What have you done in the garden today? Part 2

[ThreeRingCircus]

A continuation of the last thread.

Know what you mean about the weekend weather @daisychain01 - but at least it means less watering! It's currently pouring here although I doubt we'll get the forecast thunder.

Yesterday was very hot but in-between the painting I managed to shift lots of rubble as well old limestone and slate tiles that had been lying around in the walled courtyard looking unsightly. The tiles were what we'd removed from the family bathroom. I'd like to find a use somewhere in the garden for the slate but the rest will go.

I also pulled out lots of self-seeded wild strawberries that had taken root beneath the Lutyens bench (also in the courtyard) so that area looks tidier now.

Didn't get the planting done...maybe this afternoon if the weather improves.

Enjoy your birthday weekend @SatelliteStomper 😁

Some rain here would be welcome - perhaps it’s on its way. I was hoping to take a few days off from gardening work, to enjoy some light pottering, but have just found some chervil seeds which can be sown now, so will do that. The foxglove and poppy seeds have germinated. Hooray.

I love my hydrangeas. They flourish in the shady border, unlike so many things. I’m pleased to see that my latest - a rooted cutting from a plant swap - is white, which works best in the gloom.

@SatelliteStomper many happy returns, fingers crossed for Garden vouchers. I love getting them from a dear friend who sends them every birthday and Christmas. Nice to go down to the Garden Centre with a nice fistful of vouchers and have a splurge on gardening luxuries. Enjoy!

@LibertyLily sounds like your project is continuing well 👍 and some nice tidy-ups are quite a motivator arent they. I had a load of straggly foxgloves flopping down over the borders onto the grass, and I gave them a good tidyup which made a difference. I get so many foxglove seedlings I have to keep the plants under control or they'd take over, but the bees absolutely love them 🐝

I'm going to nip out because despite the forecast and a tiddly bit of pitterpatter rain earlier it certainly hasn't amounted to the deluge they promised, but we are on the edge of a lot of the weather systems passing by, so we sometimes miss out on the worst of it. Hopefully it will hold off for a few hours and then it can do what it likes!

It is so hot here I can't do alot.

I've been pottering in the morning, tying up and deleafing tomatoes. And harvesting. Then cooking whatever was harvested for our main meal at lunchtime.

Then zonking out for 2 hours as it is too hot to go outside between 2 and 4. Then making sure things aren't dying so doing some watering. Then coming back indoors until about 7.

And then harvesting potatoes and prepping the soil for the next crop, until about 9.

I am picking tomatoes as soon as they start to change colour as I find this kick starts the plant to start turning the next fruit. So today's lunch consists of...from the garden...courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, rosemary, thyme, potatoes, cucumbers.

Plus some of last year's chillis and tomatoes from the freezer.

We are off to watch the Tour de France later today...so need to stay alert and not take my after lunch coffee to the bedroom for my lie down. It's going to be a challenge.

Oooh, just poured down in Northumberland 🎉. I've been out the last three nights watering so am a happy bunny. Still very warm though and more rain on the way!

@MereDintofPandiculation Our broad beans are now pointing👇 Off to pick some between the showers!

Still check them and feel them, but, yes, they should be ready.

Picked the first of mine last night.

I spent the morning waiting for rain. Finally decided it wasn't happening and went out, only for it to begin. I planted my 1 pumpkin seedling in the dead space by the compost bin, then came in. I was going to make a rough hurdle for it to climb up, but conceded today that this is not going to happen. I bought some plants last week and forgot about them. The astilbe looks very crispy. Will it revive?

Not a huge amount today. To wet to get out really. DH went out and restaked the tomatoes. Am a bit concerned that they are still just leach green and a few little flowers. I thought it should be fruiting by now?

I need to repot some mint that I've had in the kitchen, I think it would grow better outside. I love fresh mint in salads. We had my homegrown dill on new potatoes three times this week, it was lovely and I felt so proud! I am definitely loving this new hobby.

*leafy green

Astilbe is a perennial, so has good food stores in its roots, so if it were an established plant in the ground, even if it lost all its leaves this year, it should come up again next year, albeit weakened. However a small plant in a pot waiting to be planted out won't have as many reserves. But it will be doing its best to produce new shoots this year and get in some photosynthesis. Keep your fingers crossed. You have a chance, but probably not as high as 50-50

I need to repot some mint that I've had in the kitchen, I think it would grow better outside. Try starting off several pots so you can bring them in in turn.

Hi all

Came back from Cambridge at teatime yesterday and went round the garden for an hour before even going in the house (of course). So much deadheading and weeding to do so I made an early start this morning. It's obviously been pretty wet here and there is much plant fainting and territorial encroachment as a result. I also have, for the first time, lily beetle which made me want to cry. We grow not only scores of lilies but also cardiocrinum, fritillaries and rarer members of the family like notholirions and nomocharis. It's really unusual in Scotland so an incredible piece of ill-luck.

I stopped off at Penrith on the way home yesterday to go to the inimitable Larch Cottage Nursery and bought a couple of white roses to try in my white border in place of Iceberg which has not performed well. 'Susan Williams-Ellis' and 'Kent' which is a ground cover rose but very floriferous and I have room. They can audition anyway. Also a big pot to sit on a dolphin pedestal I have knocking about. I need a new centrepiece for a small garden where we grown hostas, trilliums and orchids like pleione and cypripedium. There's a naff modernistic mother and child there now. I hate it but luckily it's starting to crumble and the bits are doing the mower blades no good. Time for something better.

The garden's a bit between season and the rain hasn't helped, but there are fantastic clumps of arisaema candidissima which has nice pink and white candy-striped flowers. Every year I think I've lost it as it doesn't appear until mid-June. Then one day it's there and a day later in full flower.

I'm struggling with my ranunculus- they produce nice healthy leaves but none have flowered yet. I don't know if it's because I need to get them in the ground as I've got them in small containers atm.

I am picking tomatoes as soon as they start to change colour as I find this kick starts the plant to start turning the next fruit.

Noted your comment, @AlisonDonut I will start picking some tomorrow.

Broad beans 😊😊😊

Lovely beans @catwithflowers. They do look good, and plenty of them. Bean envy.

Not so much what have I done but a question. The poppies have been spectacular this year and I'm keen to harvest the seed heads to spread them more widely. When should I harvest them? I want to leave as long as possible but not risk them self seeding.

We actually had some decent rain here in south Gloucestershire for the first time in months, so hopefully the plants will perk up somewhat. My lawns are brown and cracked so obviously need much more before they look even half decent.
All my tomato plants have blight 🤬, even the four ‘blight-resistant’ grafted ones. So I’ve heaved them out of the greenhouse and will probably give up growing tomatoes in future.
My mini munch cucumbers are fruiting well, on plants on about 2’ high, I presume that’s as big as they grow?
Flowers-wise my roses looked wonderful until today’s deluge, I will go out and deadhead them in the morning and gather up all the fallen petals, everything else looks to have survived.
I do have a few plants to plant out, I couldn’t resist a beautiful sea holly plant at the garden centre yesterday 🙄, and a pretty pink stachys (that isn’t the furry lambs ears one that gives me the creeps, sorry 🫣)
@daisychain01 my ranunculus flowered some weeks ago, can i leave them in the pots or do I dry them off and keep for next year (are they corms?), I haven’t grown them before.

Mini cucumbers! They taste so fresh and I am inordinately proud of myself for growing actual food that's edible 😂❤️

Oh wow they look excellent!

We had a few fence panels replaced yesterday, and the big shrubs in front of them were mostly fine, with the exception of the honeysuckle. It was all woody and straggly looking anyway, so I’ve chopped it to the ground and I guess time will tell if I’ve killed it.
It did leave a patch of very empty looking border so I popped to a local nursery and bought a hydrangea limelight.

@Defiantlynot41 when the poppy heads start going brown and get holes under the flat bit they're ready to bag up for seed saving.

Thank you @InMySpareTime . They're starting to yellow but my neighbour has already harvested hers so I wasn't sure

Home from hols. Thankfully most things seem to have survived except for a couple of dahlias and some sweet peas in pots which were bone dry and had fallen over. A Japanese anemone that I’d planted two weeks ago has completely disappeared along with a delphinium - I blame the snails. Grass is a foot high so I need to mow tomorrow.

Bought broad beans in the farm shop up the road!

Constantly pulling up self-seed borage in my raised beds on a daily basis (and some nearby pots). Due to my part laziness and wanting the borage to continue to flower for months on end, the bleeding blighters keep coming up. It's my own stupid fault for leaving the plants in over the past two years. Now, they're everywhere amongst the veg I'm trying to grow (toms, pak choi, lettuce, carrots, spring onions etc.)

I'll have to take up most of the compost (that'll be about 200l worth) and refill with fresh for next year's planting.

I'm happy that the resown linaria has come up, hopefully, it'll flower before the year ends. (A self-seeded one grew in Feb. and still in good shape now!)