What have you done today in the Garden?

Last week i planted up these tubs and pots with tulips, hyacinths and daffodils.
From this border this week i cleared the cosmos and snapdragons, kept the gladioli for a while longer and keep the verbena Bonariensis and lupins. Planted wallflowers and polyanthus, tulips are already there from last year.

 

Nothing today, it's been raining all day.
Played golf instead.

 

Nothing today it's raining and heavy at the moment.

 

Looking so good, Loggie.
Good work!

 

Thank you Sjoerd

 

I turned over and mixed the soil to prepare a bed for planting garlic. I planted three rows of the Italian softneck variety, "Lorz". They got 2 tablespoons of organic vegetable fertilizer, per row.



I found some old garlic cloves that had been peeled and stored in a closed jar in the fridge, from the July 2022 crop. These five looked viable, so I planted them in a separate place. Will they survive and grow after more than a year of suspended animation? (Or is it suspended vegetation?)



There is more garlic to plant, the hardneck variety "Music" that gives jumbo spicy cloves.
The ones from the fridge were also Music. Music is also an Italian variety, brought to Canada in the 1980s by a farmer named Al Music. I don't know how it got to the US.

I found a gnome trail and left it alone. Live and let live, I say.

 

You'll love the Lotz garlic which we planted one year and really enjoyed. Unfortunately the supplier went out of business and I didn't find another. This year we have planted plain old hardneck grocery store garlic, and Cajun garlic, which has a purple wrapper and is slightly spicier. From the size of the Cajun cloves, we have great hopes for BIG heads.

 

Thanks, that's good to know.
I set aside heads to plant, so they get to adapt to my conditions. Plus it saves some money. I've grown the Music variety for ten years.

 

Oh yes, it does save some money, both setting aside planting heads, and not buying grocery garlic. I came home from the grocery where a little bag of three heads of garlic was $1.69 and told my husband we were rich, we were garlic barons!

 

Good looking toes, Daniel. I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
The mushrooms are good to see. They are beginning to show themselves here as well. BTW— I like that plate the toes are on.

Baroness Allium— it looks like your boat has arrived. I can say that I knew you way back when…
I guess with all those garlics around there will be no bats visiting your home.

 

I planted the rest of the garlic, same method as before. That's the only overwintering vegetable crop that I want to plant now.

Some of the fig trees produced their best crops in six years. My guess is, the very hot summer benefited them. I picked more to dry and they are in the dehydrator now.

I did remove one fig tree. The downsizing is hard, but it's one less to take care of. That's six fruit trees so far (I have about thirty).

The jays took over the bird feeder. I should find a smaller feeder for smaller birds.

 

Gosh Daniel— Downsizing is difficult and painful. They say that breaking-up is hard to do… and now you know, you know that it’s true.
Good luck with your downsizing. Keep a stiff upper lip.

 

It was raining for most of the morning but i did manage to start on another border after it had stopped. Pulled up the cosmos and snapdragons, trimmed the grass edge for the first time this year and did some weeding, but i haven't finished the weeding.

 

Me either, Loggie. Haha. Waiting for dryness.

 

Sjoerd, it is difficult, but I'm at a different stage of life now. Such as, with the fig trees. Ten or fifteen years ago, I exchanged fig cuttings with other gardeners, to see what would grow and produce well, or tasted especially good. Now I know, so it doesn't make sense to keep the trees that don't produce. Each one takes a certain amount of maintenance, and one less makes life a little bit easier. Plus, I think they need wider spacing now that they are larger.

Same with the apples. If you know how to graft, and can propagate rootstock, a new apple tree variety is free, or a few dollars. So I got to try lots of varieties. Some don't produce for me, or not much, or are disease prone. It's time to remove those.

I collected orchids and carnivorous plants for a while. Then, it was like OK, I got to experience growing those. But it became time to move on. And I did.

The trouble with growing things is, they grow! If you like propagating plants - each new one is sort of a miracle - you can wind up with so many and no idea what to do with them.

But it is fun experiencing these things.

Today, I cleared out the second tomato raised bed. It will need some repair. I know how to do it now, and make it last, so that's next.

I also picked chilis.



That will make some nice fermented chili sauce. I'll do that tomorrow.

I added some soil to that tomato raised bed, but stopped because more would get in the way of repairs.

I hauled soil to raise the grade by the new sidewalk. It's too high above the grade, and there is a trench they needs filling. Part of it seems OK, so I sowed a short-growing white clover seed there.