What have you done today in the Garden?

Today not much, I will be making letcho and chutney. I have a few lettuce to transplant.

 

sorry, just juice. I bushel of grapes made 15qts of concentrated grape juice. maybe I am done and I won't make another bushel into juice. I still have some left from last year but it is cloudy and I don't like the looks of it. it tastes fine though.

 

@carolyn What exactly is a bushel? In my fevered imagination, I imagine a bushel is as much as I can grab in my two arms and carry back to the kitchen. Normally it is a bushel of firewood.

 

My wife tells me she loves me "a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!"

So, by that metric, 1 bushel= 1bushel + (1 peck + 1 hug around the neck) - (1 peck + 1 hug around the neck).

My math may be rusty

 

A bushel is a standard american or imperial unit of dry measure. usually it is 2219 cubic inches according to brittanica. BUT every produce type in a basket weighs a different measure. tomatoes is about 56 pounds greenbeans 25 or converting to kilos 25 for tomatoes and about 12? for greenbeans. it is how agriculture here measures corn, wheat oats beans etc from the field. we also use it in the garden as a way to measure produce. here is a great chart for what each kind of produce weighs but no matter what it is it fits into a bushel basket.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-much-is-a-bushel-1389308

 

Scissored grass weeds out of my yellow crooked neck and zucchini (courgette) squash. They always twist and throw their hair about just prior to production. Its an odd thing, I used to think they were ill. They must have found the cup of organic I planted deep under them.

 

I am fairly sure she set 1 bushel + 1 peck equal to 1 hug around the neck but I am unfamiliar with the new math.

 

Rehabbed one of my perennial beds. Out with the old!!! It is a bed that runs along a white rail fence. I eliminated the red red daylilies, transplanted a peach Drift Rose in there and divided & spread about the sky blue irises. Going for a blue and pink theme.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all those red daylilies. I have some friends...if that fails, our town has a website where you can post stuff. Just put them out curbside and they get scarfed up pretty quickly.
A bit sparse now, but it will fill out. In the spring, I have pink white and blue squill blooming. Later in June/ July I have self sown foxgloves and malva blooming. Should be pretty.


This area remains a problem. That messy stuff in the corner is greater celandine, a lovely yellow flowering wildflower. Great plant but wrong place for it. See how there is no space between the tops of the celandine and the bottom of the foliage on that tree? I'd like to see some air there. More definition if you know what I mean. I have already moved 2 of those celandines out, &I plan to move the rest out come spring (@Jerry Sullivan ).
On the left with the red berries is a gorgeous woodland Japanese peony, beyond that is a pale blue clematis.
Can't wait to see the plan come together next spring!

And here are the red daylilies, looking for homes:

They look s little morose, sitting next to the burn pile...maybe even a little nervous.

 

Cleaned up our brick terrace today. Discovered the grass had grown into the terrace a good six inches!

Friends have offered to come help me next weekend putting my perennial garden to bed. I am trying to figure out what to ask them to do.

 

First fall leaf pickup. I run them over with the mulching mower and have a pull behind sweeper that nabs them. I screwed a bunch of short screws into the tire tread and the studded tires are the bomb. I get my backpack blower out to clean the beds and all out first, and then sweep it up. Its a good system for composting. Faster than my chipper for sure. Its a sign of fall though. Time to change blades and service the mower and other equipment. Not long until time change either so lighting for winter is on todays menu. Gotta start thinking about all the batteries....

 

The fall clean-up continues. We are cleaning all the flower plots one at the time and clipping some bushes. The green manure will soon be ready for lifting and covering the veggie beds.
Have finished treating the bees for varroa mite and now will help them to begin laying eggs again to build up the winter bee population. Next step will be to check the hives for weight...to see if I think they will have enough honey for the winter. There are still many flowers in bloom for them to harvest from.
We continue to harvest beans, leeks and apples.

Great foto's Cayu. Looking good there. If you are having trouble finding work for those folks coming to help you...just tell them that you have an address in the Netherlands where they can work to their heart's content.

You do have some good plans for next spring. In fact, I believe that you may have talents as a garden designer. Chapeau.

 

Chuckle!! I have LOTS I can ask my friends to do. The question is more what am I comfortable asking of them!! A very generous offer on their part. I am planning to serve them a lunch of lobster salad, cold cuts and a green bean and roasted corn salad. I plan to feed them well!

Today I cut back all the phlox that is going to seed. I am still trying to rehab a part of my garden that I have called "the meadow" and have just let run wild. This spring I began thinnng the plants and putting in stone paths do I can tend it better. It is a work in progress.

Sounds like you have the bees well in hand Sjoerd. I hope it all works out. I never knew how much was involved with having bee hives before.

 

Gadzooks Cayu!! With food like that I would be tempted to drop by myself. hahaha.
Those guys are lucky.

 

Friends came today and spent numerous hours cutting back perennials and spreading mulch. You wouldn't believe how many cartloads of greenery we removed. I am so pleased and grateful.
Here are some pics:

Feels so good to get so much done!