What have you done today in the Garden?

Hummer, I have never heard of fire cider but even that might not touch this. I poured hot pepper flakes into my chicken soup and my lips were on fire but it hardly produced any runny nose.

 

Pricked out the snapdragon seedlings into cell trays, 108 so far.

 

The new rondels are finished and in place. The old ones had totally disintegrated, I practically only had to brush them off.

The new ones will require a couple more coats of Woodsheen. They'll get that in the next two weeks, "weather permitting" when I give the front of the pergola a "tart up." It has to be done then as once the buds of the wisteria start to develop into blossoms, they are easily knocked off.



I'm quite pleased that I was able to get these done with just what I had in the garage. I'm occasionally expected to do "something, or the impossible, with next to nothing."

We had a problem with the the wood pigeons eating a lot of the food I put out on a tray for the small birds. My wife said yesterday, "Can you make something so that only the blackbirds, sparrows, dunnocks, robins and "Winny the wagtail" can get at the food?"

Fortunately I had saved this cover from a big pedestal twenty year-old fan we binned last year as it was getting noisy. She got me to buy a new one to replace it which is silent and has a remote control!

Don't ask!

Anyway, with a bit of tubing and other stuff I found in the garage, I got the job done and the blackbirds and smaller birds are already feeding from it, the pigeons can't, so it's working.

 

Cut off some more of the old flowering stems from the lavender, only got a few more to do.

 

Husband tilled the potato patch for the final time while I watered the recently planted onions, lettuces, and carrots.
Checked the seedlings under lights and the parsley is germinating and popping up nicely. I love flat-leaf parsley!
We uncovered two more of the raised beds, so tomorrow I'll add buckets of compost and then those beds will get tilled.
My back is aching, but my face is smiling--spring has kinda sprung!

 

Was out filling pots yesterday, now waiting for a bag of compost to be delivered tomorrow.
K

 

Naw @Doghouse Riley ..I'll leave that one for you...i'll just live through your tea house..hehe. Those maples are beautiful now.. with their form and buds.

 

The terrible winds have slowed down a bit and we got some dry weather...well it was not raining, that is to say; however, the soil in the garden was a bit sticky and soppy. Be that as it may--it was dry and so we thought--Strike while the iron is hot, as the blacksmith would say.

When we arrived one of the arches were leaning like an Italian tower. The one up close to the garden house I got more or less straight and with a great deal of pulling, and pushing with my shoulder, I got the one by the entrance (also) more or less straight. The Clematises had to be severely cut back before beginning. I then pounded in the support poles deeper and then did some tying and securing. Here is what it looked like after the work:


"More or less" is a good description of my lottie. I tell my Bride that an allotment isn't supposed to be pristine like the garden surrounding one's home--it is supposed to possess a sort-of make-shift quality. Right then, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

On to the real garden work then. We needed to prepare the potato bed. That meant raking back the mulch layer of dead plant material, schoffeling the soil and then applying well-rotted manure. The first stage:


The little green thingys at the back of the plot are last year's strawbs. It looks like they came through the winter oké, but just barely. We took out one whole row of these and planted them in-between another row. This daring step was taken in order to be able to plant an additional row of spuds. We have never done this before, so we are hoping that this unorthodox attempt will work.

It was time for a break then. So, when the Bride sat down on one of the benches over by the canal, the back broke and she almost fell in the water backwards. Luckily, she was able to catch herself. We had bought a bench and so now was the ideal time to put it together. It didn't take too long and turned out fine:


Well, the fun was over and time to return to the potato bed. We went further with cleaning the plot and schoffeling it weed-free. Then a layer of well-rotted stall muck was spread over it.


Here it is from a bit of a distance...you can see how much work we still have to do yet.:




We also laid a new path down the middle of the four quadrants and held the debris in place with working planks. The debris paths always look a bit sloppy and middle-ages like, but they work well for us.

Well, we decided to stop and head home before we just went on and on and on, like we always do. We are trying to avoid those achy and stiff muscles that we get each spring.

We stopped by the garden store to get some soil . We will need to be planting more seeds soon, and the broad beans can go in any day now, making more room on the bedroom windowsill.

 

That potato need looks beautiful SJ. Are you going to turn the Mannie in, or let it decompose on the surface?

I have ordered my potatoes, hopefully they will arrive soon.

 

Hiya CAYU-- I shall let it stay on the surface and "trickle down", as it were. I do not turn my soil at all, I practice what is called "min-tilling". Of course I do hand plough a trench for the spuds, but otherwise I do not go down into the soil and turn it over.
BTW--I have never heard that term, "mannie".
You said that you have ordered your potatos--what kind did you decide on this year?

 

SJ:...a typo. It was supposed to be manure. And I even proof read that too! Ah me.

I have gone with fingerlings again this year at the request of our resident "chef"!!

Your photos bring a smile to my face and make me itch to get into the garden again. The soil is still very muddy...too too wet yet. But I might stop by the garden tomorrow and have a look see. I wonder how my garlic are doing!

 

Hey Cayu--did you stop by your garden today? What's it looking like?
Oh, a typo...I see what you mean then.
Fingerlings are good ones. Fingers crossed for your spuds.

Today we planted more things at home-- peas, spinach, Swiss chard and Purple sprouting broccoli. Oh, I am getting in the mood here now.

 

As it was dry and I didn't fancy playing golf today as the course will still be wet (golf buggies are still banned, so there's a clue) I painted the pergola on the back of the house. It was a pain, as I had to move the patio pots, then the get the ladder between the wisteria and four strands of fairy lights. The buds have suddenly come on, so I didn't want to leave it any later.



I needed to fill some rot in one of the small cross beams and I'll have to replace another at some time. This pergola easily supports my 12st any time I need to get up on the flat roof of the extension, to clean the bedroom window or clear the gutter above it. It's not dangerous at the moment, it's not likely to give way, but that one piece is easy enough to change.

I also gave this some attention.

This is our security fence and door between the house and the garage and prevents entry to the garden.

Well it was sixteen years ago when I built it.

I had to replace four bits of the bottom of the trellis frames, two each side. They'd rotted. I gave the double rail above the featherboarding a coat of Cuprinol. I had to buy two 9ft long strips of wood to cut up to make the new rails of the frame. But they were only a pound each from the local woodyard. They needed a bit of "fettling" as they were a bit wider than the originals.

Still. it's done now and doesn't look much different to what I had. I do need to replace the door at some time. I got it from B & Q and built the frame around it when I made the fence. I'll have to wait and hope they get some the same size in again, otherwise. I'll have to get some tongue and groove wood and re-make it myself.

2004 photo

 

How did you get that piece of wood over the door to curve Dog? It all looks great BTW

Yes, SJ I did make it out to the Community Garden. The garlic is indeed up and looking pretty hefty. The rest of the beds look pretty good too. I can begin adding compost.

I have also begin raking out the perennial beds at home. Felt good to be outside, beginning the process of getting things ship shape.

 

Thanks for that. I just started with a wider bit of wood and I cut it to shape with a jigsaw.

There isn't really a proper arch there, just that piece of wood secured to an unseen semi circular piece behind it, which in turn is screwed to the frame of the fence.
The main frame which at the top is two lengths of 3" X 2" timber screwed together, for strength, passes behind and across the arch. The top of the featherboarding is screwed to the bottom piece.