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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 24, 2008 21:28:26 GMT 1
Today I got into the GH again YAY! Did some pricking out...centranthus. Tidied up...repotted the echium webbii in a massive pot...top dressed the pininana...moved everything around in a mad, desperate attempt to make more room. I chucked out a lot of stuff that hadn't survived the cold snap  but the garden looks sooo much better for that. In the conservatory I pricked out the seedlings that were in JI No1 (yukky-yuk-yuk) into a softer medium...and had a general potter in there...so much is germinating. Must resist more sowing for now... |
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Post by 4pygmies on Mar 9, 2008 12:25:27 GMT 1
We have had SUCH a nice time in the garden this morning - a real family time, just like the old days when we first started converting the barns..OH was digging the old potato bed (found lots of Charlottes chitting away by themselves), Mum and I weeded the raised bed by the GH, Smallest 'helped' with the twisty tool, my sister was pruning the overgrown shrubs down the side of Mum's house, her OH was in the paddock building a shelter for the horse and there was a nice man reducing the side of Mum's tree belt. He had one of those wonderful chainsaw's on a long handle...ooh I want one but at £300 there's absolutely no chance! I do love gardening  |
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Post by 4pygmies on Apr 13, 2008 15:00:51 GMT 1
I've done some gardening! <jumpsupanddownwithgleewhilstgrinningbroadly> I am now quite bu****ed but I don't care! Smallest and I worked in the veggie garden for a while this morning - she raked and hoed the big patch where the spuds are going and then another bit where the root veg are going while I weeded the asparagus patch (shoots are just coming through ) and started to dig and clear the bit where the onions and garlic are going - if I ever get the chance to get them in... :  . I have a very respectable amount of brassica seedlings in the GH now hardening off and the tomatoes are all repotted. I feel soooooo much better! Now I must sow all the sunflowers and suchlike this week and then I shall feel like I have caught up a bit. I have decided to abandon the flower garden for another year unless I suddenly feel a Popeye like strength flowing through me as it is completely covered in nettles and other toxic weeds - I simple haven't got the energy to tackle it - growing food is much more imperative. |
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Post by madonplants on Apr 17, 2008 23:19:42 GMT 1
Got into the garden today, even though my back hurts. Well it's hurt for weeks now, going to mention it when I see the doc tomorrow. I am now totally rose free, yippee! I had six left and pruned them a few weeks ago, but today thought different. Well if we are going to put a veg plot where they are, they need to be out, so out came my mattock and away I went. Yes SL, I was wearing my safety shoes!!  I then cleared out those stone pots that I keep forgetting to do since we came here!  Well the fuschias that were surviving, not thriving, gave me some sort of show in the summer. I kept them to maybe work out what they were and take cutings from, but never did. One day last year I was going to do it, but in the first one, I found a queen bumble bee, camped in the soil, so left it. It was a biggun, too!  Did some weeding too, so actually feel I have done something constructive today. |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 21, 2008 17:51:37 GMT 1
what a sensible girl I am choosing today and tomorrow as days off ;D I have been gardening for six hours in the sunshine  ...I have sown a patch of parsnips, carrots, beetroot and kohl rabi in the well prepared veg patch....that's about three fifths full now. Covered over with a netting tunnel. Dug the flower bed over with a hand rake and trowel....the so called 'no mess bird seed' has been sprouting like billyo under the bird table...but my compensation was getting a face full of wallflower perfume as I worked. I carried the pvc GH outside to stand by the back door in a v sheltered spot, put slabs on the bottom shelf to anchor it a bit  and filled it with the young plants that have been in the cold GH and reached a reasonable size..french marigolds, gazanias, chrysanthemums, delphiniums, centranthus and trifolium..I have plenty of fleece if we get a cold snap (or I'll get OH to bring it into the kitchen overnight) Moved tons of seedlings/young plants from the conservatory into the GH, potted on the coboea and cape gooseberry....halcyon days ;D |
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Post by madonplants on Apr 21, 2008 23:54:02 GMT 1
what a sensible girl I am choosing today and tomorrow as days off ;D I have been gardening for six hours in the sunshine ...I have sown a patch of parsnips, carrots, beetroot and kohl rabi in the well prepared veg patch....that's about three fifths full now. Covered over with a netting tunnel. Dug the flower bed over with a hand rake and trowel....the so called 'no mess bird seed' has been sprouting like billyo under the bird table...but my compensation was getting a face full of wallflower perfume as I worked. I carried the pvc GH outside to stand by the back door in a v sheltered spot, put slabs on the bottom shelf to anchor it a bit and filled it with the young plants that have been in the cold GH and reached a reasonable size..french marigolds, gazanias, chrysanthemums, delphiniums, centranthus and trifolium..I have plenty of fleece if we get a cold snap (or I'll get OH to bring it into the kitchen overnight) Moved tons of seedlings/young plants from the conservatory into the GH, potted on the coboea and cape gooseberry....halcyon days ;D Wow, you have been busy! That no mess seed is not no grow seed, it just doesn't contain any husks that would otherwise be left. Yesterday, I made some space for our plastic tomato house and next to it the plastic GH. I should take pictures of them really, but I will wait until I have planted the tomatos in their growbag. This little border, where the magnolia was, was swamped with lily of the valley, so had to clear that out first. What fun that was. Lovely plant, but so invasive!! There is still a few left, in amonst an aquilegia, so want to see what colour that is before that all comes out. It's budding up, so won't be long and there is room for me to get at it!! |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 22, 2008 11:06:41 GMT 1
It's not just me then ;D I think I'm 'spring cleaning' the garden...lots of stuff is being moved or oiked out...very satisfying.
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Post by blacky on Apr 22, 2008 13:55:12 GMT 1
i've spent most of the last few days pottering in the garden. not so much to do as you all have. only have mainly shrubs and a few pots really so just a general tidy up. seems everyone is very busy in the garden, i love reading what you are all doing |
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Post by 4pygmies on Apr 27, 2008 16:11:27 GMT 1
It was such a nice morning. We've all been out in the garden enjoying the sunshine - smallest made a den under her play frame, OH has been fixing the chairs and benches and staining them and I stood outside at my work table repotting lots of plants that have been waiting for me to find them a home. I still haven't found them anywhere so they have been put into bigger pots instead..... : It was a bit rainy this afternoon so I started clearing out the polytunnel. Hilda came in to keep me company and had a fine dust bath while I pulled out all the dead tomatoes and cucumbers and pulled out the couch grass that's crept underneath from outside. It is so much easier to get all the roots when the soil is bone dry. I'm a bit achey now around my lungs with all the weeding so despite the sun coming out again I have stopped for the day - I am so sensible these days, aren't I? ;D I have also decided to scrap my poor old flower garden completely. I shall never have time to dig it over and make the paths so I had a rethink whilst repotting. I am going to flatten the lot of it, lay some proper, good quality weed suppressing mat over the top, and spread the huge pile of bark chippings I saved from Mum's hedges being chopped last month over it all. If we move smallest's trampoline in there then all the play stuff is together, I can see them playing from the house and I have a nice green area for the table and benches under the apple trees. I shall still keep a small border alongside the edge where the seat is in the flower garden and maybe clear out and plant up the little wild quarter with the mini pond - then I can perhaps see what's living in it! The rest will have to go though. I am trying to reduce the amount of beds I have so I can hopefully keep them a bit better and not get so stressed at the state of everywhere next year.. Then I can clear out the little beds on the patio and turn them into a proper herb garden using all the Lavenders I potted up this morning as a unifying theme. With the size of my garden I have to be brutally realistic and not run myself ragged every year failing at everything! Now my sister's horse is back in the orchard he is doing a good job keeping the grass down and OH has already said he will undertake to use the mighty strimmer so I don't have to battle with it. Once my new fencing is up around the vegetable garden and that is all planted up, then I can concentrate on doing stuff in easier stages...and by NEXT year maybe it will all be fit to be seen again! (Then we can have our AF camping trip!) My beautiful garden has really become a bit of a nightmare over the last few years and it has got to the point where I don't ever spend any time doing any creative gardening - just hours and hours of nettle pulling and trying to hold back the couch grass - there's absolutely no point in that is there? I want some flowers! |
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Post by emseypop on Apr 27, 2008 18:19:11 GMT 1
That all sounds like a really good idea 4P, you'll lose your flower garden but it will be less stresful, and you'll really be able to enjoy those bite size peices ;D
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Post by 4pygmies on Apr 27, 2008 21:19:07 GMT 1
Well that's the Plan Emsey...erm, that's Plan No 367 now I think..... ;D
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Post by maggyd on Apr 27, 2008 21:38:50 GMT 1
Sounds good 4Ps and at last your finding usefull use for that heap bark chippings |
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Post by madonplants on Apr 28, 2008 23:05:00 GMT 1
It was such a nice morning. We've all been out in the garden enjoying the sunshine - smallest made a den under her play frame, OH has been fixing the chairs and benches and staining them and I stood outside at my work table repotting lots of plants that have been waiting for me to find them a home. I still haven't found them anywhere so they have been put into bigger pots instead..... : It was a bit rainy this afternoon so I started clearing out the polytunnel. Hilda came in to keep me company and had a fine dust bath while I pulled out all the dead tomatoes and cucumbers and pulled out the couch grass that's crept underneath from outside. It is so much easier to get all the roots when the soil is bone dry. I'm a bit achey now around my lungs with all the weeding so despite the sun coming out again I have stopped for the day - I am so sensible these days, aren't I? ;D I have also decided to scrap my poor old flower garden completely. I shall never have time to dig it over and make the paths so I had a rethink whilst repotting. I am going to flatten the lot of it, lay some proper, good quality weed suppressing mat over the top, and spread the huge pile of bark chippings I saved from Mum's hedges being chopped last month over it all. If we move smallest's trampoline in there then all the play stuff is together, I can see them playing from the house and I have a nice green area for the table and benches under the apple trees. I shall still keep a small border alongside the edge where the seat is in the flower garden and maybe clear out and plant up the little wild quarter with the mini pond - then I can perhaps see what's living in it! The rest will have to go though. I am trying to reduce the amount of beds I have so I can hopefully keep them a bit better and not get so stressed at the state of everywhere next year.. Then I can clear out the little beds on the patio and turn them into a proper herb garden using all the Lavenders I potted up this morning as a unifying theme. With the size of my garden I have to be brutally realistic and not run myself ragged every year failing at everything! Now my sister's horse is back in the orchard he is doing a good job keeping the grass down and OH has already said he will undertake to use the mighty strimmer so I don't have to battle with it. Once my new fencing is up around the vegetable garden and that is all planted up, then I can concentrate on doing stuff in easier stages...and by NEXT year maybe it will all be fit to be seen again! (Then we can have our AF camping trip!) My beautiful garden has really become a bit of a nightmare over the last few years and it has got to the point where I don't ever spend any time doing any creative gardening - just hours and hours of nettle pulling and trying to hold back the couch grass - there's absolutely no point in that is there? I want some flowers! I told you 4P, you need an Autumn Fruits digging party, not a camping party! When you mentioned the trampoline, I thought of the girl in the cubicle next to us today in the fracture clinic. She was quite a young girl, maybe about Stephen's age, who had broken her leg badly after coming off her trampoline and it was one of those that has a guard around it! So how high was she jumping for Chr**t's sake? |
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Post by 4pygmies on Apr 29, 2008 7:01:30 GMT 1
Ouch! Poor liitle girl....it makes me cringe when I see trampolines without safety nets. I once saw a huge one tucked into the corner of a small front garden in Wales - right by the road and with an attractive edging of huge rocks along the front - and no net! I don't think the parents liked their children........ Hmmm, an Autumn Fruits digging party...I'm coming round to the idea a bit now.........maybe with a small group of Slash and Burn Nettle Assassins for those of us more violently inclined...... ;D |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 3, 2008 16:56:09 GMT 1
I've had a lovely day pottering ;D OH took me to some GCs as I have a yen for some cocoa shell mulch for the fern bed...the idea of a mulch that smells of chocolate makes me quite giddy with desire....didn't find any tho.  Then OH fitted a ventilator strip into the conservatory...so I had the chance to move everything around in there...moved a lot of the seedlings into the GH and re-potted some of the cacti...both my amaryllis have buds on now...the 'Farrari' is further along than the Hercules...and has TWO flower buds..the first one's stem being over a foot tall...cor! I took a bin liner full of round plastic pots to be recycled...I tend to use square pots for most of my pricking out and potting on...and terracotta for permanent planting. In the GH I potted on some eryngium Blue Hobbit, Lysimachia atropurpurea, delphiniums (blue butterfly and my one remaining pacific giant sown last autumn), coboea scandens and a few morning glory heavenly blue. Scrubbed all the plastic & terracotta pots I am keeping...did some weeding in the flower bed...and in the veg patch planted some peas and the courgette (which is growing as I watch it) under a bell cloche. My kohl rabi and beetroot are germinating but there's no sign of any carrots yet...and only one parsnip! Took the plastic bottle cloches off the leeks now as they are growing through the top!....now I'm knacked...but 'appy ;D |
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Post by 4pygmies on May 4, 2008 8:21:38 GMT 1
I spent all day in the garden - for the first time since I got ill - and it was brilliant! I have dug over one side of the current veggie garden, made a path along the front of the Dalek bins, put down some weed mat and covered it with a reallt think layer of wood chippings. I know it won't last long but I am determined to have it looking reasonable this summer! OH made a start on the new section and I cleared the bit around the Blackcurrent bush - the nettles roots are about 6" below the surface and as thick as fat fingers.....it's bl**dy hard work but it's got to be done Eldest dug over the Greens patch and made a start on a flower bed. I pulled out all the plants in another before getting out as much couch grass and nettle as I could. I have a huge amount of Echinacea in that bed so I split some clumps and got the couch grass roots out of it all before replanting. I was sooooo knackered I could barely move last night - I'm sure it's done me good though (somewhere...) This morning I am going to sow all the Carrots and Swede, plant all the Sprouts, Broccoli and Parsnips and see if I can't find a space for the Globe Artichokes. And I still haven't got my Onions and Garlic in! It's too late now really but I shall hope to have some sort of crop..... Oh, and I have to muck a bit to plant my new Rhubarb in too. Then I am off to the Watton Horse Fair this afternoon - if I can still walk! ;D |
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Post by 4pygmies on May 4, 2008 19:18:28 GMT 1
I don't think there's a bit of me that isn't achey, sore or stiff but I have got SUCH a lot done today. I've planted the peas and beans, garlic, onions, parsnips, beetroot, carrots, and trenched up the potatoes, cleared and wood chipped two bits of paths, cleared and prepared one side of the PT for tomatoes and made a start on the bed for the globe artichokes and spinach. Eldest came and helped this afteroon and OH mowed the grass this morning. I found a load of baby garlics and red onions in a raised bed I was dismantling so I replanted them - dunno if they'll appreciate it but better than throwing them away. And I started weeding the little flower bed in front of the veggie garden too. Oh and I was emptying out a pot whilst planting out the Broad Beans and a toad was in one of them - there he sat on the palm of my hand! He leapt off and disappeared into a hole under the sleeper beams that line the bed and sat peering out at me all afternoon - lovely litte thing! I came across several others too in the course of the day so they are alive and well again this Spring. Which is nice. |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 4, 2008 19:28:48 GMT 1
You had a good day then 4P... ;D
I've been out all afternoon...weeding the sprouted bird seed out of the flower bed...well as much as I could reach. A snail has eaten my trillium flowers! so I put some slug pellets down. Took last year's alocasia pot out of the garage, took all the dried compost off and repotted it with fresh compost..it's got new growth on it so it ent dead. ;D
Pricked out the cosmos 'psyche white', coleus 'palisandra' and green sage. I've sown the rest of the seed that Mick sent me...kept some of the seed back, just in case....sown some ipomoea mini-sky blue as well.
had a furtle around in the flower border...the soil at the front is really compacted so I had at it with a little fork....then helped OH make a little bench out of spare bricks and cut down floor-boards for by the side of the back door (already have one on the other side of the door...where we like to sit and listen to the birds whilst drinking our morning coffee.....)
perfick.
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Post by 4pygmies on May 4, 2008 19:35:55 GMT 1
Isn't it brilliant?? People who don't garden miss sooo much joy! I am really tired, bent double with back ache and my lungs are hurting but I DON'T CARE! And there's still tomorrow....coo |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 4, 2008 19:40:38 GMT 1
...and tomorrow I'm going round to medad's....my sisters and I are going to 'DO' his house...and we'll go into the garden as well prolly..I've got a shedload of sempiverum babies to plant in the gravelly dry area by his french windows...
Dad won't be there all day...so it'll be a surprise.
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Post by 4pygmies on May 4, 2008 19:59:00 GMT 1
That'll be nice - give all your lovely family my love please. Have you planted up that big planter at your Dad's yet?
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Post by bogmyrtle on May 4, 2008 20:35:41 GMT 1
Sounds like everyone has been making the most of the better weather - although we have had rain today, we did manage to do some more work in the front garden.
Yesterday I did the larger border across the front of the house, now all tidy with some gaps I need to fill when at Malvern next week ;D The border that runs next to where the pavement would be (it's not tarmac, we have a grass pavement - honestly) is almost weeded and tidied but the rain kept interrupting today. The right hand side of the front garden - we're not sure what to do with.
It's very damp and the border becomes a moat when it rains - kill the moss and we would have no lawn, there are a couple of trees which we like, but we are thinking along the lines of building a low retaining wall, building the soil up as there isn't enough depth in parts of it and really starting again. Hey ho!
And I've never spoken to so many neighbours as I have the past two days! We are at the bottom of a close and can only see four houses down our end! We are not that neighbourly! Well when you work you're not are you?
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Post by floweringcherry on May 4, 2008 21:04:33 GMT 1
Sounds like everyone has had a good time in the garden ;D. I have been out there again all day, it was overcast but very warm, a bit humid. Apart from a few spots of rain, it stayed dry. I cut the grass, planted some perennials and shrubs that have been lurking on pots, dug over the new border and planted some more onions I have grown in cells. Had a nice roast and hot bath and think I will sleep well tonight. Going to GC tomorrow. Need compost and trellis. (Maybe a few other things as well) ;D
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Post by 4pygmies on May 5, 2008 8:30:40 GMT 1
So nice to read of everyone being busy in their gardens...lovely to be able to on the May BH too isn't it?
I worked in my PT yesterday morning early (too hot after about 10am usually). Because I don't water it in the winter, as my chook spends hours in there furtling about, all the soil is bone dry. I left the hose running in there and dug in some peat free grobags and it was still as dry as a desert underneath so I buried cut - off lemonade bottles next to each cane and filled each one with water. It was like a manic comedy routine as each one emptied almost instantly as I rushed up and down trying to keep each one full - I think I lost more water through perspiration than I got into the ground! (Just realised - just like Roan's signature!) ;D
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Post by madonplants on May 6, 2008 11:03:58 GMT 1
Got more of the pond surround done and finally planted my potatoes in the bags. Well I should really say, Jennifer did the spuds, with just a little help by me. It was her little project, anyway. Did the usual weeding and planted some achilleas and a lupin on the west facing border, the one with the betula in.
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but the garden looks sooo much better for that. In the conservatory I pricked out the seedlings that were in JI No1 (yukky-yuk-yuk) into a softer medium...and had a general potter in there...so much is germinating. Must resist more sowing for now...
I then cleared out those stone pots that I keep forgetting to do since we came here! 
Well the fuschias that were surviving, not thriving, gave me some sort of show in the summer. I kept them to maybe work out what they were and take cutings from, but never did. One day last year I was going to do it, but in the first one, I found a queen bumble bee, camped in the soil, so left it. It was a biggun, too! 
Did some weeding too, so actually feel I have done something constructive today.
...I have sown a patch of parsnips, carrots, beetroot and kohl rabi in the well prepared veg patch....that's about three fifths full now. Covered over with a netting tunnel.
Then OH fitted a ventilator strip into the conservatory...so I had the chance to move everything around in there...moved a lot of the seedlings into the GH and re-potted some of the cacti...both my amaryllis have buds on now...the 'Farrari' is further along than the Hercules...and has TWO flower buds..the first one's stem being over a foot tall...cor!