What have you done today in the Garden?

all looks good everyone. nice to see the gardens growing. Mine is growing as well. just been too busy to be here much. sold almost all of my hanging baskets again. composted 50 or more flats of tomatoes and peppers last week. planted about 300 peppers 150 more tomatoes, two 50' rows of zucchinis, been picking peas. started picking raspberries.. and today as I started on the new patch a hornet found my backside as I was bent over pulling some weeds from the patch. well, low and behold there was a 4" nest of hornets hanging right on one of the raspberry plants. that was unpleasant but the "quick cure" for stings is ammonia. plain old cleaning ammonia. splash some on and soak a small sponge and hold it on for a bit. pretty soon, no more pain or swelling. so, I moved on to placing the header line and hooking up all the drip tapes so I can water plants although we have had quite a bit of rain lately. an inch yesterday and some on Sunday although I wasn't here... I drove 800 miles to go to our sons wedding. still taking care of the inlaws and just been a crazy busy Spring so far.

 

@carolyn I have never heard of the ammonia tip, I hope I don’t get to test your cure.

 

My Bride sometimes uses ammonia or crushed dock leaves for nettle or bee / wasp stings.

Carolyn, you have been working waaaaaay too hard, and we here are suffering for it. Chuckle. We miss your progress reports of goings on there. We are always so amazed at the numbers of things you plant. Did I understand that you had to throw away so many flats of toms and peppers?! Did they go off on you? Were you just not able to sell them?

 

Carolyn sorry to hear about your hornet sting and thanks for the first aid tip, have been stung by wasps in the past when trying to pick the gooseberries.

 

I used to grow gooseberries, Loggie...but d’ja know wot— I found that if the wasps don’t getya, the prikkers on the stems will ! It was actually the Bride that got fed up with them first. The neighbour lady was thrilled with the bushes.

 

Sjoerd yes i know what you mean about the thorns, I suppose to have a thornless variety but it still has them.

 

@Odif your crops look great. Truly.

@carolyn Wow!!! You are busy. So sorry about your wasp sting. They can hurt like the devil. Good to know about the ammonia tip. Like Odif, I hope I don't have to use it.

@Sjoerd when I get home, I'll copy my Mother Earth garden plot map. I find it so helpful. You'll be able to see what I have.

Sj, truth be told, I don't know WHAT I have going on in that raised bed! The cardoon is in it as are carrots. The bed has hardware cloth stapled to the bottom of it to foil the voles eating the carrots. But overall, the bed is a FAIL. It was my attempt at square foot gardening, but watering is a problem at the community garden. (Yes, still. Don't ask). Everything must be lugged with those contractor buckets you saw strewn about. So a raised bed needs more water than beds in the ground. I'm concentrating my watering on that cardoon because I'm curious about it.

I'll take a photo of my plot plan when I get home & you can take a look.
Thanks so much for your interest BTW!

 

This is the last of our rhodos to flower, usually much later in the year, but the warm weather earlier, brought it on.





It was looking rather tatty this morning so I did a lot of dead-heading, removing about 100 blooms, the remainder are past their best, but there was a lot of bee activity so I'll leave them until the week-end, or later.

I'm going to have to remove a couple of branches in the late autumn as it's crowding out other rhodos, particularly the one on the right. Ideally I should move the whole thing back a couple of feet, but I'm not going to risk it. A new rhodo is growing up in front of it, so as the big one will mostly only be flowering near the top, it will "fill the gap."

 

I like how you edit your garden Doghouse.

 

Thanks for that.

It's a very small garden, about 85 ft from the French windows to the back fence. Two thirds of it is only 18ft wide, the rest is 30ft wide. So it's all about aspects, to disguise the fact it's so small.



I don't like things too get too big, as it spoils the illusion.

This acer palmatum needs reducing again in the winter as it's spreading out too far. But I'll have to be careful it doesn't end up looking like a cocktail umbrella. I'll probably cut it back a bit then put a net over it and tie it down so the branches keep the "dome shape."



The big rhodo is starting to spoil the aspect of the bottom of the garden from here. A couple of branches will eventually obscure the sight of the pagoda, if I don't remove them.



Even this acer in the bottom bed needs regular pruning each year. If I didn't do it it would be twice this size by now.



Every bit of space is used, even both sides of the French windows and the steps, just room enough to open one door.




We can push back the rose pots on the new patio to create enough room to put out the garden furniture.

 

All is well with the hornet sting. I can't even tell today that I got stung yesterday. wow is all I can say!


Sjoerd, I never know how many seeds to start. never. So, this year what was left went to the compost. last year I gave them all, and I do mean ALL, away. My road was closed by the county to repair the berm and install pipe drainage along the road right across the road from my driveway. soooo, I put up a free plant post on facebook and they literally flocked here for plants. you know since they were free. insert eye roll here. this years since most of those who benefited didn't come back and buy them I composted them. I at least will be able to reuse the compost next year.

 

Today I went into town to grocery shop and to relieve us of the overabundance of squash and cucumbers. I gave a large bag of cucumbers and a smaller bag of squash to the feed store guys, and had two mixed bags for friends in town. I love sharing veggies!
Carolyn, I know the feeling--"if it's free, it's for me." When we lived in town I gave plants to people on garden tours, to friends, to people I didn't even know. When we had a plant sale to benefit the Naturalists group we belonged to--almost no one showed up.
I too always start too many plants--see above paragraph about squash and cucumbers!

 

@Doghouse Riley I really did picture your garden being bigger. Clearly you have an eye for proportion & sight lines.

 

Well Cayu, it really does sound like that raised bed is in trouble ...to a degree. Focusing on the cardoon and the carrots will mean that the experiment will not become a complete failure.
Your water? I won’t go there...except to say that raised beds do require more frequent watering. First hand knowledge of this going forward will be useful to you.

When you get back and post the things you said you would, I await with great interest. It may be a good conversation, although I think that you can critique yourself.

 

Chuckle