What have you done today in the Garden?

Jane, I am interested to see pics and hear your evaluation on those sugar snaps. I am not so pleased with how my generic sugar snaps are doing so far. They are growing very slowly.

Mel, I hope you have a good success with the red cover. I am anxious to hear your report at seasons’ end. Interesting to hear that your boy likes rocks. They can be interesting.

 

@Daniel W Thank you! I'm growing millet, amaranth, cherry tomatoes, peppers, a few types of flowers, and making another attempt at zucchini. I'm actually a little bit late for starting summer seeds, the heat is brutal here already but hoping the dappled shade in my backyard will be enough to help with that. It's a learning experience!

 

Nothing today. Too wet!"



Cue for a song!

 

Been a bit of a cool spring here so far. I did build some lids for my planters to make a cold frame. I have some radish, carrots, beets, beans planted in them. I also plant 3 rows of potatoes in the main garden the other day.

 

Nothing it's been rain showers all day.

 

Your planters look very smart. Things are happening there.

 

Cut a lot of the toilet roll tubes to start my wallflower seeds next week, done 300 so far and i'll do another 200, I won't get that many plants but I hope so. 2 of those trays have holes in the bottom that i'll have to remember.

 

I'm pretty much up to date with the garden, so over the last couple of days, I've done some "shed and garage housekeeping." I baled out of playing golf yesterday morning as it was raining, hopefully it'll be better for it tomorrow.

I was given this bench a couple of years ago. It's of a sort of "large size Dexion" construction. The top was just chipboard, the edge of which has got rather tatty over time. There was no way to fix my vice to it, so I had it on a block of wood screwed to the chipboard, which wasn't very satisfactory.
So I've now screwed a length of 4" X 2" to the front, which required me dragging out the old sideboard getting under there and drilling holes in the metal, then screwing the timber to it. I then was able to attach my vice to the wood. I filled in the the gap between the chipboard and the timber.




While I was at it, I tidied up the two benches I have in the shed, one has an old chipboard wardrobe door as a surface, the other reclaimed chipboard.
Again the edges were tatty as over the years I'd used them as sawing benches.
So I got some plastic edgeing from B & Q to tidy them up. I won't be catching my clothes on them any more.




I've some printing to do on very thin rice paper of stuff for my wife's decoupage hobby, (tricky and it's around a quid a sheet), you have to attach it to some backing paper with Washi tape, or it'll scrunch up in the printer, because it's so thin.




I might cut the grass this afternoon, but I'm really looking for things to do.

 

Dug up 2 lupins that had died and planted some Californian poppy seedlings in there place and did some weeding around them.

 

@Logan - you are a very patient person...that is a lot of cutting. I had to look up Wallflowers ( which at first was challenging as I initially searched wallpaper flower......lot's of flowered wallpaper out there hahaha). Do you plant different kinds? These look like something I could perhaps have as an annual in planters.

@Doghouse Riley - the rain makes your garden look even more lush. Very nice job on the rice paper for your wife. The benches look great - particle board scratches and slivers can be the awful.

@harrylee - the raised beds look like they are working out very well for you. Looks like you will have a harvest soon.

 

It has been a very few intense busy days in the garden. I've decided to take the risk of planting seeds early, even though it is a bit cool. It will only be cool for about a week, then more seasonal. However, there is a week of rain in the forecast. This would be helpful, as the creek is way too high from the spring frechette to place the pump for irrigation. It is weeks away from cresting, so it will be a while before the pump can go in without risk of it washing away or being damaged by a log. If I don't have germination, I can replant seeds within two weeks if necesary. I collect rain water off of the horse stable at the lower gardens. And I can water from the well by hand intermitently if necessary, with about 250 ft hose. Not ideal.

The last two days were prepping gardens and rototilling. The lower garden is full sun but lower, so it gets much more frost risk. After a town day yesterday the upper vegetable garden was done. It's by the house, but has more shade from the boulders and mountain. The leeks and onions went into the lower garden, as well as the cauli, broccoli and cabbages. Today will be carrots, beets and romaine lettuce down there. Bush beans will follow later. The upper garden had spinach and lettuce planted last night. Today will be carrots, kale, swiss chard, beets and turnip. It's too cool for the celery plants still, but hopefully soon. The potatoes and onion sets have not arrived yet due to the cold weather.

Newly seeded rows will be covered in remay and anchored to help with the cool temperatures. The rain and sun still get through, but it offers a slight layer of insulation.

Once that is done I will be harvesting some spruce and pine needles off of the ground for mulch. There are thick carpets of them under select trees. I think I'm also going to tap into the massive pile of sunflower seeds shells under the feeders. I can't use straw for the asparagus or strawberries anymore, so I'm trying to source what is at hand.

 

Good work there, Logie. You could begin a business were your property not so large.
California poppies are such lovely things.

Mel— you sure do have a lot of planning and work with your gardening.

 

Whoa.....just read about using sunflower seed husks as mulch. I didn't know that they were "allelopathic"....meaning they have a toxin that is natural weed control. That way the sunflower doesn't have much natural competition for growing. ( I thought it was the volume of them that was not allowing anything else to grow under the feeders. ) So so so glad I didn't jump in and put them all over the asparagus today. Yikes! I have a mountain of them, and they apparently are great for weed control. So on a day that is not as demanding I may use them around some borders and in pathways. Near miss.

 

Tja! That was news to me as well. I have not noticed that there is less growth under my feeding table. I shall look closer tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.

 

@Doghouse Riley those orchids are wuite beautiful!

I've been limiting garden tasks due to back issues. I did manage to plant slicing and cherry tomatoes. I had to clear out the temporary plants in the bed, mostly snap peas and a row of Rudbeckia seedlings.
the snap pea plants went to feed chickens. The Rudbeckia plants went to the meditation garden.



Most of these are dwarf tomato plants. I tried to space them two feet apart although it's a little tight. The back row contains two determinate types, Early Girl Bush and Bush Early Boy, plus Sungold, which I will experiment on and see if I can prune to bush shape, and Reisentraube which I don't know about yet.

A smarter gardener wouldn't cut the paper mulch, then place it over the scissors and spent 15 min looking for the now-hidden scissors LOL. I don't know why those rebars were in the shed, but they are handy to hold down the paper.