WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2021

@Sian in Belgium nothing wrong with that. The onions are likely to keep the blackfly away as well.

I don't know how many bean plants you grow but I designed my bean ShineyFrame to resist the strong winds that blow across the field.

As I've been gradually watering the veg plot and flower beds over the last few days I've been able to start on the digging. Our main areas of veg growing were dug and composted in the Autumn but the area between them (used to be for veg but the amount of work got too much!) was a lot easier to dig now that it had four hours of sprinkler. Still a lot more digging and weeding to do.


This shows how much work there is to do in this area


But it's getting done


There's a lot of digging and weeding. The plant saucer has slate and water in it and is for the bees and wasps to have their drinks. The slate is at all angles and doesn't matter how much water gets in there (if it rains!) there are some pieces of slate above water. It's funny watching them land on the dry slate and walk down to the water's edge for a drink. Needs topping up a bit.


There's still a lot more watering to be done


This bed was dug by Lewis who comes to do a lot of the heavy work in the garden. It was done after only a small amount of sprinkler and I got him to do other jobs as this was too hard to dig.


I started mowing some lawns after having done some easier digging and weeding. moving from bending jobs to standing jobs is better for my back and knees




I also did some lawn edge trimming and helped Mrs Shiney with sowing, in pots, another 200 beans. No gardening for me today. It will be a sitting day

 

We now have an unsuspected project on our hands. We got an email yesterday from a friend who does building and landscaping and he has now got the job of landscaping someone's garden. He has asked us for plants and will come round on Wednesday to discuss things. We have no idea how big a job it is .

As we can't open the garden again this year we didn't bother working on plants for sale . Obviously, we do have some and we also have a lot of plants that can be dug/split from the garden but he'll have to do it. A number of our grasses definitely need splitting and we were already thinking of clearing a whole 6ft diameter bed of Jerusalem sage. I've also been removing a lot of Lychnis when weeding so shall now keep it for him. Mrs Shiney and myself shall have to go round the garden discussing what can come out. Some non-invasive bamboo can be split and so can Euphorbia mellifera if their garden isn't too small for it.

I'm sure we can find plants in our nursery areas but they may be potbound so we shall have to repot them.

 

Good morning I thought I would make an early start on the masonry painting just finished the steps

 

Removed the top third or so of compost from all the barrels on the patio, with most of the 'spent' compost going onto the new bed at the back of the garden. I say spent, it actually looked really good for the most part, so I am sure stuff down there will do well in it. We now have the barrels in a single row along in front of the fence which gives us more space on the patio - - just need to pressure wash and then move the gazebo (and put the gazebo cloth 'roof' on); sadly, I found that one leg of our glass garden table must have been rotting away from the inside as the leg collapsed at the bottom when we moved it..... bother.... in fairness, we have had it 12 or 13 years, so there is no shame to it.

Frustratingly, I had some vouchers that I received for my birthday a couple of months back and only this morning decided to spend them on a new cast iron chimnea, else I might have thought twice if I knew the table was busted.

Lots of pressure washing needed now, but it finally feels as though things are on the move..

 

@wiseowl your steps are absolutely stunning! What paint did you use please?

 

Good evening @Fat Controller my friend and thank you it was Wickes "Smooth Brick Red " and my back is now textured black and blue