What have you done today in the Garden?

@Tetters, I can vouch for the local deer not eating peonies or lambs ears. I have both. There is a deer family, or several, on my property every day. Very destructive, can eat a 3 year old apple tree down to nothingness overnight. They are most destructive with fruit and vegetable species. They seem to leave alone, rudbeckia (I think they've nibbled those) sedum, iris, four o'clocks, zinnias, marigolds (except maybe African marigolds or maybe that was rabbits), daffodils, mints, crocosmia, poppies, cosmos, rhubarb, Eucalyptus. I've never tried Salpiglossis, dahlias (where deer roam anyway), or carnations here. They eat forsythia at the back of the property but not the front. Despite what people say, they eat garlic and onion plants down to nothingness. Also some squash and pumpkin plants. Seems to depend on the variety. They don't touch buddleia but most of those are illegal here and the rest are expensive.

I'll have to look up carder bee. Maybe we dont have those

This year I also want to grow fennel and dill in those areas. I don't think they will bother those.

 

@Daniel W can you put a fence or a hedge around your property to keep the dear out?

 

@Logan, this is the half of my property where I do 75% of my gardening. The other half is similar but also has the house, a chicken yard, and small orchard.


The only fencing that's tall enough is for the kitchen garden. that is 7 foot tall chain link, and they don't get through that. The rest has a 4 foot fence that they jump over regularly, like it's not there. I can't afford more fencing. When the fruit tree were small, I fenced them individually but it's a hassle for me now.

 

Today I reorganized the seed starting stand, setting up two new LED light strips. The new ones have more daylight spectrum wavelengths so they aren't such odd looking purplish colors. They look much brighter. the main thing is will the plants grow.

Germinated so far: Jalapeños, Serranos, onion seeds, shallot seeds, Rudbeckias, some carnations. Some of the onion seeds didn't germinate well I planted more. I think there will be more than enough. It looks like celery is germinating too, and a couple of the Gaillardias. There were peach pits stratifying in the refrigerator from August. I split those open and planted the seeds in seed starting trays. I think the Echinacea seeds are too old, and added some new Echinacea seeds to the final seed order.

 

Daniel, your property looks so neat, so lovely!
May I suggest that you add something sharp to the top of the 4' fence? Chicken wire bent to face outward, or rose bush trimmings or any thorny vine or canes.
For your fruit trees, hang hair balls. Go to your local barber or hairdressing salon and ask for human hair. Put a handful in the toe of a panty hose (I know you don't wear panty hose, but surely someone you know does!) and hang one or two hair balls on each tree. Deer really dislike the scent of humans (humans often come equipped with rifles} . The drawback with this is that it needs to be renewed after a heavy rain, or a month. We do this for our pear trees, and the deer leave the pears alone. For some reason, they don't go for the apples, nor the almonds.

 

Your gardening area looks very nice, Daniel. Very nice indeed.

 

I’ve been pruning apple trees, 9 down and about 40 still to go.

Some of them haven’t been pruned in years!


Nearly finished this one.

 

@Daniel W your garden looks very good and good about the fencing.

 

Nice job @Odif! That's a lot of apple trees! What varieties do you grow?

 

Fed the birds, swept the paths that were stone and raked the chipped ones.
I pruned the four Rhamnus frangula trees/ bushes. Pruned the rose. Removed kilometres of clematis.
It was a weird day with sun, rain, snow, ice-snow and sun again. It just kept changing about every twenty minutes. It was 1 deg C with a stiff northerly wind. Saying that the conditions were challenging is an understatement.

 

Did nothing today, other than turn off the water supply to the garage. With no koi pool requiring water these days, it's only necessary to have water available at times I need to use the sink in the garage. Less chance of a burst pipe in freezing weather. Most of it is speed-fit or alkathene, but there is some copper under the sink.

 

@Daniel W
I have no idea what these varieties are called, they are all ancient types. I have taken lots of shoots to graft onto other root stock.

 

Nothing today it's too cold and the ground is frozen. Well nothing for hubby that is.

 

Armchair gardening

 

How long did that job take? It involved a lot of work - you're good at it though, and welcome to come and have a go at ours any time you're in the neighbourhood with your tools