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?

Trimmed the front hedge, cut the lawns front and back and weeded the brickweave on the driveway. I bought a few plants from Home Bargains this morning and planted one of the clematis that I got. Forecast here is wet for the rest of the week so thought I’d better get done today what I can.

Poopy cold day. Could not work outdoors so sowed more corn and first sowing of cucumbers, french beans and runner beans, but in the house not the greenhouse to warm the soil. Now worried about how to keep them warm enough to germinate in this week's weather.

Cold greenhouse. Pretty cold house, come to that! Cold everywhere, cold...cold <whimpering piteously alternating with mad as hell>

My eight year old DGD says "but Grandma, it IS April..."

It really is awful out there, cold, cold and more cold.

im getting to the point of thinking will we even have enough time in the growing year at this rate. I've got seedlings that I sewed in January and they are still tiny. I'm wondering whether to bring all my trays indoors from the greenhouse ...

Too cold here too.

I've sown my sprouted bortolli's, purple beans, sweet peas and 1 sad little seven hills brussel sprout that.
It is the only 7hills to sprout from a precious packet of real seeds that's a year old. I'm really hoping it makes it so I can get seed from it for next year. I'm going to be giving it intensive care for the next few weeks!

I've also sown Seven Hills and been quite disappointed with it. Last year I had a couple of plants that produced only a few sprouts. This year hardly any have germinated. I also grew Brodie which was much more successful last year, and much better so far this year. I love sprouts. And kale. Dazzling Blue is my favourite.

I am getting very frustrated with the weather. A mild, wet winter made my plants start growing too early, and now a cold spring means the growth has halted. I really hope the bees and other insects are coping OK with the changes.

I got about 20 sprouts off my plant this season, which is good considering when I planted it, it was a cabbage. I forgot to pick it in cabbage form so it made sprouts too. When I picked those, I then forgot to pull it up and got several portions of sprouting broccoli from it too. I've left the last of those to flower as the bees like it.

That's a good value cabbage!

Weeded. Finished weeding my white border. I do love the look of a hand-weeded border. Started to weed a claggy neglected border at the back of the rose garden. There's only one shrub there and I can't remember what it is. Halesia maybe, in which case it's in the wrong place. Looking for somewhere to put some rhododendrons which came from seed collected in Sikkim. They'd do well there but don't really fit in a rose garden. Having said that, it's a pretty crap rose garden - roses don't do well here, but I couldn't have a garden without them.
Potted up some perennials that came from Farmer Gracy. They've obviously been in the postal system for at least a week and were completely chlorophyll free. White, they were. But they'll probably recover.

Ooh. I keep seeing halesia on Instagram. I want but I really can’t have, as the garden is overcrowded already.

I’ve just potted some very spindly cosmos seedlings. All my seedlings seem to have stopped growing, maybe in protest at the cold.

I sowed some more kale and weeded my drive. It is bloody freezing. And wet. Really not much can be done.

Planted out ten of my pea seedlings, there are another twenty or so on the windowledge.

I have 12 Brussels sprout seedlings and 7 tomato seedlings germinated, I hope they get big enough for outdoors soon.

I weeded the front garden too, and got DH to rake a load of moss out of the grass, so now the green bin is full for tomorrow.

Found enough sprouting broccoli that was not yet in flower on the perpetual brassica to make a pie for dinner.

Very novice gardener here. Also poorly with a cold and chest infection. Bins day, so whilst pulling the bins out I pulled as much sticky weed and bind weed out of the front border as I could reach and stuffed it all in the green bin.
Back inside, repotted an aloe Vera and all it's babies and watered all my little veg plants that I'm too scared to plant outside yet incase they die of cold. They're in the conservatory on the window sill. I don't think I can call them seedlings now, they're a bit bigger. One of my courgettes even has flowers already.

It’s brightened up here. Planted nerines and picked bunches of tulips for my house and a friend. Found some wildflower seeds and chucked them around. Then inspired by GW on Friday divided some heleniums and day lilies that did not look very impressed !

Oh, thank you for that! Gives me the excuse to do the long neglected job of clearing my study floor.

Had a sort out in my office so I have space to sow a few seeds indoors.

Nice day here so I sowed parsnips and the season's first sowing of lettuce.

Have potted up nearly arrived dahlias, geranium album and 2 skimmia cuttings and a choisya cuttings.

Took batch of cuttings including clematis early sensation, sedum, hebe, snap dragon, Lady Emma Hamilton rose and verbena.

I can’t do much because DH is still faffing about with the patio in the back garden, the shed’s being delivered tomorrow and he wants to sort out the area behind where the summerhouse will go. So far he’s come across 5 toads, carefully removed them to the other side of the garden, umpteen snails and slugs and a barrow load of copper beech leaves from the blasted unkempt, overgrown hedge 200 yards up the road 🫣
My dahlias are growing reasonably well and my cosmos seedlings are looking a bit more healthy.
Roll on getting the slabs and sheds done by the end of next wee, then I can crack on with the borders.
I may just have ordered a Alexander Duchess of Kent rose, quite possibly the most deliciously scented rose I have ever seen 😄

@MereDintofPandiculation you’re welcome! I’m supposed to love gardening, so I should be happy not wracked with guilt. And it’s still bloody freezing so today I went birdwatching instead.

Pricked out helichrysum apricot rose and ammi. Planted out oriental greens (needed the space in the greenhouse).

Potted up the only uchiki kuri and the only Crown Prince that germinated. The kuri was the single success from 2 seed packets, and yet they did very well last year. The Georgia Candy Roaster was a complete no-show.

I'm not bitter. Well yes I am but I know I started them pretty early, although I have been careful to keep them in a propagator. Lots of other squash have come up like the little soldiers they are. Thelma, Victor, Burgess Buttercup, crookneck summer squash, Queensland Blue, patty-pan.

First picking of asparagus today. There has been some slug action.

And I mowed. Always the mowing.

Always the mowing 😀

Why, when it has been such terrible weather for growing things we actually want, are these conditions absolutely perfect for the growing of couch grass?

Loads here too. And some new weeds I’ve not seen before which seem to love our new climate!
everything is growing so fast but getting seeds going this year is hard work

I think the one thing in life I'm happy to be sexist about is that mowing the lawn is definitely a job for Mr Dragon.

If this rain keeps up perhaps the best crop for farmers this year will be rice!

I’ve just watered my greenhouse babies, and potted on some zinnias. I lose a lot at the potting on stage, never know how firmly to press, so I tend to leave the compost loose and they fall over. any tips?