What jobs are we doing in the Garden today 2015

Phew what a day!
Ended up having a full on reorganise and sort out. Here's what I did:

• Planted 6 more seed potatoes in pots that were well past chitted
• Sown french dwarf runner beans and peas
• Got together the Pak choi and beetroot ready to be planted at the allotment once the frost passes, and worked out that the next to go in after that will be the sweetcorn and popcorn fiesta. Was surprised how early in the season those get planted out!
• Moved my back garden's storage box so it swapped places with some seedlings and they can get more sun. Looks much neater now with more room to get by too.

• Weeded the back garden patch. I AM SO SICK OF CHICKWEED (The chooks like it though... I'm glad someone does!)
• Cleaned out the chicken coop as well as treating it for red mite. We don't have any but prevention is better than cure. They've been loving the sun today.

• Have sown some chamomile, as well as removing some potted mint and chocolate mint from the garden as it was getting suffocated by my rhubarb. I want to move the chocolate mint to the allotment so am giving it a bit of TLC until it's recovered a bit.
• Given everything a good water, as even though we had rain overnight it's not really done much to make up for weeks and weeks without rain here in Staffordshire.
• Went up to the allotment with the kids, where we dug over, composted and topsoiled two new square raised beds ready for the pak choi and beetroot. Also put down a bit of weed membrane but was only able to do half a job due to lack of time/supplies.

The empty longer raised bed will house our sweetcorn and popcorn fiesta once the frost passes. After that I've run out of raised bed frames and have to wait til the end of May/Early June to plant the next lots (Tomatillo, Tomato, Aubergine, Courgette, Cucumber, Pumpkin and dwarf runners.) so have some time to get the paths sorted and ground dug over where I want to beds.

Blimey what a weekend! Loads done but I don't think I'm ever going to get the soil staining off my hands at this rate.

 

Well, I thought yesterday was heavy going. I have been in the garden 6 hours today!
Potting on, pricking out, weeding...but mainly planting out. I now have a stack of pots about 30 odd high from things I have planted out. My new raised bed is finished, it was very satisfying getting that tree peony in (a year after I was given it as I gift!) though the hole I had to dig felt like I was gonna end up in Oz!
Got rid of a bit of bindweed which was poking its head up and planted out 2 clematis (the president and an arabella) along with a perennial sweet pea. Everything is growing nicely.

 

Been told it would be raining today , so was a nice surprise to see the sun shining. Today I spent the day painting the fences again, I can just about see the end of the tunnel now

 

That's a lot of Cosmos FC, I presume many of those are for insurance? I had 95% germination in Verve mpc after three attempts and complete failures in Jack's Magic, I've never had Cosmos fail before. It's the first time I've used this compost and although it looks and feels good I am not impressed. I've re-potted a lot of my young plants from Jack's Magic into Verve as well as they weren't putting on any proper growth.

 

It's amazing that two years are never the same and there's always something to thwart our efforts. Perhaps its sowing and seedlings this year. I think it was two or three years ago things just weren't happening in the garden, everything was green but there were no flower buds and then suddenly everything burst into life three to four weeks later.

 

It will all come together and you'll still have a garden full of flowers this summer.

 

@fat controller I've just noticed that your posts aren't showing in the new post listings on the right side of the forums first page.

 

I've not known you to talk rubbish yet but I suppose there's a first time for everything.

 

Mowed the front lawn, cut all the seed heads off the daffs, made some wig wams for my climbing beans and sowed my darf beans. Gave the growhouse and cold frames a good soaking and started off my first batch of comfrey feed. Also did a bit of weeding.

Rusty

 

Morning Shiney - another early riser like me

Today I am going to dig out a dwarf Rhodo and a deciduous Azalea for a work colleague and sort some other bits and pieces out for him. Won't have time for much else as I'm working from home, but I'm sure I'll fit some bits in at lunchtime/after work.