Today I did something in my Garden

SouthWesterly wrote: »

A busy few days in the garden ....

Same here. Lovely gardening weather (until yesterday afternoon, then suddenly cold, damp and windy )

Mostly "housekeeping" for me this week. I've taken out all the gerkins and all but one of my Charentais melons, and have cleared all the remaining sweetcorn. Those three produced surprisingly great harvests, despite the drought.

The sweetcorn was from saved seed - the one and only cob from last year's crop - but a huge amount of work at the point of harvest so 90% of the cobs stayed on the plants. I don't really eat corn on the cob, although this year's Covid refugees did and declared it delicious, but I do use a lot of tinned sweetcorn so I think I'll plant about the same amount next year and try to get a better handle on the harvest. It suits me to sow it in place of this year's tomatoes.

The "regular" veg is still producing: picked about 4kg of green and butter beans, 3.5kg of tomatoes and 2kg of beetroot, all destined for preserving in one way or another.

Still no leafy greens (other than nettles :rolleyes: ) although I think the lamb's lettuce sown a few weeks ago is beginning to peep out of the soil. In the newly weeded and rain-watered beds, I've put in some more lamb's lettuce, 10 metres' worth of spinach and one last try with lettuce. Thinking that the weather would be "nice" for another month, I also sowed an experimental line of red cabbage and celery.

I'm trying (yet again) to grow decent white onions from seed; and will think about planting garlic and shallots next week from this year's poorer quality cloves. I'll probably buy some new seed garlic next month as a back-up.

Well, the sun came out at lunchtime, so I decided to get my garlic and shallots in tout de suite instead of waiting. And while doing so, had an idea: to sow (yet more) winter salad right over the top of it, the logic being that it leaves (no pun intended :pac: ) the other beds free for the coming months, giving me more time to think about what I'm putting in there and treat the soil accordingly. If the salad grows as it should, I'll weed it regularly over the winter, and the whole lot should be harvested by the end of March when the garlic and shallots need the bed to themselves.

Also spent a lot of time thinking about a new project: a sunken garden - very sunken - as a way to combat regular summer droughts (and hosepipe bans) in the future.

Graces7 wrote: »

Not able for much, but am keeping watch over the only sunflower I have succeeded in getting to flower in my years here. Too much wind from too many directions. For some reason two others are in flower but miniatures.

The big one is magnificent! Awesome, and supported by my spare walking stick..

Also managed to disinter some lovely red potato marbles. They were "volunteers" so all the more welcome, and the last ones were delicious.

My indoor bulbs are in. Blue and white prepared hyacinths and paperwhites; a very old tradition of mine to have them in flower at Christmas.

And my lovely pink geranium is now inside and in flower.

Sounds like it’s giving you alot of joy

Planning to get my bulbs down tomorrow, alliums for June and tulips paired with forget me nots for spring. I grew lupins from seeds this year and stored them in a cold frame. I’m planning on pairing them with the alliums so I’m tempted to plant them tomorrow too. I wonder would they have time to establish before winter or would it be a shock for them?

Garlic and onions I planted a few weeks ago are coming up.

Planted 200 shallots today.

No hedgehogs yet, but the house has been noticed...

RachelsCousin wrote: »

Off topic, but do you have a trail camera set up? Something I'm looking into at the moment, lots of wildlife around me including I suspect a badger.

Yes, I have. And it's definitely worth it, I had no idea about all the activity in the garden at night.

And I just checked the images from last night, we have success! One hedgehog can cleary be seen entering the house at shortly past 5 this morning - link goes to imgur.com. The sequence is heavily compressed to be able to upload it (couldn't do it here), it looks better in the original footage. I'm happy they like my work

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

It was glorious here in the NW! I planted out the last few bulbs ...

Last few? :eek: It's only today that I've received my bulbs! Over a thousand (tulips, crocuses, alliums and fritillaries) destined for an expanded bed out the back. Hoping to get them done while we too have glorious weather.

As they didn't arrive till lunchtime, I started on a different project: clearing 100m² of thorn bushes, brambles, hawthorn and wild roses. In previous years, I'd have spent the best part of a month working away at it with a hedge trimmer, lopping shears and a rake; today, I used my new mini-digger and although I felt somewhat deprived of the benefits of physical exertion, it was immensely satisfying to get the whole job done (apart from the clean-up) in one day. Oh, and quite nice having all those thorns kept at a long metal arm's length!

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

:eek: That must have cost a pretty penny! Where do you source them?

Would love to see a picture of the finished product next year, should be very dramatic!

Dramatic is the plan! I'm taking "before" and "during" photos; "after" will be along in a few months!

This bed was previously 16m² (separating two parts of the back lawn and I've just doubled it up. Even though it's claggy clay soil and theoretically not really suitable for spring bulbs, the original bed has masses of daffodils in it that get better and better every year, so I thought I'd take a chance with the tulips (500 of those, black and cream, two varieties of each for flowering in April and May).

Along with the rest, it came to 162€ delivered (to France) from bulbi.nl On top of that, I spent 76€ on 200 plastic pots (only really needed 50 but postage was 12€ regardless of quantity, so decided to get extras for future use. I'll plant the tulips in 5-litre pots sunk into the bed so that I can lift them out in the summer and drop something else in there for later colour.

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

That’s really interesting! I never thought of planting and lifting the tulips when they’re finished. There’s always that awkward in between phase when they’re dying off.

Neither did I ... until I went looking for an explanation as to why my daffs did so well but the few tulips I planted years ago gave me one worthy display then gave up. Apparently (I know now! :pac: ) lifting them is the done thing, even in places like the Keukenhof Park in the Netherlands.

I've opted for the pot technique to make it easier to find them when the time comes, and so as not to disturb (too much) whatever's growing in the vicinity ... and to have a right-sized hole ready made.

SnowyMuckish wrote: »

What are you thinking of replacing the tulips with, that’s what I’m struggling with at the moment. I have spring sussed= pink tulips with forget me nots and early to mid summer= allium Purple Sensation, with purple lupins, saliva, aquilegia, agastache, scabious and catmint. But then there’s really nothing to take me through till autumn?

To be decided! This bed was supposed to be a sort of "natural" hedge-and-border barrier between the two halves of the garden, but it's just not working as intended. Like yours, it's really interesting in the spring (daffs and lilac) and then meh ... Aswell as the lilac, I have two young oak trees, an acacia and a hawthorn as the main vertical elements (need to add at least one other real tree - will see if I can move a chestnut, beech or sycamore from the lane)

I happen to have a load of self-propagated acanthus handy, so will put those in towards the back to give me a mid-level evergreen, weed-suppressing backdrop, and I'm hoping I can persuade my self-seeding alyssum (which does amazingly well in the courtyard) to grow in this new spot; I picked and potted about 100 plants last week, which will go in behind the crocuses and between the tulips, to cover the dying foliage.

Other than that, dunno ... lupins, definitely, but I have to grow them first; sunflowers, probably as I have seed saved from this year; veitch's blue thistle, probably too, as that's suitably invasive and should compete well with the acanthus! Due to the size and location of this bed, anything going in here needs to be "massive" or it'll just be lost. The specimen plants I'll keep for the courtyard or the planters out the front.

Just remembered - I posted a "before" photo on the photos sub-forum last week, here.

old_house wrote: »

Yes, I have. And it's definitely worth it, I had no idea about all the activity in the garden at night.

And I just checked the images from last night, we have success! One hedgehog can cleary be seen entering the house at shortly past 5 this morning - link goes to imgur.com. The sequence is heavily compressed to be able to upload it (couldn't do it here), it looks better in the original footage. I'm happy they like my work

What type of camera you got. A link to where to buy would be great. Thanks a mill

celticbhoy27 wrote: »

What type of camera you got. A link to where to buy would be great. Thanks a mill

It's a Zopu Trail Camera, I bought if off amazon some time ago. I won't post a link since the one I bought isn't available anymore, but there many different versions and I suspect they are all pretty similar inside. Was about €40 or thereabouts, well worth it. You can set a timer so I doesn't fill up all the memory with videos of blackbirds and pigeons and the night vision is actually much better than anything you would takes pictures of during daytime. If you have a somewhat wild corner in your garden you will be surprised about all the hidden activity.