What have you done today in the Garden?

@Melody Mc. that's how I grow them every year. If I start the seeds in the ground, they just rot. I do plant them outside when they are small, maybe one set of true leaves. Your garden is beautiful, and a beautiful setting. Last year my squashes were mulched with black plastic and produced like crazy, but
I hand watered them. This year I want to use drip emitters for them, save a lot of work

I'm still debating growing an Illinois squash. One from last year's crop is still in perfect condition.

My back has been acting up, so no (or not much) garden for a week. Using a walker and continuous ice packs. I don't use pain pills. Today was enough better, I filled in some potato trenches, planted flower seedlings and some annuals, and got some outdoor air. No heavy digging. About four hours outside, total, moving very slow motion.

First tree peony blooming.


This fig tree likes to set lots of figs, get them a little bigger then most of them fall off. I keep it because when it does bear, they are the biggest, sweetest, juiciest figs from my orchard. I don't know the name, it was a cutting I rooted from an unknown variety fig tree.



A view of the meditation garden so far. Mostly blue season, Camassia and Hyacinthoides at the moment.

 

That tree peony asks for attention, doesn’t it. What a looker.

 

Today was vegetable garden day. I weeded one tomato bed and tied up the floppy ones and picked peas. Husband watered the beans, onions, and garlic while I picked sugar peas.
We brought out the last of the herbs from the barn and put them in the ceramic pots lining the path. That is so handy to nip out of the kitchen and get fresh herbs for the night's dinner. Timi the cat likes one pot in particular, and curls up against it. I now have a fur pot!

 

I've reduced the number of pots on the "rose patio" from 12 to 10 as it's getting a bit crowded. The roses were starting to touch each other.




It doesn't look much less crowded, but it is.







But it means less room on the patio in front of the French windows.





Some of our David Austin roses are starting to come out.

Olivia Rose Austin.





Roald Dhal






Desdemona.







The rhodos and azaleas are really starting to make an effort.






















Even the rhodos we bought reduced to clear in Aldi a couple of years ago are doing well.





First of the clematis

 

Started to sow the wallflower seeds in the toilet roll tubes done 60 so far out of 300

 

Wonderful pictorial display.
So many beautiful plants. Great posting.

 

Today I cleared some more starts from the seedlings plants rack - planted the rest of the four o'clocks, the last two carnations, a six pack each of oregano and thyme. Also added filler soil to the first potato containers, cleaned out a 25 gallon container that was just holding filler soil mix, then filled with new soil mix and planted a dwarf tomato (Dwarf Johnson Cherry) and added four basil seedlings as companion plants. Tested the irrigation system just for flow, yes water goes through the main pipe. Scattered around slug bait - they were destroying the four o'clocks #$&%@,!. I found one the size of my thumb, threw it to the birds. The hens were unsure about it but the duck swallowed it in one gulp.

While watching a mystery I made 12 circular drip emitters for the container planter and two half barrels.

 

@Doghouse Riley your photos make me think of Butchart Gardens in Victoria, Canada. You have created and built and grown your own version of those gardens.

 

We planted pastinak and more beetroot. We also planted the last of the bean plants. I have to do it differently next year—worming in and out of those wigwams on my hands and knees on the narrow planting planks is causing some stiff muscles. It is sort of like playing Twister.
Racks before:


Racks after planting:


It was also time for mowing he paths and edging them as well as strimming some misbehaving weeds here an there.

You can see in that first foto how the wigwams are situated, then imagine me trying to supplely trying to navigate them. Do you see the planting planks? I had to try and get two knees on those as I crept about. Meanwhile my Bride had my 6 warning me not to crush any already planted bean plants to my side and behind me. Mercifully she was there to hand me plantlets and strings to secure them. It was a challenge.

A neighbour lady wanted to see how our strimmer works so I went to her and showed it to her and then let her strim a little patch along the fence. She liked it because it was battery-operated instead of using a long electrical cord. She is in her 80’s and did not want to drag cord all over.

p.s. Sorry to hear about the slug damage, Daniel. The Mirabilis they have been working on—will they recover?

 

Daniel, builder's sand (Mason's sand) has more silica in it, and spread around in the garden kills slugs by slitting their tummies open. It is completely organic, and in heavy soils actually improves tilth and drainage.

 

Today we watered and mulched the strawbs.
Here you can see the straw substitute. It is the fine bits of the winters’ mulch layer. As we roll it back to plant, we bag it up for this very purpose in tough plastic bags supplied where we bag-up municipal compost. The hard stems we use for row markers and tomato directions as well as plantlet supports.


Then this view of the bed finished bed.


We dusted and put away the root trainers and did some more strimming. Gave water. We will make the first batch of comfrey food for our plants. We also planted the first trial tom outside. Hopefully it will be somewhat resistant. We shall see.

 

Do you appreciate what people must do to fill a bag full of spinach leaves? My hat is off to them . I filled a 5 gallon bucket as I cleaned them and just kept thinking what a job they do for us for a few bucks, machinery or no. Lettuce too, but at least 5 gallons of buttercrunch has larger leaves. I also cleaned radishes. DW made a point of having salad all from the garden and it made me feel good.

 

Oh mate, I know about the fiddly work of harvesting spinach leaves. My Bride said when we harvested our spinach a couple of days go that she was done with spinach. We will just go with Swiss chard only now. At least it has larger leaves which are easier to harvest. We removed the spinach stubs and planted more Swiss chard. Personally, I prefer Swiss chard.

 

@Dirtmechanic it does take work and effort to harvest spinach. Lettuce too, I think. At home it's easy with a salad spinner gadget. I plan to plant more very soon although I'm running out of garden space now.

@Sjoerd you make great use of your garden space! Those beans will be delicious. It's still too chilly here to plant beans so they will be planted in June or July after harvesting garlic and early potatoes.

@marlingardener thank you for the slug advice. Those critters are certainly destructive. @Sjoerd I think the mirabilis will recover. If not, I can plant more seeds. I might be pushing the limit anyway on early planting.

Yesterday I completed instillation of drip irrigation for half of the raised beds. Weather permitting, I'll add another today. The emitters are placed where the plants need them, so the others will wait until the summer crops are planted there.



The containers with low soil level are potatoes. The one with a mountain of soil mix is what I'll use to fill in around the potatoes as they grow.



I turned on the soaker hoses in the garlic bed on top of the kraft paper mulch so I could see if they worked. They did, so now the kraft paper is on top of the soaker hoses (unlike in this photo).



It was chilly today. I fired up the woodstove, and added dried chicken femurs to make mineral supplement for the raised beds (calcium, phosphorus) (with the wood ash, also calcium, potassium, and trace elements).



I also ground dried eggshells for calcium, phosphorus, nitrogen supplement. Those garlic are fertilized with those supplements plus coffee grounds.

 

Daniel, I hope you are right about those french climbers. It is too early to plant them out here as well, but we decided to take a chance this year. It’s a crossed fingers situation at the moment.

Your work there is looking good. Are the raised units working out for you?