WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

Some weeding, some seed sowing, lettuce planted. Pottered around greenhouse put fleece and newspaper over tender plants as tonight is forecast to be chilly.
Looking to start planting soon in the area cleared of trees last December, all dug over twice and then weeded last Friday.

 

Spent the day potting on a couple of hundred seedlings , still have a few to go some of which will be in a week or two's time.

Potted up the Hydrangea cutting I took nearly 3 yrs ago from my parents garden to a pot recently vacated by a deceased Hebe.
I will add some trailers around the edge for summer.

Just finished triple and in some cases quadruple fleecing everything up in the greenhouse as we're dipping to 2C tonight.
Now that most of the seedlings are individually potted up there are way to many to fit in the bubble wrap enclosure half of the greenhouse, so it's now left open and a ton of fleece has to be used.

It's getting to be quite a task first thing in the morning and last at night.....roll on the time when they're old enough to leave home and fend for themselves!!!

 

Hi,

Thanks Loofah yes very big effort but job done the hard way; I wouldn't want to do it twice though.

This morning three supermarkets and post office visited and home by 8:30. Recharging my battery with mug of tea and lump of cake I was then ready to tackle today's job.


Only 3 years since I last pressure washed the paths and driveway. This was second project in year two of retirement 21 years ago; I dug out with spade tons of wet clay; laid heavy 3' x 2' x 2" paving flags; built the low retaining stone wall and designed and made the bespoke fence with safety handrail to accommodate the slope.

Rear of bungalow path now clean for birds to bomb and weather to attack.

Bungalow side path and wheelie bin area clean again.

Rear patio & path clean. The dry stone wall was only 4" away from the bungalow rear extension when we moved in; I redesigned the wall pushing it back and this was first project in year one of retirement; there were a total of nine steps from garage to the rear door; all steps were removed; three lots of new steps were added for garden access. All work carried out on my own.

This is a lot better; well worth the effort; our site is so steep it dries in minutes.

Opposite view of rear path & patio. I seemed to spend forever digging out tons of clay; edging blocks added a neat finish.

Retirement; what retirement; 22 years in and still working just as hard; our bungalow and gardens are very high maintenance; it's home and we love it in spite of the constant work.

Grass still to cut; strimming to do and hedges to trim; I'll do these tomorrow; being idle isn't an option living here; I still dream of free time to get into the studio to practice violin playing.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Potted up some cuttings that I nabbed from my sister's garden this morning. Thunder and torrential rain here this afternoon so can't do much else today unfortunately.

 

Having heron troubles so decided to order some metal 2in mesh for the pond, it arrived midday which was a surprise as when I ordered it it said Thursday.

Anyway cut one sheet to shape and its now laying over the part of the pond most at risk.

Wrapped the grapevines in fleece just in case we get a frost over the next two days, they are only just starting to break buds,

 

Nothing today it's been raining so i pricked out the cosmos seedlings and did a bit of watering.

 

In certain places, cutting the virginia blue bells down.

 

It would have been a good day to do something in the garden but i had other things to do.

 

All I could do for the time being was to sweep the balcony of the grass cuttings! We don't have a "lawn" on the balcony (wouldn't be enough room for one!) but since I removed the 3 long troughs on the balcony floor up against the railings when the local council gardeners come to cut the grass the balcony fills up with the grass cuttings! The worst culprit is the strimmer they use to get to the parts the mowers can't reach. I had to sweep some of the cutting to one side so I could move the pots further in & sweep the grass cutting outside off the balcony.
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Unless I can find something plastic 3m long by 20cm high I will have to do all this work every two weeks during the grass cutting season!
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I had a friend visit in the morning so only managed a couple of hours in the garden this afternoon. I concentrated on attending to some of the salad stuff... Radishes, Spring Onions, Lettuce ,Cucumbers, Chillies and Tomatoes. Some are growing at an alarming rate!!!
I also had to put bigger stakes in with Peas as they have had a sudden growth spurt too.

 

I cut the Grass in the sunshine.

 

Moving polyanthus plants out of the greenhouse to outside now after hardening off and moving the lupins out of the conservatory into the greenhouse to harden off, not much else because it's raining.