WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

These neighbours only use the garden for their dog to run around in. The man is quite disabled and can't do much, and his wife works every day so the garden is not high on their priority list.
The tree was given to them in a pot by their neighbour on the other side, and they planted it in the ground not knowing what it was and that it would grow like that.
There's a fence between our gardens and they are actually nice people with whom I have got on well since living here. I hope the tree isn't something we're going to fall out over.

 

I went out onto the balcony for about an hour & after sweeping away the pigeons' dropping I decided the time had come for the African Marigold seedlings to be pricked out. So I got on with that job.
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When they were done I thought I'd better sow the Calendula seed I collected from my own plants last year. They were in a tiny sealed plastic bag - in my trousers' pocket for 3-4 days! So I used the now empty seedtray from the African Marigolds to sow them. There was a lot more seed than I thought! If I get a good germination rate I will have so many I will have to throw a lot away. Anyway they are destined to go into the church gardens though I may keep a few.

When I finished it reminded me that I also have lots of Morning Glory seeds I saved from last year. So I reused the plastic trays that the Lobelia plugs came in last week to sow them. I had one tray of 10 & 2 trays of 20 - I put two seeds in each of the 50 places, (between the 3 trays)!

This is the first time I've sown so many of these seeds in plug plant trays! I have always sown them before directly in the place I wanted them to grow - mostly in the 3 long white troughs I used to have at the front of the balcony, up against the railings. There they used to climb up the chicken wire till the reached the top of the railings where they latched on to the strings that guided them up to the balcony ceiling. As I threw them away months ago I can't direct sow any longer! Some seedlings will go to the church garden while others will be planted in pots on the balcony which I will push up against the chicken wire & they can then climb up towards the ceiling like previous years.
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Is your Chocolate Vine variegated? Is it the cream or chocolate flowered one? I just looked it up as I didn't know what it was! Seems to be a very vigorous climber.

 

I almost forgot, I sowed some Cosmos seeds in another seed tray! There is a little story behind them as well!

My son took me to a supermarket & his daughter came along as well (she's 10). As we entered the shop my granddaughter & I saw a metal stand with lots of packets of seeds. We both stopped to look at them & she saw some Carnation seeds. I told her Nanny likes Carnations very much as they remind her of her home town in Spain. So we put them in the trolley. While we were doing the shopping, (she spends most of the time in the shop with me), she spied another seed stand & so we had a look again. I asked her if she could find Cosmos as I could,'t see any. Well she did find a packet & again we put it in the trolley. We also saw more Carnations seeds so we got them as well thinking they were different to the first packet. When I took the shopping out of the trolley to put it on the check out belt I discovered that both packets of Carnation seeds were identical. So I asked her is she remember where we got them & as she said she did I asked her to take one packet back. She did so. But when I got home & was putting the shopping away I found the Carnations but not the Cosmos. I thought she had accidentally put them back as well. I told her about it & she said she hadn't put them back. I later checked the ticket & found only 1 packet had been paid for! So I forgot all about it. But about 3 or 4 days ago I was taking food out of the spare fridge to shut it down & put the frozen food in the kitchen freezer. I found the packet of Cosmos seeds! It must have stuck to the bottom of a frozen food packet & so no one saw it! It must have been in the freezer for a couple of weeks! I doubt the seeds will germinate but I've sown them anyway.It'll be interesting to see if they do grow!
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Sunday cut the front grass, yesterday trimmed the edges.
Today planted some tomato plants.

 

Planting up the pots with colorful annuals.

 

Potted up some of the Dahlias that I took from divisions. 7 so far still have more to do.
Very carefully and with as little disturbance as possible so as not to alert any local carrot flies I thinned out the Carrots. I then found them a permanent home on top of the two tall water butts.
They say that carrot fly only flies to a height of about 4ft and these water butts are around 5ft....so
Apparently carrot flies can smell the disturbance of soil and Carrot seedlings from up to half a mile way!!!

Took some Cleome, Snapdragons, Miniature Lupins, Dahlia and Chilli Pepper plants over to my sister's this afternoon.

 

It's just the green type @Balc and it had dark flowers.
It didn't climb anywhere until they planted that tree and then it worked its way through the fence and climbed to the top. It's never flowered before but was full of them this year.

 

Sorry to hear about your arm @Sheal I hope it either clears up or settles back down very soon.

 

Late yesterday divided my cosmos seedlings. Sooo many, had to get 4-5 into each pot.

 

Ah, that explains why they planted it. Perhaps you could gift them a more suitable and very small tree, telling them you will help them remove the beech to a public park. There it can be enjoyed by many and won’t grow big and overshadow their house and interfere with their foundations .

 

I don’t know if you ever watched the American sitcom‘Everybody loves Raymond’ but there was a funny episode where Raymond’s mum spends days looking for a tax refund cheque from the government , only to discover it in the freezer stuck to the bottom of an ice cream tub her (ever greedy) husband had been sneaking ice cream from.

 

Thanks @Upsydaisy. I'm back on the physio exercises.

 

I started emptying the soil from my raised bed ready for it being moved tomorrow when my garden helper comes.
I also had to move some slabs because they'd be in the way.