What have you done today in the Garden?

Not much at the moment, so went to see my friends Marion, Barry and Geoffrey.

 

Sjoerd, what's special about Norwegian bin liners? Would Swedish or Danish bin liners work? How about Belgian?

 

I've noticed the quality of bin liners has got pretty poor in the last year. We have Joseph-Joseph bins with handles you can push down so you can compress the contents a bit.
But I have to buy heavy duty bags, which aren't available in a lot of stores. Fortunately, Tesco's sell these. You only get 10 for £3.50, but they are worth it.

 

We're having a very strange but nice fall. There is no snow but the ground is frozen. All of the leaves and underbrush have been gone for about a month. Today I'm going to rake up the large amount of leaves in Angus' pen and bag them for the spring. There is too many to ignore, and ....I'm raking in November! Crazy. Only once have I not had snow up until two days before Christmas, so it is a nice treat.

 

I discovered that the tree crew next door left a lovely gift several weeks ago. Instead of cutting down several more trees further up the hill and some other small ‘trash trees’… the tree trimmers called them…. they simply sprayed them with brush killer. Just lovely. A big clump of dead and dying browned trees to look at. I didn’t notice the ugly mess at first. It took awhile for the trees to turn brown as all the fallen deciduous tree leaves have uncurtained the brown ugly mess that was lying behind them. The tree crew had cleared the power lines thru the property tree line. Over the past few weeks since good weather I got most of the branches out of an over crowded area of weeds , brush and cleaned up the damaged trees and removed the broken fence posts/braces. Opened up an area for the small Doug fir seedlings to grow. Looks much better…until ..the trimmer discovery.…

Apparently I'm just clumsy. Yesterday I slipped on leaves and landed on a 24”cement pot at the back of my head , Good thing I am hard headed, my feet went flying up ahead of me and before I knew it I was down. Ouch! I was godsmacked. This morning I think I found all of the sore places. Got a jammed thumb, sore ribs, sore shoulders, a few scuffs spots and general soreness from hitting the ground. Thankfully nothing appears to have broken, however, I may be out of commission for awhile. I am very thankful that I didn't do a full back flip down the hill and the planter actually did break my fall. I can move better today carefully, move slower than usual broke out my cane and knee sleeves twisted both my knees. Never did that before. I’ll be good as new by next week… . Cheers.

 

That's terrible news @Pacnorwest I hope that you get better soon. You are lucky that you didn't break anything, but is your head ok ? I've hit my head a few times, but I've been alright.

 

It's supposed to snow tonight or tomorrow; so I did the last of putting the gardens to bed. I have leaves both between/around the gardens and in them. When spring rolls around I'll put wood chips between and around them. I had already covered and topped the leaves in the gardens with the green plastic "fencing"; when I remembered I hadn't put my usual rock dust, alfalfa cubes and other stuff on them. So I took coffee grounds and alfalfa pellets and just sprinkled them on top. I hope the rain and snow washes them down through the leaves. I used the pellets instead of the cubes because I always find a cube or two someplace away from where it was placed. So I thought the pellets would be more numerous so at least some nutrients would make it through. It's actually the coffee grounds I'm more concerned with. I don't drink coffee so my garden doesn't get much more then what the neighbor gives me. But this year I got some from the coffee shop nearby. I heard that the grounds can burn if there's too much. So I hope the rain and snow dilute it down through the winter.

This smaller spot is my chive and thyme area.

 

Oh my gosh PacNW! Are you sure you're okay? I hope you get better soon!

 

I can relate, while I was putting the coffee grounds and alfalfa out it was 33 here. (F).

 

@Pacnorwest , I hope you will be okay!. I am kind of a klutz too, and have had lots of falls and injuries.

I have seen where some say to not rake up leaves or clean your garden until spring. That does not work for me. I rake up my leaves and put them around in the compost, or flower beds or veggie garden to help the soil. If I left them lay, I would slip and fall and get hurt a lot in icy or rainy weather. Mine get raked up. I will be working on those this week. I never burn them. I have loads of leaves to go around anyway. I give some to the chickens to play with also.

My ex fell last week, (we are 69+) and he broke his arm up where it joins the shoulder in multiple places and had to have surgery.
My Mother fell last week also, and may have had a stroke. They are not sure if stroke or Parkinson's. She is 92, almost 93, and has a pacemaker, so no MRI. She is in rehab for some PT to hopefully get stronger. She wants to go home as soon as she can. My niece takes care of her back east.

I found some how-to videos on how to fix my shovel, so I hope to fix my shovel this week also. I like to fix stuff. I got a lamp I like at the thrift shop when I got one of those big flower pots for my roses, and I am going to rewire it. I think it works but the cord is rather old, so I will just put a new cord in it.

 

@Willowisp0801 , so the alfalfa pellets are good for the garden? I had not thought of that. I buy them for my horse for a treat. I used to have a rabbit, so they used to be rabbit food. Sometimes in dry spells, hay is hard to get so I supplement with the rabbit pellets. The cubes are rather pricey here. (zone 6b)

I do need to get out to her pasture again, and haul the manure to my compost pile. That will heat it up, and compost things quicker. And I have lots more wood chips to haul from out front to my garden in the back, and other places around my yard.

 

I spread a truckload of tree leaves. There will be a few more loads over the next couple of weeks.

 

Please be careful, Pac.

 

Cut some sage for the stuffing, it was taking over the driveway so it needed the chop.

 

Yes, it's high in nitrogen. In this video he says to use the pellets in your garden, which I do, making it into a mash. But for the over wintering I use the cubes under leaves. In my area (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) I can direct sow the cold hardy seeds (spinach, kale, lettuce, etc), but I can't put plants out until late May so by then they're pretty much broken down. About 8 months later.

Got everything ready, in the nick of time!