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Post by 4pygmies on Jun 28, 2008 20:36:17 GMT 1
I've done lots in the garden today - weeded the path by the conservatory first thing this morning, dug and weeded another chunk of the flower garden and dug and cleared a big bit of the vegetable garden ready to sow another batch of carrots. I have 3 humungous piles of nettles, couch grass and other nasties to move now...sigh.. We are eating the new potatoes now and the broad beans and the mixed salad leaves are scrumptious. I noticed a cucmber is nearly ready to eat too and, we're getting LOTS of strawberries and raspberries too - they never get back to the house though! ;D Yum! My garden is still a wreck, the veggies are fighting their way through the weeds but it still makes it all worthwhile for me!  |
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Post by 4pygmies on Jun 29, 2008 18:20:07 GMT 1
Another very long day digging in the vegetable garden...I seem to have been pulling out nettle and couch grass roots for hours - about six altogether I think! I have now got rid of the horrid long term nettle roots along the edge of the PT and have finished clearing the whole side now, so I have another 20ft bed to use for carrots and winter greens. I weeded the asparagus bed and dug over another area and planted 3 Pumpkins for the kids. I have walked up to the ditch at the top of the garden with the barrow sooo many times...it's so tiring, people with smaller gardens don't realise! It is beginning to look a little better now though. I will never win a prize for 'best kept' garden but at least some bits of it are looking better.....I hurt all over now! ;D It's been a lovely sunny day but quite breezy. I could hear the Poplar trees rustling - a beautiful sound which I missed such a lot when the farmer chopped them all down several years ago. They have regrown to nearly their original height now - I love to listen to them - gardening is sooo great, isn't it? (But bl**dy hard work...) |
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Post by debbiem on Jun 29, 2008 19:45:15 GMT 1
I've done lots in the garden today - weeded the path by the conservatory first thing this morning, dug and weeded another chunk of the flower garden and dug and cleared a big bit of the vegetable garden ready to sow another batch of carrots. I have 3 humungous piles of nettles, couch grass and other nasties to move now...sigh.. We are eating the new potatoes now and the broad beans and the mixed salad leaves are scrumptious. I noticed a cucmber is nearly ready to eat too and, we're getting LOTS of strawberries and raspberries too - they never get back to the house though! ;D Yum! My garden is still a wreck, the veggies are fighting their way through the weeds but it still makes it all worthwhile for me! What a lovely day!  Today I spent ages planting some pink Polka dot plants and Bizzie Lizzies in my hanging baskets with the ferns and the other shady plants, then loads of geraniums in the tubs and baskets in the sunny area, rearranging a few things in the process. OH has made some good progress with digging the path through the 'lawn' as it used to be called. : |
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Post by 4pygmies on Jun 30, 2008 7:29:42 GMT 1
Sounds like you have a good day too then. I look forward to the pictures as the path progresses! I need more colour in my garden but I am useless at summer bedding... : (I have to prioritise with the watering and veggies always come first so bedding flowers tend to wither...) I carefully dug around a gorgeous Poppy and a Dark Mullein in flower in the veggie garden yesterday so I think I may plant up a strip with the short Sunflowers and whatever else I have knocking about waiting to find a home. And I found that I have 5 pots of Rose Campion that have survived my neglect too! I fancy a little bed for them with Purple Sage and Lavender near the conservatory....so many plans and sooo little time... : |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 5, 2008 18:28:22 GMT 1
I spent an all too brief time in the garden this afternoon...I had to move things about as they were all squashed together in places..they are more evenly distributed now but will prolly all die as they don't like being moved....
I cut them all back a bit, which is a pain as the stoksia was covered in buds...but it'll come back (I hope) as will the scabious. I potted on one of my dahlias...it's so tender I have to put the pot in the garage over winter! but it's lubbly atm...I'll try and post some pics when I have a free moment.
Watered the pepinos (they're taking over the GH!) toms, cape gooseberry, strawberry plants and cues in the GH....shan't need to water the garden I don't think...it keeps on raining every hour or so...
RIGHT....Dr Who calls.... ;D
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 15, 2008 19:56:42 GMT 1
It was really hot today  After the sun had gone behind the trees I spent a bit of time in the garden....the red banana plant is in the back garden now...it looked a bit odd in the front...and I'd had enough of the neighbours calling round and asking for a pound of bananas..... OH & son moved the pepino gro-bag outside, where the plants seem much happier (easier to water them as well) and we'd had enough courgettes this year....(just about every meal for 4 weeks...enough already) so I took the plant out this evening...still got 12 courgettes off it to make a cake! We've eaten all the kohl rabi now too...so I dug over the big gaps left and planted 2 patio peppers and 4 chilli plants in the bed to fill it up. Thinned the carrots that are in a patch in there too. In the GH the tomatoes are ripening, the three strawberry plants are smothered in fruit and the cape gooseberry is as well. The carrots and mooli sown earler in the month have germinated and are looking nice and healthy. Tonight I've sown some more pak choi and tomorrow I might sow a few more lettuce & carots in a big pot to keep in the GH as a standby. Oh and we harvested the first of the sugar snap peas...yummy they were. Watered with the hose and fed everything, then sat and admired it all. Perfick. ;D |
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 15, 2008 21:18:41 GMT 1
A woman satisfied....
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Post by 4pygmies on Jul 16, 2008 6:34:48 GMT 1
....is quite a rare phenomenon...................
We've started eating the baby carrrots thinnings now...ooo, they are just divine....
I didn't grow any courgettes this year cos we've wasted so many in previous years. It's odd not having their huge leaves and lovely flowers to look at though. Still, no manky mildew or worries about mouldy fruits either...
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Post by debbiem on Jul 16, 2008 9:55:26 GMT 1
I planted my courgette seeds, the very last two, at the very end of June and they've sprouted so hopefully they'll keep growing and we'll eventually get some. The rest of the pack, apart from a couple that the slugs had, were a dismal failure, unless the slugs had those too while my back was turned. Cheery your produce sounds fantastic! And 4P, baby carrots, yum. We may not have our allotment any more but I'm really warming to growing things in containers and flower beds, you all seem so happy with the results it all seems well worth it. |
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Post by 4pygmies on Jul 17, 2008 15:16:46 GMT 1
By'eck I'm soggy.....I gave up waiting for the rain to stop so I could strim and started pulling the 6ft high nettles by hand ....strewth it's hard work..still the good thing about the rain is that I was completely covered up so didn't get stung. I have worked my way along the goats fence and made a start uncovering the fruit bushes....I got really hot....bleah.... Have I mentioned lately that I am beseiged by giant nettles?  |
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Post by 4pygmies on Jul 18, 2008 8:25:11 GMT 1
I wonder what it tastes like? I have had some home made wine which tasted nice but not all that often..... ;D My OH abominates the stuff though, dunno why, you'd think someone who imbibes as freely and regularly as him would welcome some free stuff on tap wouldn't you? He'd rather drink his own urine I think.........I should dry it and give it to the goats as winter feed but it keeps raining......
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Post by emseypop on Jul 18, 2008 11:52:44 GMT 1
I'm sure I heard myrtle say she'd made something with nettles? Was it wine or beer?  |
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Post by Sleepy on Jul 18, 2008 12:07:41 GMT 1
I'm sure I heard myrtle say she'd made something with nettles? Was it wine or beer? No, I think she made nettle die to colour her husbands home made suit. |
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Post by madonplants on Jul 18, 2008 13:13:03 GMT 1
I'm sure I heard myrtle say she'd made something with nettles? Was it wine or beer? No, I think she made nettle die to colour her husbands home made suit. Don't you mean dye, Sleepy?  |
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Post by bogmyrtle on Jul 18, 2008 13:31:03 GMT 1
No, I think she made nettle die to colour her husbands home made suit. Don't you mean dye, Sleepy? The way I sew, he was right first time!  Sleepy, are you are getting me confused with Felicity Kendal? Have you been watching The Good Life again on UK TV Gold? Nettle beer and soup - although the nettles went over very quickly this year here. You really need the young top shoots (4-5 leaves). If they are cut down and re-grow you can use them then. String is the other thing we have done. We've never tried nettle wine though. |
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Post by 4pygmies on Jul 18, 2008 14:25:10 GMT 1
Cut down and regrow them? You mean there's another way to deal with them......................I've made nettle potage in the past. Never ever bother.......it is vile........I'd rather eat wallpaper paste. It's much the same thing actually.......................
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 20, 2008 19:10:06 GMT 1
I finally got the ironing done this afternoon and was just about to skip merrily out into the garden when we had visitors...sigh....
I've just had a couple of hours rooting about, watering, sweeping up all the debris from the trees behind the garden (an endless task) and moved Eric the Half a Tree from his soggy bit of the front garden (it's all soggy...everybody else has concrete/paving/tarmac on their 'gardens' so the ground in OUR garden is saturated).....I potted him up in a v large pot in nice fresh compost (JI) and placed him tenderly in the little 'banana grove' at the rear of the back garden. OH carried the massive pot containing a trachycarpus fortunei out front for me, that's gone in the spot where Eric used to live.
Not got much done but I've got a couple of days off at the end of the week..hope to get out into the garden then.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Aug 6, 2008 21:03:55 GMT 1
Our garden has that overgrown leggy look atm...a few things have finished flowering whilst others are still to blossom...but it's all getting rather lush and scary. I really need to spend a few hours out there tidying up. I shall take the sunflowers out I think...and I'm already deciding what to plant next year.
Also need a few ideas for the big pot in the front garden in the autumn and winter...atm it's full of surfinas, osteospermums and ipomoea.....but may stuff a few hebes and arboreal heathers in for winter colour..
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Post by 4pygmies on Aug 15, 2008 7:48:50 GMT 1
I have a terrible confession to make.........I have borrowed Nick's Knapsack sprayer for the weekend and I am using it on all the giant nettles, burdocks and other nasties that have infested my garden since I stopped being able to garden a lot.....I feel terrible........ This stuff Nick uses is a Roundup formulation for the pros and it has stopped all the growth in the mucky area we use to dump all the trimmings - usually smothered with perennial nettles and other such stuff. I am sooo tired of battling it all in my garden and the stuff I used from the GC hardly touched any of it. I am going to barrow the huge mountain of bark chippings on a lot of it once it's started to go over. Maybe I'll get the chance to finish some f the little cultivated bits of the gadren then. I feel pretty bad about it though. Especially after all my blather about sustainable gardening and wildlife gardening...sigh....  |
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Post by Sweetleaf on Aug 15, 2008 7:53:18 GMT 1
Dont, you need help, and this is just a one off solution, its not like you have given up all your organic principles, is it? The chippings will do the job of keeping the soil in the dark and look good too, it sounds like a good plan. Wear a mask, and dont strain your back with all that barrowing, ok?
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Post by emseypop on Aug 15, 2008 7:55:54 GMT 1
I don't blame you tho 4p, and its not like you haven't tried everything else. Your a one woman marvel and I mean that in a good way! You do so much, there's nobody more entitled to cut corners, and you care about the environment in so many ways, your much more balanced than most.
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Post by 4pygmies on Aug 15, 2008 8:02:14 GMT 1
Well thank you but I still feel bad about it! I started spraying after work yesterday since the sun was out and was soooo tempted to just kill everything and start all over again! I have discovered a scary enjoyment of slashing, killing and mutilating in me somewhere....  Who'd have thought it? It must be the gamekeeper heritage coming out........I thought I was more on the lace making side previously ;D Gosh......OGL and/or the Dark Force is taking over...  |
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Post by emseypop on Aug 15, 2008 8:05:04 GMT 1
Surrender to your darkside!!!  But only in that particular area of nettles  |
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Post by 4pygmies on Aug 17, 2008 7:57:13 GMT 1
I did it...I used the whole container too I've done all the biggest nettle ridden areas, all the long border in Mum's garden and some of the forest around the edges too....gosh...and fortunately it was sunny and dry all day yesterday so hopefully it will do the business. It's pouring this morning though - I was going to start clearing the veggie beds I shall have to do something out there - I may not have a chance for the rest of the week....I discovered the seams of my waterproof coat have started to leak when I went out to feed the goats in the downpour first thing though...typical! : |
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Post by maggyd on Aug 20, 2008 15:56:06 GMT 1
We have filled over a dozen large garden bags with all the trimmings from my bushes around the garden and garden fence! Ive also dug up a large clump of irises that I shall probably miss in the spring! and I have stuck the fork into a large clump of sisyrynchium (sp) Im just waiting for it to stop raining and ITS gone Im sick of things that take over your borders that act like thugs next year I want to make some changes!! but I dont know what. |
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Who'd have thought it? It must be the gamekeeper heritage coming out........I thought I was more on the lace making side previously ;D