WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

More mulching and potting up , quite a nip in the air so will take myself, a flask of coffee and Classic FM off to the toasty warm greenhouse .

 

Cut the grass yesterday, dead headed the tulips/daffs and put my hose on the new stuff I planted. Noticed my hollyhocks and the lone delphinium from seed are double the size they were last year
Went up the plot watered my seedlings and earthed up spuds.. again. Noticed my dad had put some new guttering up on the shed to the ibc tank.. (whoo hoo, cheers dad!) just need some bloomin' rain now!

Nothing today, lil one came home early from school yesterday and is complaining of sickness.. he's fine really!! Wondering when I should sort my front pots out, they're looking quite tatty as most of the tulips have finished flowering.. way too early for my liking! Last year I was waiting for them to finish to free up pots!

 

We seem to be getting three seasons in a day this week. Starts with a hard frost, then sunshine, then cold rain/hail, then sometimes a little more sun....

So it's hard to decide what to do, whilst running in and out for the washing!

Today I settled for potting on some of my chilli plants, potting up my tomato seedlings (I know, v late sowing, but they are for growing outside), and sowing some more lettuce, coriander, and rocket....

 

Planted out tomatoes, potted on tender perennials, cut lawns, netted blueberries, thinned carrots and pushed a few more tender potted stuff outside.
Another glorious day.....mostly wall to wall sunshine again and the cooler nights may well be over now.

 

Not necessarily. Some plants are more attractive than others.

Not all ducks need a pond, a bucket of water might be enough for some breeds so they can swill out their bills and have a bit of a dunk/wash. Even a shallow paddling pool would be quite sufficient for domesticated breeds.

Talk to it, give it a bit of a stroke and it should be fine.

Talk to it, give it a bit of a stroke and it should be fine.



Apart from the, seemingly, daily duty of picking out (and discarding!) sycamore seedlings - not to mention the dreaded bindweed - my days this week have concentrated on a) keeping things watered; b) potted up "surprises": such as a piece of clematis, which broke off last Autumn and I threw the broken piece into a bucket and has subsequently rooted (!); potted up the 4 pieces of thuja "Yellow Ribbon" (which were bits I chopped off last year and simply stuck in an old pot with a bit of old compost and decided to root); then there was a piece of Peony which sprouted in the rear end of the garden (thanks, I think, to the bird 'flu warnings and resultant enforced confinement of the chooks).

Beans were sown and popped into the growhouse; cleaned and positioned a trough for growing the beans near to the bench beside the back door - this will not only be a great space for the beans, but will also offer a little bit of privacy beside the bench from the right hand side neighbour

Replanted some strawberry plants into a small trough, which I've hung over the neighbouring fence to give them maximum sunlight. Spotted my first strawberry flower of the year on one of my plants (which I'd forgotten about!)

Started planning where to put the water feature, which will be this years project, but still need to work out the electrical side of things. Hoping to incorporate the pebble fountain effort with a bucket/sink pond effort to get the best of both worlds on a smaller scale: I so miss my pond from the old house!

Dragged the Veg Trug from the bottom of the garden back up to the patio area: it wasn't utilised well down the end of the garden and I'm hoping for some small crops to supplement the kitchen this year; just think it will be more productive if it is "in sight" and "near to hand".

That was enough to be going on with

 

No frost this morning, although it is still cold. One of those mornings when your fingers go numb whilst you weed!

Anyway, between the showers I have planted out some lettuce (mazur) seedlings, and some summer spinach seedlings. All the lettuce and some of the spinach have gone into the cloched trough by the kitchen window, the rest of the spinach in the original veg bed, between the temporary raspberry planting. The spinach is for salad picking, so it needs to be soft and tender - hence some in the quick-pick trough seemed a good idea.

I've also weeded a little of the top bed. Mainly involving ripping out the rugosa rose (hasn't hipped or even flowered in 5 summers) that keeps coming back, and the ground cover sedum. It keeps the rest of the weeds down, but I don't want it smothering the roses, Veronica, irises, etc that I've planted....

 

Last day at work, today, for the next 3 weeks. so Saturday, hope to cut all grass, pull a few weeds. tidy up where I can before we leave on Wednesday.

 

Sounds like a plan, happy holidays- where are you off to...... somewhere warm and sunny?

 

Removed all the fleece that was put on the trees 3 days ago since the frost danger has passed, well hopefully has passed.

 

Hi, this weeks job has been removing montbretia from the 'extremely-well-fertilised-raised-bed', aka compst bin, where it was thriving...I may have accidentally thrown some corms on there over the winter, and they had all grown beautifully! It has take ages to dig out all the compost and remove said thugs. Ah well, the compost needed turning anyway...

 

Busy morning so far! Two lavender plants had died (unsure why, but planted as the first thing in the garden about 2 years ago and were not dug in properly) so removed them and had a bit of a clean up. Huge amount of weeding, I think the garden must have been on a woodland slope many years ago and the woodland kind of weeds (hogweed in particular) are literally everywhere in the garden and just means pulling it out all the time! Argh!

Tidied up the crocosmia (weirdly the only plant in the garden i haven't planted!), got rid of some odd sproutings of dock and dandelion, and trying to think of ways to stop the local birds using my fence as a latrine!!!

Then put together a cheap Wilko "pop up" planter and filled that with a nice fern and some summer bedding, and filled two smaller planters with some viola and geraniums. More weeding, tidying up the fairy lights... tomorrow it's the fun task of weeding the patio, oh joy!!

 

Don't let the hogweed touch your bare skin

 

Well I got half my flower beds edged before the rain last night. Hope to finish that job today and dig up my annual beds and give them a little rototilling.