What have you done today in the Garden?

Well, today I planted bulbs:

Crocus 'King of the Striped', Crocus vanguard, Crocus Tricolour, Crocus 'Ruby Giant' Tommasinianus, Crocus vernus, Galanthus, Narcis fortissima,Narcis Red Devon and Narcis Flower Record.

 

nothin! it is Sunday, but tomorrow brings a new working day and the garden is getting its Fall cleaning done. I have picked up plastic and rolled and folded ground cover, pulled weeds, mowed weeds and picked the few last rows of frosted beans for the last 3 days. I hope I can get the rest done this week.

 

Today I did a lot! Was the last sort of "warm" day we'll have around here for a while it seems, so I made sure I got outside and finished up a bunch of stuff.

I planted 50 crocus bulbs, 50 tulips, a bunch of daylily crowns, and other various perennial crowns that I got from a fellow gardener. I filled an empty bed that my husband and I built this last spring. I added to the smattering of other daylily plants planted recently... I sort of love them because my chickens seem to leave them alone.

This time of year, mail order plants are pretty cheap so I'm thinking I might risk some more- in the hopes the ground stays soft or we get another "warm" day or two yet. Which we should! I have a lot of ground to cover!

 

Pulled in the last of my green tomatoes the other day. I checked them last night... Rotten. I found 2 orange ones and pulled them out. They are still doing well.
I got one large green pepper all season. I thought it was supposed to be red. Now what?
Got one watermelon. Sweeter than last year, so that went well.
Got two more acorn squash.
I still have spinach growing out there. I haven't picked much this past season, so I'm sure I'll have a large patch of it next year.
Everything else is ready to be pulled and composted.

 

Haven't done a thing in a month besides water the containers. That's why I love this time of year... everything just takes care of itself, mostly.
Need to do some weeding though.

 

Beeker, the green pepper takes long to turn to red sometimes and even longer with cold weather. next year try a variety the turns earlier such as "red knight" or "king of the north" or "king arthur". The pepper will be green first (until it gets to its mature size) then it will take another week or so to turn to red. Congratulations on the watermelon.

 

This is actually what I have been doing the past few days...I just have not had a lot of time to compose this posting.

Never mind...the first thing was the cleaning up of the plot in which the Opal plum tree sits. i
The plot had a number of Aquilegia's, a Astrantia, Astilbe's, Iris and a couple of other things.

Most of it had to go because the ground elder had totally gotten out of hand. Ground elder and I do not get along, AT all.

There were kilometers of root taken out and the compost bin is full of chopped foliage. Here is what the plot looks like now.


I cleaned up the blueberry patch as well and planted loads of crocuses and small tulips which bees like.
You cannot see much of the plot, but that is because of the Limnanthus I wanted to show along the edge of the plot. The fresh, new growth are seedlings that the plants seeded out after blooming during the summer. They should be able to take the winter weather, we'll see. Donna may be interested in this pic.


When I cleaned the greenhouse out of the toms, peppers and melons...I decided to plant som,e Pak Choi in there before removing all of the soil.That was 5-6 weeks ago, I think and now the Pak Choi is coming right along. I ought to be able to harvest it in another coupla weeks, I am estimating.


Now, if all this digging and hand and knee work wasn't enough, our little group of beekeepers who have a few hives way out in the country have decided to dig over a patch and the municipality will give us some "Bush Honeysuckle" plants to plant. The ground belongs to the municipality and they were interested in helping...we just had to prepare the ground ourselves.

We all got together on a certain day and did some hard graft. That ground was so compact that digging was quite difficult. In the end though, we were successful.


Well, the veggies for the Food Bank are diminishing now and the only thing to do is just cleaning away weeds and protecting the soil...boring stuff to write about on here.

I hope you guys have more interesting things to write about.

 

Sjoerd, That's some back breaking work you did. But all looks great. And yes I was interested in the Limnanthus. Last week I plants seeds in pots and put them in my cold frame. Now it's just wait and see.

 

Fingers crossed for you, Donna.
I hope you have success because they are lovely blooms and I think that you will be amazed at how many pollinators will frequent the flowers.

 

Sjoerd, all your hard work looks great.
It makes me feel super lazy!

 

I had to look up 'ground elder' as I've only heard it called 'Snow on the Mountain' and it is a nasty weed! I do hope you got rid of it all.

 

We are working in the high tunnels today. One ic weeded and almost raked out... then amending the house, manure, leaves, potting mix etc. anything that goes in the compost can go to the tunnels too. then on to number two tunnel. The bind weed is terrible, though. Any ideas on how to combat it successfully? please share.

 

About six months ago we responded to an advert of someone offering a 2nd hand arch. We agreed upon a price and then right at the last moment, the owner broke a "pin" off whilst taking it apart.

Well, I didn't buy it of course.

Last week-- out of the blue, I got a fone call from the same bloke asking if I was still interested. He had glued the pin back on. I went and had a look and took the arch. Yesterday, my bride and I placed it in the garden. I placed it at the entrance gate to the garden.

I stabilized it with long tree poles, just to be sure. A note of interest--I broke a pin off myself while putting the arch together. Tch!

Any way here is the arch up close:


You can see how it looks in a wider view:


It was a windy and rainy day, and the digging was messy...but it was finally "in".
Whew! Time for some tea and bikkies....Where's that tin of short bread now???

The fun part of this project comes now--the searching for a pair of vigorous climbers to clothe it and stabilize it even further.

 

great find. It will last for years. Can't wait to see what you find to climb it. Hope you found your short bread.

 

I would have taken the arch also. It is beautiful. When we put up the arch DH built for me, I planted 2 clematis on each side (4 different colors and varieties). They do a great job of covering the arch. I have a honeysuckle on each side of the swing arbor that totally covers it. The honeysuckle flowers draw the hummingbirds so it is a favorite place for me to sit.