What have you done today in the Garden?

Just a check for aphids. Nothing else needs doing apart from a bit of watering later.

The first of the roses in pots are coming out. I'm not saying these are particularly worth mentioning, but I'm very pleased that the foliage shows no sign of any insect damage or blackspot and looks very healthy. I've given them more attention this year feeding and a spray of a "rose tonic."














This is Olivia Rose Austin. One of the several bare root roses we bought on-line from David Austin in November last year.

 

Planted pumpkin seeds, weeded the new beds of sunchokes. Potted up comfrey, BC ginger and lambs ears for a friend. Created another pot for the driveway with plants from around the yard. Sweetie may have to purchase another large bag of potting soil.

 

There's always something to do isn't there? Bank Holiday or not.
I had to replace the front support bar under the bottom tread of these tea-house steps.
The original was rotting away. The problem with timber today is that it comes from "sustainable resources," in other words it has the density of forced rhubarb so won't last long. I used a bit of the tanalised stuff I had left when I renovated the pergolas.







I jet-washed the outside of the wheelie bins. They now look nearly new. They needed doing. The bin men shouldn't have to handle bins with muck on the outside.

 

Yesterday I got my front bed cleaned up and mulched. My back and shoulders still hurt from the work, but it's a good hurt

 

Had a near disaster yesterday, the wind blew over one of the more bushy roses on our "rose patio."

I say "near disaster" as all ten roses are in ceramic pots on three-wheeled plastic pot movers. It happened a couple of years ago and the pot cracked. They're around £30 a pop now and a bigger problem is to find one that's a match or even a near match and avoid a queue at a garden centre now, if I actually had to find one. But I was in luck, the pot was intact.

Pot movers usually only have three wheels to make them more stable on an uneven surface, but they aren't so, if there's any wind.

For the last couple of years I've been taking the wheels off at around this time of the year, to make them more stable, which you might think defeats the purpose, but if necessary you can slide them a bit with your foot.



Anyway, the jobs done.









I got up on the tea-house roof, (fortunately, my wife couldn't see me from her chair in the lounge!) and attacked the trees in the corner of next door's garden and the garden of the house diagonally opposed to ours. I gave them a trim where they were starting to overhang the roof. My concern is that these branches will eventually start to rub on the roofing felt and damage it and I needed to prune them before they got too thick.

 

Doghouse... get a roll of clear packing tape... you know like for sending packages... it doesn't tear you have to cut it...
wipe each pot and dry it, then tape a "ribbon" of tape around the pot at the top and about midway down to keep them from splitting apart in case it happens again. at least the pot will be intact if it cracks anyway.

 

As a point of interest. I re-felted this roof ten years ago, with the assistance of our youngest son who came over to help. (He got the mucky job, I laid the felt) By then, this building was over 20 years old, but we were both up there together and I weigh 12st and he nearer 14st and I built this so well it easily took the weight of the pair of us. It shows that it is best as I did, use a non-tear polymer roofing felt. It's worth the additional expense, as even after ten years, it's still in perfect condition.

 

Thanks for that Carolyn, it's an idea, but the problem is that these pots are very brittle and they don't just crack they end up in a few pieces. I tried gluing the one that broke back together, but it wasn't really very successful.

 

Marlin, the potatoes, though, I got the least amount of all of them, knowing I didn't have much room. I wanted to try different types/colors. As we try them, if my granddaughter likes them, I'll save three or four of each for seed, next year. We've had a cold frost front, the last few days. I keep wanting to plant my warm weather crops and I instead get snow flurries. Hmmm, short season getting shorter.

 

Today we thinned-out and transplanted more beetroot baby's. We also covered the strawberry's and potato foliage. The spud leaves were already blackening from last night. It isn't freezing yet (that comes later on in the week); however, if it is 3-4 degs with a strongish wind, the effect can be the same. My fingers are crossed.
We harvested the first crop yesterday--spinach. We had one meal and froze-in one meal.

 

Sjoerd, I hope your potatoes and strawberries survive and thrive, despite the uncertain weather.
We had rain today, so I did nothing but listen to the plants giggle and enjoy the moisture. I admit, I enjoyed the rain, too, since it meant I wouldn't have to hand water tomorrow.
I baked two large loaves of pumpkin/pecan bread. I need to use up the pumpkin puree from last season since six plants came up in the compost pile and I transplanted them to the vegetable garden. All six survived the move and look inordinately happy. I think we'll have plenty of pumpkins!

 

Jane--Pumpkin bread---Oh yum, I like that!
Congrats on the transplanting.

 

Sounds delicious MG!

That spinach looks great SJ.

I have been a-weeding and a-weeding the grass seedlings out from my garlic patch. This is from mistakenly mulching with hay!!!! Arrrghh!

Anyway the garlic plants look great, very strong and hardy. Leeks are up, so are the peas and we have just begin harvesting the aparagus. Strawberries are blooming, onions are up. So are the kale seedlings.

A garden is a beautiful thing.

 

Yeah! I have a whopping 2, yes that's right, 2 pea plants! Whatever shall I do with my HUGE harvest.

 

Savor them Willow.

Planted peas along our white rail fence....after I re-painted it! Looks good now and will look even better with peas growing up it!