What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2019

@Logan , yes plastic is not good for cold weather due to condensation build up. Some people use plastic boxes for summer sleeping houses but I've not tried them. Hay is a much better bedding material than straw as it's softer and easier for the hogs to weave into a hibernaculum. Also less chance of them poking themselves in the eye with a coarse piece of straw. I add a layer of carpet to the bottom of the hog houses and a thick layer of paper on top of that before adding the hay. It just helps with cold seeping through. I imagine you could do this with a brick build house that is weather tight too.

@Snorky85 thank you! I've got new designs and canvases, better I think.




No gardening today. Had a peer into the pond to check on how the barley straw is doing. Hoping to get some garden time over weekend.

 

Wow!

Just

....WOW!!

 

Thank you so much . The designs are not that difficult to make, you could do it if you fancied having a go . Terribly messy though

 

They're amazing.

Thank you I've got Barley straw that someone gave me, they've used it for their hogs so i thought that it was alright, it's all done and weather tight. Put a lot of twigs and small branches on the outside and just got to get a lot of leaves.

 

I've given the "coal hole" door a couple of coats, of Woodsheen, inside and out, one more should do it.
Plywood is notorious for warping and delaminating when exposed to the weather. I hope this will help prevent it I've still the frame to tidy up and paint black.



Next job will be tackling the rest of the woodwork in the garden, need to schedule it for when two or three days of dry weather are promised.

 

Here's another

 

Finished making the hibernating hog house. Can just see the white tube.

 

Slow start for a Friday, normally at my companions but she’s on holiday in Cornwall so no rush today to get to hers.
Cut the grass, tender the borders then housework inside. Got a load of ironing to do!
Weather looks dry for the foreseeable future so I will not scarify her lawn quite yet. A little warm spell this weekend too.

 

A 20ft juniper felled this week has given us more light in our conservatory and we have a sunny bed to fill with plants. The stump has been cut at three foot so I can put a pot on there.
Filled the house with flowers from the cutting patch - lots of cosmos, dahlias, altrameria and coreopsis begging to be brought in to brighten up the house.
I mulched the roses and apple trees but have run out of compost now so need to replenish.

 

No gardening again . Went to Beaumaris to drop off stock yesterday and they have sold more than I have made to replace with. Popped into one of the other shops that stock my stuff on a different part of the island and found that everything except a set of coasters, one long tile and one small square tile has sold. Have you got more they said and can you do a xmas fayre in November they said . Looks like I'm going to be busy for awhile. Wondering if I could sneak a few canvases and paints into my suitcase . Very happy everything is selling but wasn't expecting it to sell so fast.

 

A nice quiet day. I’m off to see a lady who was one of my first customers many years back who sadly lost her husband a few years ago. I pop in every fortnight for a chat and Rosie my little Tibetan joins us as she loves to see this lady.
Then back home to write a structure on lawn care for a customer. They asked me to apply some fertiliser last week which they had. 3 packs in all, one solid as cement, one for leather jacket control which I can’t use and some evergreen which was the wrong fert and old and lumpy.
After that I’m spending a bit of time with a little side hobby that I enjoy. I have an ESP8266 module and am having some fun trying different projects. A handy device too.

 

Got up at 7 am, had my coffee gazing at the lovely autumnal garden with my head buzzing with things to do. Picked up my book, and apart from short loo breaks read until 2 pm when the Teenager gently suggested that a lunch might be nice. (A beautiful mind needs cultured cultivating, so I'm not ashamed of using half of my free time immersed in character forming and educating books. I'm currently reading this )

Anyhow, it is now time to tackle the impossible bed at the front, it's narrow and shallow and has a large conifer in the middle. When it rains, it floods. When it doesn't rain, it dries out to rock hard clay. The previous occupant apparently gave up and planted Mint.

Enlisting The Teenager, we dug up everything possible around the conifer, and removed the Mint bits. Obviously, the conifer roots are everywhere as well so we had to sniff the roots to decide if they are mint or not.

The plan is to overplant with fleabane for neat, evergreen cover that flowers all summer, and underplant with Daffodils and possibly Drumstick Alliums. A lot of head scratching is happening as I'm not entirely sure about that, but at least the bed is now less mint and more soil. Exiting

 

Bulb planting one of the revamped borders on the east patio , have placed markers on the other border there to hopefully mirror what I have done today( the little blighters do tend to move though don't they.....or is it just mine!!). Will plant up that one tomorrow. Will move the two big pots of Hostas to round by the greenhouse and replace with a Winter Pots...that have yet to be done. Need to buy some Winter Pansies tomorrow, I have sown a couple of trays but they are still quite small and being impatient...I want bigger ones now!!

 

put new felt on the shed roof and first coat of cuprinol on the wood will finish it tomorrow. hopefully my second hand shed will now last for a few more years yet