What have you done today in the Garden?

I think we gardeners are lucky, if we have the garden we don’t suffer too much the negative phsychological effects of lockup

 

Just about finished.

I've gone from this new door in a new fence sixteen years ago,



To this sorry state on Monday




Via this on Tuesday




Golf and shopping Wednesday.

To this today.

I had to make little mortar "feet" as the 4" X 1" X 6ft fillets I used to pack out the door pillars to make them flush with the much thicker door than the old one, didn't reach the ground so they looked odd.



I even got the back painted

 

Well done. Chapeau.

 

Cayuga, I will take a picture, do you want a picture of the whole bed; or the braces I put on? It's just a small 4x8.
I planted more raspberries. My neighbor is really into native plants and gave me some native black raspberries. So they are on one side of the trees back by the alley and the red on the other side. I'll have raspberries coming out of my ears! But I didn't want to just let them die. Hmmm I suppose I should be glad she didn't give me a dog. I have onions coming up.
It's supposed to rain again tomorrow, so I mowed the backyard today, and my granddaughter will mow the front before it rains.
And I made rhubarb jelly out of the rhubarb juice.

 

It's windy again today, so won't be doing anything other than watering, unless it drops

 

Yesterday was the day to pull and hang garlic to dry. After all that fun, a long shower took most of the garlic fragrance off me! Here is a photo of the garlic hanging in the barn. My husband put a cleat on each of two support posts and strung rope tightly between them. Cleats work like a charm--no knots to untie if the rope needs tightening, and when garlic and onions are dry, the rope is wound up and hung on a cleat.
I'm including a photo of a cleat since some folks may have different names for it, or perhaps have never met a cleat.

 

You've got a nice cleat Jane.
What a handy and clever way to deal with your garlics.
You know I am one of those who did not know what you meant...for me a cleat is something under a footbal or basebal shoe to aid in traction.

 

"In the never ending quest to find something to do," I sorted out our "rose patio" (former koi pool).



It has flags laid on sand on top of 20 tonnes of eco-friendly hardcore.

It drains well, but I get annoyed with the weeds that tend to grow in the sand and soil that ends up in the gap between the flags and the perimeter rocks. I have to scrape or brush them out now and again dodging round the rose pots.

So I decided I'd cement in this gap. But this would mean in a heavy downpour, there might be some standing water as although at the moment the water drains between the flags, over time soil will end up with this sand and thus it might become less porous.

So I cemented around the perimeter but put in about a dozen drain tubes made from short bits of alkathene pipe. Didn't take more than a couple of hours. Just needs a bit of a brush over tomorrow when the cement has gone off.

 

Cayuga,
I tried to post a picture of the garden. I knew it would be too large (file size) but usually there's a thing where you can change the size, when you try to post. I guess Gardenstew doesn't have that. So if you know how to post with an Android, let me know.

I have buds on my boysenberries, yeah! We had a rain last night so the thistle (my nemisis in the raspberries) has dared to show it's it's head. So I was out digging them up. My beans (October or Horticulture) are all coming up. Bluelake are still a no-show. One of my 2 peas (the other isn't big enough) is climbing a small dead branch. I cut it out of whatever the bush is in my front yard. The other pea has a branch waiting until it's big enough.
I now have all but one of my potatoes coming up. But I did plant the blue ones later.
The sun is out so I'm off to put a jar out for sun tea.

 

Golf in the morning, but attacked the front garden after lunch.
Cleared all the dying bluebell foliage, then pruned the azalea "hedge."
Each year I take around six inches off the length that hangs over our curtilage wall onto the pavement.
Don't want any injury claims from pedestrians.
It's into it's growing period now so there'll be plenty of blooms again next year as usual.
Then cut the grass and gave everything a thorough watering.
Afterwards I dead-headed the first rhodo in the back garden and it's still only May!
More watering.
Gave the new door in the fence it's final coat of paint.
I substituted an eye for a screw in the middle hinge, the cable hanging from a hook on the top of the fence is to secure the door open when I'm in and out of the garden. The door stop on the ground stops it swinging open too far.

The drive acts like a wind tunnel and this like the old door used to slam shut just as I'm about to pass through it with both hands full.



Tomorrow I need to get into the rockery before we end up with more grass than phlox.

More bluebell foliage to clear.

 

Today we plantes some
Lathyrus by the entrance as well as some marigolds. I did some extensive strimming , finishing up what I started yesterday. I cut the tops out of all the broad beans to help ward off the blackfly. Marigolds planted in the greenhouse as well...also the toms got suckered...annnnd we saw the first two plants in bloom. We harvested spinach and Swiss Chard and ate some at home tonight and froze the rest in. Mowed the grass paths. Planted more French Climbers.
Most importantly, I looked in that little hive to see if the house bees had made any queen cells. They had made eight, but no queens had yet emerged. I listened a couple of more times with my stethoscope, but did not hear the queens chatting. I shall get up early tomorrow and head out to the garden to see if one has hatched out. I must separate the first one as quickly as I can to make a new colony.
The season is well underway here.

 

Watered, wandered around and delighted in the near imperceptible (but still perceptible) changes to most of my little plants. Thought about a bean trellis of twine from the yard to our deck. Might be cool.

 

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Hey Doghouse,
Thanks for the info. I finally had a little time to do as you said and as you can see, it worked!
The bottom picture is where I reinforced the corners of my raised bed. The bags at the end are potatoes as well as the black pot.
My boysenberries have buds on them, and my strawberries are going crazy with blooms!
My October beans are about 6 inches. I will be planting zucchini and pickling cucumbers starts tomorrow. And of course mowing the yard. I can't say grass, since I have very little. The back yard is mostly this horrible stuff called creeping Charlie. It takes over, I never heard of it before moving here. But I have a plan. My granddaughter and I set up her pool a couple of days ago. It's nothing too big, but it will kill the Charlie under it. Then i can change the PH in the soil, replant grass and move the pool to another area to start all over again. Hopefully it will work.

 

Pretty much up to date, rockery Phlox has been weeded and the last of the bluebell foliage is in the bin which is pretty much full. Grass cut an a bit of other weeding done.



Today I got at the white wisteria. It wants to grow laterally and I want it to grow at right-angles to the garage, so a bit of forcing and more wiring was requires to fill in a couple of gaps on the pergola. It's very virulent but quite submissive when young.



The canopy will soon fill in.





This comes under, "just looking for something to do."

I'd had a problem with the low voltage 30w Blagdon spotlight on the side fence that used to shine on the waterfall, which is now part of the rockery.

I say a problem, it had actually stopped working. I traced the fault to somewhere in the cable that passes from the garage, under the path, through the former pool collar, and up under the base of the waterfall to the base of the fence. Power was going in, but not coming out the other end (after 34 years) I could have tried to pull the cable through the trunking and replace it. But I decided, the spotlight where it was was no longer necessary, so I moved it to the pergola on the garage and rewired it. It's now trained on the fountain. This spotlight, like the one behind the pagoda comes with four different filters, red, green, orange, blue, or you can leave it as white. I've opted for blue this time. It'll come on when I turn the fountain on from the switches behind the lounge curtains.

 

Thanks @Willowisp0801 for the photo! I've had the same problem with my photos bring too big.
The raised bed looks great, very professionally done.

Your rose terrace looks beautiful Doghouse.

I got out to the community garden and planted the remaining tomatoes, got the first row of beans in, picked asparagus beetles of the asparagus, wasted everything, weeded, etc. Things are looking pretty good there!

I also have various herbs and veggies on the back stoop coming along.

I wish I could post photos of my perennial garden but they are too large