the run-off.

Hoping with the proper "end" in place I will be able to get a bit more pressure through the system. I used the first 15m roll to edge around the deck and do the pots + fruit bushes. The fruits I've done with the "sprinklers" that come with the system but the ones on the end of the run don't really sprinkle as much, presumably not enough pressure in the system to make it so. I really hope the end cap fixes the problem as I wanted to put a few more sprinklers in place (for cucumbers which will be planted probably next month).

All in all, if I can get this up and running I will have no watering to do except out front. And am now considering the option of running a second system to the front of the house to do the tomatoes when we go on holiday. Though instead I might try and rig up some sort of system to keep the "plant halo" rings watered. Or really should just ask my neighbour... we never really spoken much in the past 5 years but bonded over trying to fix a fence panel last week. Even if she is probably 80 and doesn't speak a lot of English haha.

 

Asked OH to make me a insect hotel and this is what he came up with



Well he is a carpenter! All wood from the wood store due for the fire pit! Hoping for lots of pollinators this year

 

That's fabulous @Tinkerbelle61 .

 

Shoo Fly! Love it! We planted some a few years back and every now and then it pops back to say hello!