WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

I've given one side of the shed a second coat in the sunshine.

 

I couldn't wait ... I've sown my seed from Australasian Plant Society in the propagator. Also planted some tigridia in pots in cold frame. Cheap from Wilko, and hadn't realised how big the flowers were untill last year when I saw them at the botanic garden.

 

Wishing I was at home and could get out into the garden: a not as good replacement activity of sitting in a cafe with a notebook drafting where I'm going to put stuff when it is time to come out. Trying to work out if I start my squashes in big pots in the green house in late march, whether there will be enough time to follow the broad beans (germinating right now) and get the squashes in quickly afterwards on the same spot. Going to try.

Otherwise it will be the usual cottage stuff for me: cornflowers, cosmos, sunflowers, lupins, delphiniums/larkspur, honesty, and an edging of neophilia 5 spot.

 

Just in from first real foray into the garden this year.....did 1 1/2 hours general tidying bits - cutting back dead stems, weeding if not too claggy. The whole experience was overhung by the absolute stench of....foxes. There are 7 of them at least (2 at very back of big lawn basking in the sun now) and one of their runs is round my back lawn through hedge to next door who feeds them. Then they go out the front to shriek at at least 5 mates over the road. Co-existence seems very one sided....much scrubbing with antibac soap and sluicing after with antibac wash.

 

Potted on a tray of Viola that I sowed back in November.
Swept up all the moss that had fallen onto the east patio from birds scavenging on the roof of the house.

Placed a couple of bags of compost under the shelving in the greenhouse to warm up a tad in preparation for seed sowing in March.

Trimmed up a couple of grasses.

Lovely and sunny out there but a breeze is keeping it on the nippy side.

 

Just collected fence posts and Postcrete to repair my damaged fence. I was lucky. We went up to my stepdaughter's at lunchtime and the entire fence between her and her neighbour blew down into her garden. A guy was chopping it up with a chainsaw in preparation for a new fence going up.

 

Darling OH set up a “go anywhere tap” beside the two green houses running from a new 50 metre hose, it works a treat. He hasn’t yet run electricity down there, so he cleared some space in the old workshop and put up a pasting table by the window. I now have his dads old electric propagator going in there, with the sweet peas and dwarf french beans I sowed in root trainers a couple of weeks ago, which are showing signs of germinating.

Sowed 5 lots of chilli seeds (8 seeds of each) in a window ledge propagator yesterday too.

And I am so excited as I start part time hours today YAY! So will have Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and all day Friday off, and no more weekend working from home well until someone goes on holiday or gets sick. Now I can finally get down and dirty in our new house/garden, moved here 5 months ago. So Happy

Have a good day, stay safe in the wind (I have the Orwell Bridge to negotiate, do hope they don’t shut it)!

Tink.

 

Cutting the grass, bitter cold wind

 

Fed the birds and put some water out for them.

 

I've been doing a bit of tidying up on the allotment, seems to take me ages to do things these days.

I was thinking of cutting the grass, it's getting long and it's definitely dry enough to do it.
But then I remembered, because I bought a new mower last year I drained all the petrol out of it at the end of last season, don't want to put more petrol in it now and then leave it sitting around for another couple of months.

That successfully got me out of doing that job.

 

Put two fence posts in and repaired the wind damaged fencing. It is frightening how heavy bags of Postcrete are. At 73 I shouldn't be lugging them around.
I also refilled the bird feeders. A feeder with 5 fat balls in it lasts a day and a half at the moment.