What have you done today in the Garden?

Thanks @Melody Mc.
I grow the biennial wallflower called Fire King and Orange Bedder. Can't get a lot of colours, used to get a yellow one and one called Ruby Gem.
Can get a mixed colours in one packet but I like the seperate ones.
Can grow them for a second year sometimes but they sometimes die and spoil the display for next year.

 

It's raining today so I took the time to plant squash seeds indoors. With my shorter, cooler weather, I think they benefit from an indoor start.



I wanted to continue Illinois Squash and Pink Banana Squash, and have seeds that I saved from those. But the squashes are gigantic! When I butcher one, there is so much to process or freeze for later, which takes up freezer space. I decided to try two types of the smaller Butternut squash instead. They should also keep for 9 months or more, in a cool dry space.

Also a neighbor gave me seeds for "Honeynut", an open pollinated type that originated from Buttercup and Butternut (all that butter LOL) . I love the Galeux d'Eysines pumpkins, so will grow those. There are also some summer squash, a few for me and a few for a neighbor.

 

It was golf this morning and it has rained this afternoon, so no gardening.
But I did call into Travis Perkins on the way home for a bag of sand.
There's a few places on the patio and the path that need a bit of repointing.
I have to make up a mortar mix using cement, silver sand and some yellow cement dye, to try to match the York stone if I can.
I'll tackle it tomorrow or the next dry day.

 

I'd like to hear how these do as transplants Daniel. Squash is much loved here but a challenge from one year to the next. I'm starting mine tomorrow.

Where I live there are very distict micro climates, all within about a few km of each other. I have the creek and sandy soil, but really prone to frost in the low areas. Shadow Mountain...well it gives me a shadow until 10 AM except down in the gully where the frost loves to visit.

My neighbour, in contrast, lives on a ranch at the lake. She's lower, about 6 km away, and gets full sun. She gets about another month of growing time than I do in the fall. A frost will wipe mine out at the end of August, and she will have green leaves into the end of September.

We both start our squash early indoors and in the cold frame. I can only grow spaghetti squash, Early Kobacha and early Gold Nugget Buttercup. I try to not go past the two leaf stage before a delicate transplant, but I don't think that I will be able to happen this year or I'll run out of growing time in August. I still have predicted lows of 2 C into the third week of May. ( Barf) I'm going to try a few in 2 Ltr milk cartons and 1 gallon pots ( lined witha bag for extrication) and then do my usual of 500 ml cream containers. They are planted into raised beds covered in black landscape fabric with a soaker hose underneath.

She on the on the other hand, grows butternut, buttercup and hubbard squash. She has raised beds, and starts them early. They are in a 1 gallon pot before she delicately transplants. She has great success compared to me.

Squash is one my challenges, but I wing it every year. I'd enjoy hearing how your early starts and squash do.

 

Today was a rainy morning, which was perfect timing for the seeds going in yesterday. I'm very wary and have a stink eye on the weather network, as now they are predicting below freezing for three nights and then two weeks of lows of 2 C. We shall see. Time to get ready to cover everyone up at night.

These are pictures of the newly seeded gardens. The low bush blueberries had a PH test done yesterday and needed a little sulpher to try and acidify the soil. I need to prune out last year's growth on the raspberries when there is a break in the rain. The flower beds are my "gardens of shame" right now. The poor things haven't had a clean out of leaves, last year's growth and branches yet. Usually I can work on them long before having to do vegetable gardens. I can't cut things back in the fall as everything is still green when the snow comes, so they always look quite shoddy in the spring.









And my first tomatoes on the Dwarf Red Robin Cherry.

 

It was great seeing your beds and those little toms. It makes me jell-US !
I decided to try something new with the courgettes. I made holes down through the winter mulch and planted them in the ground yesterday. Today, I found them eaten up by slugs. Good grief.

Tomorrow or the next day I will plant my back-ups in the ground after removing the last of the winter mulch.

 

Thank you @Sjoerd ....I'm sorry to hear about the slug smorgasbord. I feel your pain. I just checked the garden and some little fur ball has eaten or chewed on 60 % of mine. I've never had that happen before, I think with so much other vegitation around. I've also never had deer eat the garden either, even though they're all around. I think , perhaps, because the green is just starting this year?? Some little munchkin thought they'd died and gone to heaven when these beautiful green plants showed up. Buffet for a pocket gopher or rabbit. Everyone is covered and anchored with remay now, and a live trap stuck under the opening of one favourite row.

I'm not sure if the plants will live or not. A few are stripped off to nothing. sigh.... I don't have enough time to grow more from seed, but on the up side a neighbour about 15 km away grows and sells bedding plants on the side of her daughter's tree nursary. I may have to ask to buy some cauliflower when I buy my eggs from her next time. Cauliflower seemed to be the vegetable of choice in Mel's Outdoor Brassica Cafe, although all were sampled. ( I hope it gets gas...)

Do you get big slugs? I saw a large one near the coast once, and they had snails. When mine arrive there are many many little ones. Some very tiny. ( 3mm to 10 mm) All voracious. It took me 20 years to be able to pick them up and squash them, but I do now. No way that I could with the big ones.

 

Gosh Mel, it sounds like you have a hungry pack of slugs there. I could jus kick myself for being so dumb as to try and plant my prized plantlets in the winter mulch. I had totally forgotten about who was living under it. What a dumbell. It was a silly beginners mistake.

We have all kinds of snails and shell-less slugs here of various colours and lengths. I may have to resort to the beer Rx. The birds and hedgehogs help with the slugs, but cannot keep up with the numbers. Gurrrrrrr.
We get enormous slugs here—red, black and some striped ones.

 

Cut the grass in the back garden and did some watering, just got a new pair of edging shears for the grass edges.

 

A new pair of edging shears!….who’s the lucky girl then.

 

I'm so lucky Now I haven't got any excuses not to do it.

 

Ha ha ha— every advantage has a disadvantage…and vice-versa.
Clip yerself silly, meid.

 

Today is waiting out the sleet and rain to uncover or cover plants again. Two more days of below zero at night and then hopefully May will begin to warm up. This is a very cool spring. The high is only 4 C today, at least 10 degrees below the average.

I've had plastic mulch over the corn patch for a week now to try and warm the soil. It will stay on for another week. I've decided to plant into the clear plastic this year. It will be a little tedious with 21 plants, but I think if I don't the corn will not do well this year. With the back of the stable behind the corn patch, I will also be able to attach a temporary green house over the corn patch. Seems like all of the tricks are coming into play this year, and it will still be a bit of a gamble.

I'm hedging about starting my squash in some larger contatiners to try and get the maturity date factored into the tight schedule. It's always done best with a "two true leaf" transplant, but it may be worth a gamble of a more mature transplant this year. Once the rain stops, I'm going to put clear plastic over the squash and zuchinni beds for a week to help warm the soil.

 

Today I used the lawn edging shears but some of the edges need re doing to do it properly.

 

Yesterday I cleared a bit of the front bed of weeds (I'm fighting chickweed, white clover, and sheep sorrel) and transplanted a few volunteer coneflowers and coreopsis.