What have you done today in the Garden?

I hilled up two more rows of potatoes, this time late ones (Elba) and midseason, German potatoes (Soraya). The plants are green and lush.

Not much more outside. It rained an inch. I went to a grocery store for baking supplies and also bought fresh Zinnia seeds for the meditation garden.

Walking around, I noted the hybrid chestnut trees (French hybrids of Italian x Japanese varieties, I think) are sending up flower catkins. The grafted ones have been bearing chestnuts for a few years. When I planted them in 2016, I made a mistake in my order and one of the four trees was a seedling of a named variety, plus that seedling had a non-pollen bearing parent (cultivar Marrisard). Seedlings take much longer to bear than grafts and are less predictable. Chestnut trees require pollen from other chestnut varieties, if they are to make nuts. I wanted all of mine to be pollinators for each other. Still, I left that tree in place. Today I saw it was sending out catkins which should become male flowers - so maybe it will pollinate the others anyway, and maybe it will produce chestnuts this year. Maybe the other (unnamed) parent for that tree left it's male genetic mark, and that is why it has male catkins. I had also grafted scion from four other varieties onto that tree's lowest branches. Three took, and two look like they will bloom this year too.

 

I had spotted morels around my garden a couple years ago. Didn’t know what the heck they were, however once learning how tasty they are I look for them and haven’t seen them yet.
Nasturtiums are tasty in salads I like to grow the jewel seeds they are very bright and colorful .
Pansies can be sugared for decorations on desserts.

The Lily’s are coming up, dahlias and lots of hostas. Planted more 10 new amaryllis. Lots of rhody’s poppin.
Mowed three more acres of grass hay almost done, only 5 acres to go if the rain stops.

 

Did a bit this morning, as I've the Women's final French Open Tournament to watch this afternoon. Result may be a formality, but I'll watch anyway.
Gave my "Monet" acer a bit of shaping, just a few small bits to prune off. It's in its pink/yellow/pale green stage, it will change to a darker shade of green later in the summer.






I call it my "Monet acer "as it looked like this a year after we bought it, back in 2014, before I got "at it,"





It reminded me of the second figure that is supposed to be a child, (not a poodle) in Monet's, "Sunlight Under the Poplars."
There's a graphic of this painting on one of my jukeboxes.





Pruned a bit of unwanted new growth from these wisterias.





Gave all the pots a water and a bit of feed. We've had some rain lately but they still need watering every other day.

Gave the lawn some feed. The moss has gone and it's looking quite good, just a couple of very small scruffy patches at the far end, but they will soon recover.






I had my juxboxes playing whilst I was pottering about. When not in use they have these covers over them I sewed by hand (my wife no longer has a sewing machine) a few years ago out of some old thermal backed curtains. I made them by draping a curtain over each and then cut and sewed around them. Fortunately, they kept still whilst I was doing it and didn't complain.

One of the seams on the small one was starting to come undone, so I had to get a needle and cotton out to repair it.








All done, I think I'll have my lunch.

 

Loved seeing the before and after, and the very fitting name explanation. It doesn't look at all like the same Acer. Wonderful job.

 

Today will be weeding, and more weeding. I need to weed the raspberries as they are about to flower, and then it will be impossible to navigate the bees ( hopefully - they are scant this year). I hope the rain didn't upset the blossoms of the apple trees. The crab apple that my daughter bought me for mothers day 12 years ago is finally hitting it's stride. I'm excited to make apple pepper jelly this fall with them. The winter pruning has fewer blooms on the Norgold, but that is okay. I still have a gazillion jars of apple sauce from last year and just need to make some pies in the fall.

I'll get the last of the bean starts in today, lay some mulch in the garden from mowing. I have to trim back the lawn on the upper veggie garden and lay down a row of roofing shingles to keep it at bay ( my best friend those shingles). And then hopefully have time and energy to mow this afternoon. I hate push mowing in the heat of the day, but it looks like it may have to be today as more rain coming tomorrow.

The creek is a few inches from breaching again, so the pump is a ways away. The rain is welcome. When it does breach it flows across the feild and eventually over the end of the driveway before it finds culverts and gets back to another part of the creek. A neighbour is responsible for that beginning portion of the long driveway that we share a portion of. Thankfullly our truck is fine to cross it, but it sure can make a mess. Always exciting times when Mother Nature flexes her muscles.

 

Planted the rest of the pot marigolds around the path in the front garden, got some left.

 

Raining today. I did plant a few rows of zinnias and some sweetcorn. The first batch of sweetcorn is an inch tall, and something is pulling them up and eating the seed from the bottom. They have tunnels made from old fencing, for protection. I added a net as well. "Four seeds in a row, one for the mouse, one for the crow, one will wither and one will grow."

I repotted the new brugmansia. I hope it greens up with all of the TLC it's getting.

I pollinated more pawpaws flowers.

One of the flats of French marigold seedlings only produced about 20 seedlings, so I sowed a second flat today. The flats are about 20 square inches. These are marigolds I save from seeds every year, so I want to keep them going.



On the other hand, the African marigold seeds germinated like crazy.



Dwarf tomatoes are looking pretty good. With all of the rain, the paper mulch is deteriorating so needs replacement. Maybe cardboard if I have enough.

 

Riley beautifully well designed garden. With the music from the tea house such a nice retreat from the calamity’s society has become since the pandemic. Nice covers for the juke boxes. I love maples my red maple like yours and have a few my fav are the dwarf cut leaf maples.I trim the leaves and smaller branches to open up the dwarf trees to see the beautiful moss covered branching. A tiny lace leaf is a tri-color with pink , white and lime leaves early spring. It’s surrounded with scotch moss and a water clapper next to it to detour the raccoons from eating the pond fish.
the wisterias are still blooming due to a cooler wetter spring than usual.

Daniel beautiful seedlings. I need to start some too. It encouraging to see yours looking so healthy. What growing medium do you start your seeds in.

 

Thanks for the kind words. As our garden is quite small, I'm occasionally pruning back rhodos that hang too far over the lawn and the acer palmatum sometimes have one or two lower branches pruned off. Their "hems" get a trim with garden shears. As they have those fine leaves, no one notices the trim. Without this attention they'd be far bigger than they are.

 

Nothing today it's raining so i washed my hair.

 

Dead-headed these rhodos this morning. It's a chore I like to get done before it's possible to damage the new shoots when they appear.
Didn't have time to clear up the fallen blooms afterwards as it started raining.
It's "tennis time" now on TV. Men's Final

 

Daniel, have you introduced your new friend? I do not recall seeing it. The Brugmancia. I remember commenting on it, but cannot recall if you actually showed a pic or not. Awful innit, mate.

 

Nice plants, Pancor. Very nice colour, and don’t those Acers look smart.

 

I weeded and put up more tomato cages. I pulled onions and donated the remaining lettuce to a retirement home. I found a lost pair of garden shears under a squash plant. I weeded. I found svb sign so out comes the needle. Time for tomato spraying to actually happen rather than bee considered. I weeded.

 

I've done too too much!!! I'm taking a break.