What have you done today in the Garden?

Such a nice water fountain, Riley.

 

Thanks for that.
We decided we'd like a fountain when we closed down the koi pool.
But we couldn't find anything we liked at garden centres. Most were plastic or ugly.

I found Massarelli fountains in the USA through the internet and amongst their huge range, found one we liked.



Then I found a UK firm that imported them from the USA, once a year.
Luckily, they had just received a container of them and had the one we liked.
It weighs 71 kilos. It was delivered in a cardboard box on a pallet. For protection, it had been wrapped in heavy hessian coffee bean sacks, there were still a few beans in the sacks!
Well worth the £500.

I'd decided to position it on top of what was the koi pool pump sump, as I had cables in conduit that passed under the path to the garage.
So it was just a question of placing a round concrete stepping stone over the sump, passing one of the original cables through it, then hiding the stepping stone.



I covered it with some mortar I dyed to match the colour of the fountain, so it looks like a bigger plinth..



The fountain is low voltage, so I had to cut the adapter off the fountain's transformer and connect it to what had been mains cable to the sump, then connect that to fountain's pump and light cable below the plinth. The fountain is plugged into a socket next to others that supply all the lights in the garden, below the garage's new consumer unit. I re-wired pretty much everything in the garage, shed and tea-house last year, as most of the wiring was over thirty years old. I put most of it in trunking for added safety.



All the lights and the fountain in the garden are controlled by four switches behind the lounge curtains, via a multi-strand armoured cable I laid forty years ago under the concrete raft that supports the patio.

 

Riley … Amazing pics of your beautiful garden …mimosa trees are a fav of mine as the hummers really like the blooms..
Lots of mature trees and shrubs are well cared for shrubs and trees. Plantings are at the best profile for a pic perfect year round garden.

 

Taken some of the grass away with a spade and planted the rest of the polyanthus plants, they're a bit small but they should be ok. Ordered some hyacinths to plant there as well. The brown patch that's on the edge of the grass is where there's ants.

 

Such a clever cloggs you are, Riley. You did a great job with that fountain. You have such an impressive set of practical skills.

Good work Loggie. What are you doing to combat those ants? Are they the reddish ones?

 

Thank you Sjoerd, the ants are red and we don't do anything to them, but they do make a bit of a mound and difficult to mow the grass so have to go round them.

 

That's a nice bit of edging there Logan, curves are always better than straight lines.


I had the same, but when "edging" with a spade, I used to get "border creep."
So I concreted in some small rectangular block paving bricks, so for over 15 years, I've been able to run my Flymo over them.

 

Yeah Loggy, they are nasty ones in that they have an irritating sting. I don’t do anything with mine either but they do compel me to utter choice words. It isn’t the sting, but the week of irresistible itching that ensues that drives me right round the bend.

 

Today I spread dried, crushed eggshells and used coffee grounds over where I planted garlic last week, and worked them in shallowly. Then I did the same with doggie wool, since I cut Rufus's hair the other day. Then I covered with a nice maple leaf mulch.

This method adds nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and sulfur to the soil. I saved and dried out chicken bones all summer. During winter, those will be burned in the woodstove along with wood, and the ashes spread on the garden in late winter for more calcium, phosphorus, potassium. It seems to work.

I picked the last of the bush beans. The are pale, almost white now, but not dried out. They will rot on the plants, so I'll dry them inside and shell them for seeds for next year's green bean crop.

I dug up some hot pepper plants to overwinter. Some will be treated like house plants, to ripen the peppers. Others get severe pruning and will be overwintered dormant.

First the soil is washed from the plant. This one is a Thai pepper plant.


If they are not going to be dormant, I just pot them in good potting soil.



If they are going to be dormant, I prune severely. This one is a vigorous Cayenne pepper plant.



Then I pot in good quality potting soil, and keep in a cool bright room for the winter. The dormant ones will be allowed to mostly dry out.

Here are the ones I want to continue ripening, in the sunroom. If they lose their leaves, I might treat them as dormant plants too. The ones I did last week look pretty pale already.



I also covered the miniature peach tree with a clear plastic top. That will keep most of the rain off the buds and prevent the dreadful peach leaf curl disease.

 

I inspected some of the apple grafts I did last Spring. I'm making espaliers with the top two tiers, different varieties from the lower two tiers. This time I didn't do the greatest job, but the grafts took and healed nicely. The graft unions are ugly, but as the trees mature the graft unions will meld together and become almost invisible.

Freedom apple, on Redlove Odysso.


Blue Pearmain on Redlove Era.



Plus I grafted Mutsu apple on a dwarfing rootstock, to experiment with container growing next year. The scion and rootstock had quite a mismatch in caliper, but it took anyway and grew nicely.



I'm becoming disillusioned with the Redlove varieties. Next Spring, maybe I'll regraft some of them with something more reliable.

 

@Daniel W .....Hi Rufus!! Smashing hair cut!

Daniel - I just had a conversation tonight with my daughter about brining the pepper plants inside as a house plant/overwintering. I told her I couldn't because of all of the aphids/bugs etc I'd bring indoors to my houseplants.

Does your washing of the roots and repotting eliminate that issue?

 

Mel, that's the idea, anyway. Last year, they did get some fungus gnats and whitefly. I treated with soap spray and neem, which cured them. I think that's the biggest risk. Supposedly, thoroughly washing the roots is the biggest thing, also cutting off the tops.

This guy dunks them in neem oil and Castile soap.

I'd say, the house plants are more important to you, so maybe you dont want that risk.

Then again, I summer all of my houseplants outside, and bring them in now. Some, like geraniums, get the same treatment as the peppers. There are others I bring in, like orchids, holiday cacti, oxalis, dwarf alstroemeria, that summer outdoors in potting soil in containers. I havent had insect problems with those. I guess this is my version of a high risk lifestyle LOL.

I did get a bigger crop, earlier, on the Jalapeño I overwintered dormant last winter. Years ago, I also did that with a Tabasco. This is the first time Im doing it with so many.

Im also not sure some of mine are worth keeping. They didnt do well. I am blaming that on the soil mix. The same varieties in different soil did better.

 

Daniel …some very impressive techniques.thanks for showing the success of your graft on dwarf apple stock.

 

Thank you, it's a good idea of yours to edge the lawn with bricks. I always get border creep because i don't edge the grass much when cutting the lawn. But i wouldn't edge it with bricks because I'm always taking more of the grass away.

 

Yes they can have a nasty sting that's why i keep well away. Used to get them around the edge of the path in places but haven't noticed them this year. If i can i like to leave insects alone they have their purposes.