WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

A job I dont have the patience to do.
When can you come round?

 

Finished off potting on the wallflowers, got 246 plants, some small but they should be ok.

 

Yesterday was the first dry day in weeks, so rearranged pots, deadheaded and sat in the sun. Raining again today.

 

I watered all my plants yesterday, both inside & outside on the balcony. The hanging baskets were much drier that I thought they would be even after a day's rain on Saturday! I watered them once with plain water before I watered anything else with fertilizer, when I finished watering everything else, which took the better part of an hour, I finally watered the hanging baskets a 2nd time with fertilizer.

Today I haven't done anything on the balcony. Other than deadheading the Petunias & geraniums & watering there's not much else to do now. I'm not like you lucky people who have gardens full of weeds to clear, I only have pots to water!
.

 

I put the Foxes food out at 10pm and it's stopped raining!

 

Thankfully not too many weeds @Balc as the borders are so densely planted out at this time of year

 

Watered the hanging baskets and tubs in the front, deadheaded the roses, marigolds, cosmos, snapdragons and verbascum snowy spires.

 

Weeding the allotment... losts of weeds in the last 10 days or so. Need to do more. No pests are attracted to weeds, it seems, only to nice carefully nurtured and grown veg. Bah! Came away with a very large and long knobbly cucumber, curled into a strange shape resembling some sort of extraordinary sex aid, grown by A.N. Other, a Lidl box full of slightly scabby but good potatoes (Kestrel, 2nd. early), and a beetroot to test, about 3" diameter, so wants eating (leaves too, in stir fry, yum). Onions want lifting and drying.

 

Trying to tidy up, we had a collapsed drain at the back of the house, so a mini digger and 4 men made rather a mess, problem fixed, path re-laid including new slabs to replace broken ones, just tons of earth were removed, chucked everywhere(on boards so the lawns don't look bad), but wheel barrows and feet have done some wear and tear. Need some rain to give it all a wash first.

 

Well I only watered the hanging baskets & a Pelargonium that I missed when watering on Monday. It missed out on the fertilizer this week! Well, I'll give it its weekly dose next Monday when I water all the plants with fertilizer again!

I did deadhead the Petunias (like most days) which are beginning to die because of the mildew they have. I was wondering what I could put in their place for a couple of months till the frost arrives? I have some Geraniums,some Fuchsias & perhaps a few Pelargoniums. But I don't have 12 plants of any of these to take the place of the 12 Petunias! Other years the same happens but not until September time. Perhaps this year it's caused by the cold wet weather of the last 6 weeks. I'm not even sure I have 4 plants of each that I could use!
.

 

Picked tomatoes from greenhouse, courgette, elderberries and runner beans.

 

A dry day yesterday, but as usual, mainly overcast. I reckon the predominantly cloudy and wet weather accounts for the fact so many of our pot marigolds look anemic despite regular tomato feed. One large pot is odd; it's only five feet apart from an identical pot/same plants, but it always produces weak plants. I've had to remove the turned marigolds already. I'll try replacing all the soil next spring, in case its caused by slugs. Failing that, I'll give it a stern talking to...!

 

But slugs don't live in the soil, they come from elsewhere. The soil may be ill as after all if you use the same soil in a pot for a long time it can't be refreshed & besides chemicals build up in pots from fertilizers we use. It can also go sour if water is allowed to sit in it for much time. If my pot saucers get full of rain water I always make a point of emptying them out just as soon as I can after the rain has stopped, (not that that happens more than a couple of times a year!), even after watering I empty out any remaining water the same day.

I generally change the compost in most of my pots every year so they never get to use the same compost the following year. On the other hand most of my pots are fairly small; I only have a few big ones plus a few tubs that I haven't changed the soil in for years. Most of my plants are also seasonal plants & therefore don't live a 2nd year in the same pots anyway. I have very few perennials & no shrubs or trees - well I do garden on a balcony after all & there's not much room!
.

 

Cut the grass (3rd time this season), tidied up between the cracks in concrete, leaving a lovely little Achillea to flower, and swept around. The Child carried on with the hedge so swept there too.

How is it possible that when you are making a mess, wind will carry the debris away. When you decide to sweep and bin it, the wind starts to play Curling and carefully re- deposits every bit back into the place you just swept?



A lovely evening

 

Fed the Runner & French Beans for the first time today and cut the Grass.