What have you done in the garden today Part 4 Spring 2024.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

What have you done in the garden today? What went well? What surprises have you had? What could have gone better?

What a great thread! Haven't done much outside this year due to the weather. I have plenty of weeds, including lots of cinquefoil in the front garden border. However the little self seeded primroses are really pleasing, along with lots of celandines, which are growing like weeds! My containers have some pretty pink tulips from Lidl, which have done really well.

Visited Kingston Lacy in Dorset yesterday (NT), for the gorgeous camellias and blossom displays, and the kitchen garden were selling some small clumps of Phlox David - a white one, for £1! I have put them in pots for now, will plant out when I get a chance.

They also had sweet peas (potted up for £3) and about 30cm tall, but I have been disappointed with them too many times (slugs!!)

@Zebracat and @MereDintofPandiculation Thank you🌷Looks like I was mistaken, it's not knotweed. So relieved - someone has renamed it Japanese worry plant and I can totally understand why😅 It looks like it green alkanet is still a tough one to keep under control but at least it won't make my garden a liability.

I inspected my seedlings in the greenhouse to find a stupid snail on my courgettes and it has eaten all of them! It had left the dwarf beans though. So more courgettes sown. My hydrangea cuttings seem to be doing well in there too which has really pleased me as I only started taking cuttings last year.

I also found some forget me nots that had seeded themselves into the lawn so I dug them up and have moved them back into the flower bed.

I have a fair bit of green alkanet in the wilder parts of the garden. I used to loathe it with a passion, after spending weeks trying to eradicate it from the beds of a house we rented years ago. Pointless exercise as, even if you do manage to get the huge taproots out, the damn stuff just pops up again anyway... However, now I know better and I allow it some room in areas out of my direct sightline 😁

Finally got some stuff done. Mostly weeding and more chopping back of over grown shrubs. Planted basil,nasturtium and some runner beans. Found the reason the bird seed in the green house is being depleted. He is a wee brown mouse. I've called him Philip and spent a lot of time filming and chatting to him.

@Zebracat It didn't rain for a whole 48 hours. There was a good drying breeze. It felt like my one opportunity to cut the grass before it needed a hay baler.

It still took two cuts to get it relatively short.

Yes, I was tired. 😓 But successful ! 😊

Mowed the lawn this evening - that was hard and I'm not sure it looks any better - first cut is always pretty bad, hopefully the weather will remain dry for another couple of days and I'll get out there and give it a second cut.

We have had six jumbo bags delivered: three mushroom compost, three bark.

I levelled some veg paths today, and covered them in cardboard and bark. I used half a jumbo bag of bark, lots still to do.

Also module planted more chard for my DD who has a brand new allotment Wahoo!

@DougAndTheSlugs
Can I ask where you get your compost from? I would much rather have a delivery than haul bags in and out of the car. Have bought 3 grow bags in anticipation of trying the ‘half then and use them sideways’ trick. All the tomato/ cucumber/ courgette/ chilli seedlings are potted up and in the greenhouse. As ever I have roughly 10 times the number I can fit in the small greenhouse and I’m starting the process of giving some away!

I have netted the rest of my raised bed as a neighbour’s cat is using it to poo on which is frustrating. Don’t want to jinx it but currently the copper scourer protected seedlings have been left alone. I need to order some nematodes while I think about it.

Of course! My mushroom compost comes from Hickman Brothers near Burford. They are amazing with their deliveries, using a mini crane to lift the jumbo bags up a bank and over a drystone wall for me so they are off the road. May not be any use to you if you are too far away though.

I have taken the leap and sowed five each of eight varieties of sqash, and 40 corn seeds. It may be too early and I will shed bitter tears but I have kept seeds back just in case. They are in a heated propagator and my fingers are crossed.

I'm so pleased that the idea of the half grow bags is taking off! I just hope it lives up to everyone's expectations!

We've been away for a few days & it's amazing to see how much growth there has been.
I picked some wild garlic & made wild garlic butter & put it in the freezer.

@DougAndTheSlugs thank you- but that’s a long way from me! I will get off backside and find something local .0

I have started making a cold frame out of old fence posts and an old window. I did lots of staring at it wondering what way to put hinges. Never done hinges before.

I have cheated (copied an idea on Instagram) and bought two plastic storage boxes to use as snail-proof cold frames for seedlings.

I spent two hours pruning back shrubs and I've sown more courgettes. I've also sown pumpkins, cosmos, spring onions and borlotti beans.

It was freezing and wet here today, so I looked out of the window and sighed a lot. My vegetable patch is two large beds, About 10ftx8, and 2 smaller ones, about 8 ft x4, and a raspberry border. I’m wondering if I should install raised beds, either recycled plastic or metal, into the large beds with wood chip paths. Might be more manageable. I quite like the ramshackle nature of my plot, and I remember my friend saying that raised beds are kindergarten for slugs and snails. Also, if I spend money and still fail to grow veg, it would be bad. Don’t know what to do. Maybe keep thinking this year and stick to my plan of mainly flowers and fruit.

Ooh, I love the idea of the plastic storage box cold frames!

Re. compost, @Cathpot,have you a decent indie nursery nearby? The one I work for (north yorks) would deliver compost in bulk at pretty reasonable rates - depending what yours is like, they might deliver a van load of bags, or might be able to send out a tipper truck so you can buy compost or manure/topsoil in cubic metres. It would work out cheaper that way and will be what they do for landscapers.

@SarahAndQuack
Good suggestion- I will look into that. I have a horse poo supplier, just not compost. It didn’t rain today which was so lovely but so windy. Not sure there will be any blossom left on my plum trees. More peas have popped up today so I put copper round them in hope.

SarahAndQuack - I’ll report progress on the storage box cold frames. I was a bit reluctant because, well, plastic but being stackable and keeping out slugs will (fingers crossed) be huge benefits. Some baby antirrhinums are now spending their first night outdoors …

Storage boxes work pretty well, try to dig them in a bit, and put a brick on top. If you have storage boxes that have a crack in (inevitably they end up with at least one bashed corner especially if you've used them for moving house) you can turn them into planters. I'm growing potatoes in mine.

Do you think you could put plastic boxes over salvias over winter ? Mine die each winter and although I love them I think I may have to admit defeat.

No harm in trying!
Storage boxes not designed for outside use are liable to photodegrade and become brittle, so store them out of sunlight when not in use.

Yesterday was wild and windy, today is calmer though forecast to rain again in an hour or so. I've got to be in for a delivery but I nipped out to fill some modules for another batch of cosmos which I've just sown - an earlier set of seedlings were nearly all beheaded, so that tray has been expelled and hopefully the devourer with it.
Might go and deadhead the primulas and primroses at the front. They seem to be doing really well this year.

I’m not sure about storage boxes for salvias, simply because they might not be tall enough for chunky plants. Have you tried making/buying fleece jackets for them? I grow a few salvias in big pots for summer and tucking them up under fleece seems to help (and the plants get tougher as they get older and woodier).

Of course the rain began the moment I stepped out of the door... but fairly gentle so that little job is done.