What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

They'd better be, they're definitely not social distancing...!

 

All my gravel has been riddled and I've got some lovely fine soil with fine gravel in it just the job for going back in the ground, digging down 18" or thereabouts to loosen up the soil and taking out any tree roots I find, if we don't have the torrential that's forecast that should be done tomorrow. Just watered the sorry but you'll have to go there garden

 

Yesterday evening cut the grass and reinforced the netting over the strawberries, already in a fruit cage, but the badgers took a liking to them so now have a net on a frame pegged down and weighted with lengths of angle iron and wooden posts. I'm not sure I can get in now either..
Today strawberries less trampled, but a 30 inch deep hole behind the bamboo at the edge of a stone wall, badger probably after a bumble bee nest, hole filled in and the biggest rock I could find on top. If anybody needs a bamboo removed I recommend badgers.
This evening if the promised showers don't appear then lots of watering and feeding; if showers appear are aren't too shoddy less watering but still feeding to do.

 

The garden has been left to it today as there's been some much needed rain it's pretty much forecast every day for the rest of the week so hopefully at some point I can get the Salvia Nemesia into the border (the soil has been like dust) and give the grass a rake.

 

I've spent the afternoon working on a 16 x 5ft patch in my lawn. I've had to sift through the soil to remove all the stones before seeding - it took ages. It probably won't rain now to water it.

 

Well, it was gray and mostly windy all day. Very little rain. I was hoping in a little bit more.

I would love to share some pictures of my ripe strawberries, after spraying all plants with aspirin solution, as they looked in the garden a while ago:

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Exactly..
Mr Squirrel thought it opportune to remove every single red strawberry in sight.
Then he dug the strawberry pots, and the tomato pot, and the tomatillo pot. So to bury part of the berries..
So, everything is now covered in black mulch and heavy things, plus netting on top, I hope he hates the look of it as much as I do..

While at it, he also climbed on the tomatillo, bending it down.
Even admitting it was done immediately after I left the garden yesterday, the tomatillo cannot have been in that position more than 20 hours, which is interesting.

This is how the tomatillo looked like yesterday afternoon. Sorry for the quality, it is from a video, but essentially it was very much straight:



This is how it bent out of shape and changed stems orientation in less than a day, in order to catch the light when laying flat:



I am used to plant re-orienting their leaves when moved, of course.
But I do not think I ever seen one doing it so fast and so dramatically.
Also, it would seem it liked to be flat more, it grew several side shoots, several extra flowers and the stems are visibly thicker than yesterday. This might have something to do with with having sprayed it with water, or aspirin, or both, also.

But I am wondering if might simply be that tomatilloes, and perhaps tomatoes too, like it when most of the plant ends laying flat. I guess it could make it easier for capillary action to deliver liquids and nutrients to the branches. I have always grown my tomatilloes vertically, just like tomatoes, but I am tempted to experiment leaving it flat, perhaps it will look good and produce more..



The beans are flowering since several days but they are still very small. The first patty pan is showing up (first time growing this, I am curious) and the first courgettes too (Courzelle and Surething for the moment). The cucamelon is developing and very slowly hugging a section of fence, I suspect that if it develops fully it will invade the neighbours side, so I will need to keep it in check.








Yesterday I finished an extension to my garden arch which I quite like. But the light was terrible this afternoon, so perhaps I will post photos another day. Or perhaps it just looks a bit rubbish, so I hope it looks better with the good light :D

 

I forgot to add yesterday’s gardening activities...

I risked it, and went to the nearest garden centre (Very small outdoor plant section, and even smaller indoor plant). I wanted to get a couple of clematis, as we will be here all year - no holidays - so a good year to plant. There was only one that was on my short-list, so with a clematis Texensis Princes Diana in hand, I went to a hole already dug next to the end wall of the house, and planted it deep. I “planted” an empty clematis pot next to it, ready for the next one! The trellis / garden wire fencing will go up this weekend....
Later in the evening, we pruned the broken lower branches off the smallest cherry tree, and removed all of the cherries (not ripe, like bullets). This is to prevent any further damage from the fox trying to pick the cherries! Do you have the same problem? A number of years ago, there was a female fox feasting on the fallen cherries under our large (now dead) tree. She didn’t stop eating them until our two Weimaraners were half-way across the garden, running full-speed towards her, before slinking off under the fence.

 

Planted the tithonia and a few calendula, potted on a lupin because i haven't decided where to put it, then it started to rain a bit so i went in to make some tea.

 

Fitted some additional support for beans and tomatoes, and worked a bit at containing the blackberries. I love blackberries and I try not to prune any flowering branch if at all possible, but it is hard to keep it all tidy and trained on the fence.

My attempts at keeping the squirrels out of my raised planters have failed quite miserably for the moment. They seem to be able to, hemm, squirrel into the smallest spaces. All ripening berries are again gone, along with the tip of all runners.. So they like runners too, interesting..

I covered most tomatoes for the night, apparently the temperature will go down to 6C. They are full of trusses, I hope they will manage to keep them.

 

Nigel. I hope you keep yourself well watered and fed. Several glasses of plnk etc.

 

My new potting table arrived yesterday so that's been built and put in place. Not sure it's going to stay exactly where it is, it might rotate 90 degrees and go against the other wall.



Fed the toms and courgettes today. Both courgettes have fruit and both toms have flowers.



Also added this little guy to the bay tree as my daughter's really into bees right now. He's a solar light.

 

I did these jobs last week :-

I had some plastic shelving inside a Perspex shelter next to my garage, and some metal Wilko ones outside getting rusty, so I swapped them over.
Now the plastic ones are outside with cuttings on them, and the metal ones are inside where it's dry, and my propagators are on them.







I also moved two cold frames from the patio (where they looked ugly and I was also afraid of falling on top of them) to the bottom of the garden next to the garage wall, and I've put them on top of some bricks to save my back :-







It took two days to move them ... one brick, rest, another brick, sit down, another brick, have a cup of tea … old age !

 

Sowed some more wallflowers, don't have to do any watering because it's raining sometimes very heavy.

 

Squirrels have entirely devasted my strawberries in the raised planters.
Now they go for the green ones, they shredded them along with all runners and a fresh growth on a tomatillo..
I do not think June bearers will make any more flowers this point, so I am trying to protect the day neutral ones.
Netting is fine to keep birds away, but with rodent it does not seem very effective.
It is a bit annoying frankly, and I am seriously tempted to season whatever is left with chilli oil, and see how they like the nouvelle cuisine.

Or maybe not??
Squirrels may have a taste for chilli

Time to try and grow this famous Carolina Reaper, I guess