What have you done today in the Garden?

Your welcome, I've never made green chutney or have fried green tomatoes. I grow the cherry tomatoes so that they ripen before it's too late.

 

@Melody Mc. Thanks for your warning & sympathy. Yes I know they can be very destructive both to the garden and the underpinnings of the house. He lives next door.... The house there is owned by the bank & caught up in litigation. A mess.

He had been eating our parsley too! I was surprised by that, i didn't think animals went for herbs.
We are putting wire fencing under our porches to keep him out.

 

@Cayuga Morning - one of my long time ago students lived with his Granny along with his two uncles. One of his uncles worked in the bush, and brought home a baby Marmot/Woodchuck/Groundhog ...eater of parsley. They all loved him and thought he was cute ....until he made a house in the back of the sofa and decided to eat Granny's linens and house plants. Needless to say, he was invited to return to the logging site, where the workers kept an eye on him until he was comfy and on his own. hahaha

Very wise to fence out the porches. I wish I had had that wisdom at the time.

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck? ;-) Too much.

 

I weeded and gave water.
Deadheaded roses and checked on the bees. i noticed that the garden ants swarmed and are running about all over the whole garden.

 

Sjeord we have flying ants at this time of the year.

 

Yesterday, we had a lot of ants in several places. The poor sambucus in its tub was covered in them. But a libral scattering of ant powder last night so those on the sambucus have disappeared and there's only a few in a couple of places.



I've decided to extend the bit of path under the small acer palmatum, so this afternoon I went to B&Q for a bag of concrete mix. I'd also decided to change the porch light outside the French windows, as it has a dodgy lamp socket. So while I was in B&Q I picked up a pretty basic one.
The original was over thirty years old and the screws so rusty, I had to rip it off the wall with a claw hammer.

Foolishly, I was hoping it was going to be a straight swop. But no, the screw holes in the back plate of the new lamp weren't the same distance apart as the old one. So I decided, as I'd have to get my drill out I might as well move it a bit further away from the exhaust tube of the combi boiler which was fitted long after I put the lamp there.

There was an option with the old lamp for the cable to enter it from either the back or the side. No such luck with the new one. I had to take a hammer and chisel to the brickwork to cut a groove so the cable that is attached to the back wall could enter the lamp from the back.
The lamp itself is attached to the back plate by two bolts and tiny nuts. But the bolts are really a bit too short so I changed them for something more substantial. Everything's made "down to a price " these days and that's not cheap. This was thirty quid, it's all plastic no glass. Of course no bulb was supplied so for an LED one it was another tenner. Anyway, job done.








The light isn't used much. I sometines turn it on before we go to bed to look through the French windows just see how much of his dinner 'arry has eaten.


Did nothing much more than a bit of watering.

Our lilies are starting to come out but there's fewer of them this year.






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I usually prune off the second bloom on the wisterias when removing unwanted stringers, but some escape.











I've removed all but one the solar lights in the bed next to the garage as the canopy of the wisterias on this pergola is so thick they weren't getting any sun. I've put them in front of the shed, but I'll probably put them away.

 

I harvested some goodies.



The spuds were from a container. The potato harvest a bit over three pounds from that container. The original starts were from sprouted grocery potatoes.

The squashes are taking over like kudzu.


There don't seem to be any honeybees around (disturbing and sad!). The lindens are full of bumblebees, and cilantro flowers are full of tiny pollinating bees. But nothing on the squashes. So I hand pollinate.

I'm extra careful with a few selected blossoms, which will become the squashes I save for seeds. Those, both male and female flowers, get an organza gift bag as covers. Just in case a bee finds them. I want to know that this year's Burgess Buttercup will be next year's Burgess Buttercup and not some uncertain mix. That's OK for my dog (he and I are both mixes) but not for my squashes LOL.



Tomorrow, I'll hand pollinate these and label them, and put the organza bags back on until the petals drop off.

The Burgess Buttercup and Dakota Dessert squashes were making female but no male flowers, while the Galeux d'Eysines and Fordhook Zucchini were making all male flowers. So for the earliest ones, I hybridized them just to get sone started. I need to label carefully so I don't wind up with Galeux d'Buttercup seeds by accident LOL. It doesn't matter for the early summer squashes, that Saffron was pollinated with Costata Romanesco pollen, because we already ate those.

 

Marvellous posting, curious about the bees. That is not a good sign. You may have to find a beekeeper that will let one of his hives stand in your garden, and come and tend it. This is a scheme that happend over here.
I you would ever become a serious consideration for you, just contact your local beekeepers’ organisation and see what the possibilities are.

 

I wasn't happy with this bit of extra path I'd added under this acer palmatum a couple of weeks ago, where the grass refused to grow.
it looked a bit odd.

So on Monday I went to B&Q and bought a couple of bags of concrete mix.



Yesterday afternoon when I came home from golf, I ripped it all up and relaid it, adding a bit more York stone, I used the surplus grass for a bit of patching next to it.

Today I pointed it up with some silver sand, cement, plasticiser and some yellow cement dye.
I also did more re-pointing around it.
It's still damp here in places but will dry out the "right colour."

I've a bit more re-pointing to do on paths and patios, in a few places, but this can wait until the week-end.

As I have every evening lately, I watered what needed it. I also include the roof of 'arry the hedgehog's house, to cool it down. I've noticed he's removed some of his hay bedding...well he's pushed it out of the door, so he must be feeling the heat, despite the fact his house is well screened from the sun by a canopy of azaleas and I'd drilled ventilation holes at the top of a side wall under the roof.

 

Today was an early and long day. Weeding and watering around 4:30 am ( nice and cool at 8 C though so not many bugs ) . Harvested the artichokes ( they took a hit with thier formation thanks to they Lygus bugs) and soaked them in salt water, some broccoli and cauliflower. Picked baby carrots for dinner for the neighbour ( came in around 7 to make their dinner and our dinner for the evening) , then at neighbours by 9 to help out, home by 11:30 for lunch and then out at 2 for firewood. By 2 it was 28 C, which isn't too bad unless you're loading rounds of wood in a long sleeve shirt hahaha. Out now to check for slugs and tuck in the greenhouse.

MY POTATOES... ( pink flowers for red @Daniel W ) are beginning to flower. Just a smidge. ;-)

The best thing about a day like today is how good bed will feel hahahaha.

 

Today I pollinated squashes and ran the drippers. That's about all

 

Last summer I made peach salsa. Very yummy!

 

Watering the bedding plants and pots.

 

Took so garden view shots. About half of my kitchen garden is fenced (deer, rabbits, racoons, feral cats)



Inside, it's a mess but I get a lot out of it.








I can't grow lilies here in the ground. Subterranean life must eat the bulbs. I can grow them in containers.p with a drip emitter to drip them watered.



I dug out the last of the big planter / container potatoes. The soil was a bit soggy, so I mixed in an old partial bag of cactus soil and another of perlite, for drainage. Then I planted bush beans.



Birds eat the seeds, so I covered with some mesh.


Other than the potatoes, the jury is still out on how well this method works for me. I wonder if the soil mix is right. Maybe the beans won't be too picky about it.

 

Cleaned out the new strab patch of weeds, runners and straw. Looked in the bees. Harvested a passel of yellow and green beans…and courgettes, courgettes and more courgettes. Gave water in the greenhouse and to the outside plants. The compost bins are full. I brought our “baddies” up to the communal compost bins.
It was a long day where I got up early because I had to be in home to receive the ordered groceries. The Bride’s back is still not yet healed.