What have you done today in the Garden?

Thank you Sjoerd. Your comments are always so uplifting!

 

It is an honour to call you a colleague in the gardening world.

 

Today I watered, just the drip system. Pruned a few mini-trees. Had a small harvest for salad.



The taters are looking good. I watered them by hand, two days ago, so I don't think tbey need it again, yet.



I've been making streamers of holographic tape for the berries. That usually deters birds. By making streamers, I don't have to tie each piece to the bushes.



The raspberries need those too. Birds are getting them faster than I can.

Some lilies in the vegetable garden.



I hand pollinate the summer squash. There just arent enough bees around any more to do that job.



The onions look much better now, than they did at this time last year.



I saved some Red Wethersfield onion bulbs over the winter, and replanted them this spring, for seed saving. They are blooming now. I think they are pretty.



One of the ducks has been hiding in a secret nest all day, only coming out in the evening. I think she's broody. Will that mean baby ducks in a few weeks? She goes into the duck house at night.

 

Daniel—It is so good to see your garden shots. The things you have shown look very good to me. I am disturbed to hear about your shortage of pollinators. It makes me wonder if you couldn’t allow an imker (beekeeper) to keep a hive on your property. You know, beekeepers are always looking for places that they can stall their hives. They do all the work and you get the benefit of their pollinating work. All you do is to look up the local beekeeping club, contact them and see if a member is interested.

That hand pollinating can be tedious.

Interesting about the ducks. I once had a nest of them on my lottie. Here, you can read my posting about that experience: https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/ducktales.19081/#post-171608

 

I agree…

 

Just a bit of pruning of next door's overhanging trees. Had to stand on the shed roof to reach some tall branches even with my telescopic pruner. Fortunately, it's out of sight from the French windows.

 

Hubby deadheaded the roses, i did some watering and picking fruit.

 

We spent the entire day tying the flowers up. The Wisteria had to be chopped and tied up again. It was sad to do.
Everything looks better now.

 

After some looking, I found where the female magpie duck has been hiding.



She didn't like me being there. Not one bit.



This is why.



I don't think she's a very good mom. She leaves the eggs and goes into the duck house at night. She also goes to the duck pond and swims around a lot. So, they spend a lot of time without being incubated.

The day temp now is roughly duck-mamma temp anyway, so who knows? But nights are much cooler.

Still, I don't need the eggs right now. I might just see what happens. Give it a month. I don't know what I would do with a batch of ducklings anyway - ducks are messy, muddy, and foul their water every day. I'm just going with the flow here.

Daylily I like. It is a result of my hybridizing mad scientist experiments, ten years ago.



My beautiful, lush bush bean plants were eaten last night. My guess is, a deer jumped the fence. Oh well, a lesson learned. That loses a month or six weeks of growth. I don't have a more protected location to grow more in the main garden until the garlic is harvested. hmmm....

OK. The hens dug up the kitchen garden bed by the back door. It's fenced, and deer don't go into there. The hens are in their main yard now, because the back yard has potential routes for skinny young hens to escape. So it's only the ducks there now. The ducks have never gone into those raised beds. So far. They are not good at jumping or flying.

So. I bought new seeds, two packets for the price of one. These claim to be harvestable in 48 to 52 days.



Wetted the soil - it was as dry as the planet Mars. Matt Damon grew potatoes on Mars, in the movie "The Martian", so I can grow beans in Martian-dry soil if I wet it. Raked, wetted, raked again, wetted again. Raked again, wetted again. Planted a row of Burpee Stringless and a row of Contender. I've planted Contender before in late July, so I know it will grow this way.

Covered the bean rows - a layer of mesh, a layer of 1-inch plastic chicken wire, and a taller fencing tunnel. I've done fine without the fine mesh, but it was there so I added it. These aren't perfect but should serve until the seeds germinate. Then I'll fence them much better.



There is a second bed and two containers, for the other types.

I still have about half of my saved bean seeds. I'll plant those after digging the garlic.

I feel contented again, knowing that I learned a lesson about where I can and can't plant my beans.

 

This was a great posting Daniel. I've missed your posts even though I haven't been able to be here much myself lately. That Momma duck...they are fierce. Once when we were camping in the alpine, a Loon got too close to a Momma Duck and her babies. What a fight and commotion! The loon was up on it's legs with it's lance like fishing beak jabbing at the Momma with it's wings flapping ( a big bird) and that Momma went after it and put the run on it. It took a few minutes but there was no messing with her. She won.

Be brave Sir...vewy vewy brave.

Can you tell me more about those streamers?? That sounds brilliant. I only tried the reflective tape this year after reading your post last year,and losing most of my apple blossoms to finches. You tie them to a rope?

I'm trying hand pollinating my Hubbards this year for the first time after reading about you doing that last year. Do you still bag the ones you want true seed for?

Good luck with the duck

 

Nothing today it's raining.

 

Today, it's dry, overcast, but very warm.
The wisterias need pruning again, but there's too much sport on TV.

 

Hi Mel

I hope your garden is doing well!

On the streamers, I used to tie the strips of reflective tape directly to the berry plants. It's too hot to spend that much time outside right now. So I decided to tie them to strings about 10 feet long, and tie the strings to the plants or fencing. The reflective tape usually does keep birds away. Not 100% but at least I get some berries.

I need to make more and will post photo of that.

I plan to bag squash blossoms if I get to them on time. Same organza bags as I use to protect apples from coddling moths.

Happy gardening!

 

picked my first zucchini and I am positive won't be the last LOL

 

Had some rain but just picked some blackcurrants.