What have you done today in the Garden?

It's rained most of the day so I've not bothered

 

It has been a very busy week. Gardens are happening in the very early hours just after dawn, help was given to the neighbours for three full days after a few hours in the garden. That boundary has been made clear now, and help is being sought from others that are happily available so that I can tend to home, hubby and self.

Carrots have had final thinning and all wee babies are blanched and in the freezer.



Last of the early sweet cabbages are harvested. Some are in the freezer. A few are hanging out in the outdoor fridge for a future date steamed with butter. Tonight one lucky little is having dinner with us as coleslaw.



Brocolli has had a bit of an off year which surprised me. Enough in the freezer for winter, and to enjoy fresh I've pulled the two varieties and left the Calabrese to see what it will offer for side shoots into the fall.



Slugs have been a major issue for me this summer despite my best efforts. I don't have the GIANTS that devour a tree overnight like many of you do, but multiples of small guys. This is the biggest one I get, and then can have many babies that are 1/10 of it's size. Out of 6 small cabbages ( 6 inches across) I had 20 slugs to cut out and wash out. The cauliflower is taking a hit. I use every trick known to man, even night hunting and squashing. But in a cool wet year it is a problem.

They really like the Cauliflower Condos





I do my blanching on the covered porch. Hubby has an element set up for me, a large tote for cooling and a hose from the well.








Just getting ready to pickle beets now and blanch four heads of Cauli for the winter.

 

This gave me a much needed laugh Daniel. We have a local radio station, and one of the radio commericals is "Canada...where the mosquitos are large enough to take down a small bird." I suspect in places like Florida and Mississippi they could take out a much larger bird. Or exit with a small child. ;-) When I moved up North, the first mosquito I squashed was so HUGE, I taped it to a piece of paper and mailed it to my dad who lived here, a 14 hour drive south. Bet it still wasn't Mississippi big.

 

The flowers are almost as lovely as the quilted flower runner they are resting on.

 

Thank you for showing your tea, and your wire sieve.

I have Hoverflies loving mine. I'm not sure what kind of flies are loving your cuppa. The thing with hoverflies...which look like a wee bee but fly like a humming bird - is that they are very gentle and good polinaters. We call them friendlies. " It's okay...it's just a friendly" when they buzz around and land on us. Their wee ones eat aphids ( love that).

They do however have the NASTIEST looking larvae ever, which I find in my comfrey tea when the lid was off a wee bit, as well as other compost teas in the past. They are called a Rat Tail Maggot...and OH MY - they look like something that made me want to run.Off of the movie Aliens. Of course they are a harmless little larvae that turn into the sweet hoverflies that like to polinate, hang out and pretend they are a bee....but they are really gross. hahaha. IF these are the culprits, maybe you had a hatch at the time of your tea pour off? Or the mating and feasting dinner bell rang. ;-)

 

Too hot today, even though there are hotter places in the world. I did the rounds, ran the drip irrigation, pollinated squashes, harvested summer squash, planted a late-started Chinese cucumber and some late-started basil into one of the former garlic wine half-barrels. Almost passed out from heat. Drank two big glasses of iced sun tea. Then threw the sweaty clothes into the washer, later hung them on the line to dry (probably dry now), showered off the sweat, and cooked some stuff.

I like the sun-dried clothes and towels. Not fluffy like the dryer does - kind of cardboard-like but they smell good and are very absorbent and cool. Whites are whiter, blues tend to fade which is OK for me.

Tomorrow am - water sweet corn, check bean seedlings, pollinate squashes again. Deck plants need water too. If I'm up to it, there are more potatoes to dig, and I'm in the mood for home grown potato pancakes.

 

@Sjoerd, maybe that's part of the point. Also why I so enjoy reading your posts. You have so much knowledge and experience and such a good spirit.

My parents, grandparents, great-grandparents all had kitchen gardens, fruit trees, and flower gardens. I always accepted that gardens feed the body and spirit. I take maybe too much pride, in being able to say "I grew those from seeds that I saved last year" or "Those chestnuts were from a tree that I planted". It feels like this garden is part of me, and I am part of it.

 

Mel— I wrote comments about your posting to me, but there was a glitch when I ticked, “Post Reply”. Now its gone. Waaaaaaaah.
I did like your pics and comments. The flies that I had visiting were all those green bottle flies.
But, what a ghastly smell.

 

Daniel— thanks for your kind words. You are right about the endless list being a bit of the point.

I don’t know if it is so bad to be able to say those things…I mean, it’s part of the hobby. You know Daniel, that very last sentence of yours sort of says it all about our hobby, doesn’t it.

 

Potted on the chillies into their final pots, deadheaded the roses, cosmos, verbascum, pot marigolds. Cut down some hardy geraniums they might flower again but i left it too late. The rose stems that i cut off was big enough for cuttings so that's what i did with them. Started deadheading the polyanthus but it started raining but not enough for it to soak in the ground.

 

What kind of chilis?
Do you give your summer rose cuttings any special treatment?

 

Chillies are Carolina Reaper, Scorpion and Armageddon.
No i don't do anything special, just put rooting hormone, any that you have, keep them covered and mist them every so often and keep them out of the hot sun but well lite.
This is a video that I've followed, i watch him a lot

 

You must have taste buds of steel LOL. Those are some hot chilies.

Back in the 50's and 60's, my grandfather's sisters put rose cuttings into the ground and covered them with a glass food jar. I don't think they had rooting hormone back then. I imagine some grew and some didn't.

One of my roses was a nice yellow one that someone brought to work in a bouquet. I rooted it and have enjoyed it for a long time.

 

No i don't put a lot in, but sometimes it's hotter than we like it but you get used to it. When we first had some hubby used to sweat but now he doesn't.

Can do rose cuttings without hormone and the winter cuttings that i did not all of them took, it's to do with diseases in the roses. I got 5 out of 20 cuttings, I'm just glad some of them survived.

 

I gave the acer in the front garden a bit of a prune.

At this time of the year it looks a bit like a pin cushion with new growth sticking out in a couple of dozen places or more.
So a job for my Barnel telecopic pruner. The bits at the very top are hard to get at from outside. But the interior is a cavernous void so I can see the offending branches at the very top from underneath as they are bright yellow and I can reach them.">




Not a lot of choice for the pot by the front door, but I found this lavender for fifteen quid in the garden centre.