WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

Went to the beach again earlier (never the same without a dog!( but chillier today. Sunny though, will be warm and perfect for doing work in the garden
However, a couple of hours teaching this morning and other stuff might limit what I can do in the garden today
Hope the weather is as good where you are folks but have a healthy day everyone

 

@Irmemac She's out there all day on her own bless her. At least when I'm out there she has someone to "talk" to.



G.

 

Poor lonely wee cat. I bet she really appreciates your company. I have a cat (sorry, just seems my profile pic and it's a tad obvious!) and when he is alone in the house with me he often settles in each room I am in, and follows me when I move to another. He just seems to like my company...... or he is spying on me for an enemy agent !

 

Still lovely out there and I took advantage. Divided large phormium Cream Delight and planted out, moved large helenium, and dug up an agastache Black Adder. Dug up and discarded a buddleia that I have not liked now for a year or two. Dug up a potted leonotis leonorus that hadnt flowered this year.....cut it back, popped it in the gh and hope it will flower early next year.

By the way, if you havent taken cuttings of agastache you can lift and propagate by root divisions. Most agastaches will have off shoots underground and these can be potted up, watered and overwintered in GH.

A kind GC member sent me muhly grass seeds from her visit to Florida. Got one seed to germinate last year but hope for more next

My "nosey" neighbour popped over, again , and gave me a packet of choco biscuits and a few lagers. All because I gave her a dahlia tuber. Aren't people nice?:rasp:

 

@Verdun can I ask which variety of Agastache you are referring to? I grow Agastache Golden Jubilee and it ranks in my top 5 of herbaceous for it's amazingly vibrant yellow foliage which makes a great foil for say Cimicifuga or other dark maroon/chocolate coloured herbaceous. Mine self seed helpfully i.e.enough without being a pain as I find Golden Jubilee isn't the longest lived. I'd never even thought of taking root divisions unlike say Acanthus which I do take root cuttings of if needing extra.

 

I have mentioned once or twice before on GC my 'slight' over production of Celery due to a large seed sowing mishap. Strictly speaking what I have been up to isn't in the garden as the thread is designed for however it's because of the garden my kitchen looks like a Celery bomb has exploded in it. These 3 photos represent perhaps not even a 1/4 of the crop. I processed it for over an hour yesterday and am now at the stage of having run out of room in my large chest freezer. I did not go a bomb on @Zigs dreadful suggestion of making wine out of it....hmmmmm sounds tasty NOT ,so I have still to find homes for what's left. Postie should be arriving here soon I wonder if I can palm some off on him?

 

Hahaha that is fantastic @silu I'm actually kind of jealous of your massive crop mine are about a 1/5th of the size and nowhere near as thick! What's your secrets!?

 

Well this could be a case of beginners luck as not grown Celery before @Linz.....after this episode possibly never again as sort of never want to see or smell the damn stuff again!
All I did find out is it needs a long growing season so started off sowing the seed...(like flaming dust and the whole contents of the packet came out in a oner hence the distinct overproduction) in a heated propogator in about February from memory.
Typical pretty much all of it germinated so was up to my eyeballs in seedlings. Scottish nature then took over and couldn't bear to waste any so planted out god knows how many seedlings in May post danger of frosts. I may say I lost the will to live during this tedious process.
The ground I planted into was heavily manured over the previous winter and I think I hurled a bit of Growmore about a week prior to planting out. Apart from that I did water them a couple of times in June when it was very dry and then God took over that duty as it seldom stopped raining during July and August. Apart from that I did sweet you know what else and it just grew a lot. I started pulling leaves off the plants in about a July, leaving the plants to keep growing. The variety I grew was self balancing as didn't fancy having the chore of earthing up. Maybe someone who knows their Onions, oh that should be Celery can give you much better advice than newbie grower me.

 

Celery soup ! Yum .

 

Thank you @silu that's fab! I think I know where I've gone wrong now.. I direct sowed mine in May and my ground wasn't manured except for chick poo pellets and grow more.. it is manure this year Plus I didn't pull leaves as they were growing, not heard of that!

Enjoy your celery with er, celery...

Some interesting recipes here, like the look and sound of mushroom and celery stuffing, even 2 cocktails are chucked in!

Celery Recipes That Are Freakishly Delicious (PHOTOS) | HuffPost

 

Hi @Linz, I only mentioned the pulling leaves/stalks meaning you can take off bits to eat but leave the plant to keep growing further. I doubt pulling bits off does anything for the eventual size the Celery grows to tho. thanks for the recipes, will have a look at those when I am back liking Celery again. ATM I never want to see anything which resembles Celery again this century

 

Silu, fantastic crop of celery.....not something I have ever got round to growing despite thinking about doing. You prob wont ever grow it again but I will try it next year

You asked about agastache varieties earlier. Black Adder, Blue Boa, Summer Sky, Uliginosa, Tangerine, Raspberry Summer, cacalifolia and more plus the newer dwarf Kudos varieties can be propagated by clumps of adventurous roots underground. Potted on, not too deep and not too moist, and they respond well. The only ones,off the top of my head, that cannot be done this way are the tuberous varieties. However, these can be treated just like dahlias so no reason not to have agastaches in the garden
Incidentally, the agastache nickname,Humming Bird plant, implies it is a magnet for wild life...bees, butterflies, insects....and I can confirm this is the case

 

I've looked at Agastache cotton candy. Is the a variety you have experience of?

G.