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?

No gardening ... after being rained in yesterday, we went for longer walk than we'd intended along the canal, entertained by several stops to listen to birds with the Merlin app on... recommended on another thread and exactly what we've wanted for years. The birds definitely know it's spring... and there were a couple of swallows swooping over the water. Windy but warm enough to have coats off and bare arms once we got going.

I turned the compost. Living the dream ( I actually am)

I can’t turn ours because the slow worms are breeding in them 🙄

Oh wow! I wish I had slow worms in my garden.
However, I do want to get on with the compost! A little mouse jumped out which was sweet

I'm jealous ... we had to get rid of our compost bin because of rats. I think they may have gone now (neighbour found a lot living under his shed), I must remember to broach the subject with DH. Would help with our competing for brown bin space.

I spent a couple of hours today in pleasurable pottering - planted the plants I bought at an open garden on Sunday and shifted a few things around. I’ve just used the last of daughter’s nail varnish remover getting Sharpie off plant labels, ready for reuse. Feeling virtuously thrifty!

Oh and we’re obsessed with Merlin here, too. MrJekyll heard a swift today.

Out of harrumph mode today. Huzzah!

Planted potatoes, potted up chillies.

Blue, one of the Slugs, stepped into my propagator when I had the lid off.

To DH: "Blue left a paw print in my seed tray!"

DH: "I think you'll find it is a Blue print."

Jolly joker.

I am impressed you have named your slugs.

I am not bothering to do veg seeds; I'm going to buy it all from work once the frost risk is past. But yesterday was lovely and I got a good couple of hours weeding. I have a dark red tree peony that is making me really happy at the moment - it's smothered in flowers and they smell lovely.

I have mulched part of the garden with bark and I really need to remember to do the rest. I've never done it before and it really does make a difference with weeds, doesn't it?

I am impressed you have named your slugs. I think you’ll find that it’s a generic term for her dogs, or cats, or teenagers.

I can’t name my slugs, as there aren’t enough names. It’s worrying that I haven’t seen my resident frog for at least a week - the slugs were (I hoped) his or her diet of choice.

Indeed, Slugs Blue and Maudie are sibling moggies from a too-young farm cat, so slightly stunted but good mousers. Doug is the tall and handsome yet soft spoken 'leader' of the Slugs who eschews leader status and sleeps like a doofus.

Potted up cucumber and North Georgia Candy Roaster squash (some more finally germinated) and, of course, mowed. Just the allotment though.

Two back to back stunning, sunny days here ❤️❤️ I moved all the seeds out into the greenhouse, which is now like a tropical paradise, thank goodness. Those poor plants have been in suspended animation for weeks.
Weeded, tidied, staked, lots of jobs I've been itching to do but it's been too cold.

I also despatched about 50 red lily beetles!!! I hate them, I can rub along with most pests but they are sooo destructive.

Gorgeous day! What a day to pick as my first day off work this year, feeling smug. Mowed the lawn (it’s big, no ride on mower sadly) , bought growbags and compost and found a £1 fennel plant on the dead rack at Homebase which works beautifully in my kitchen planter.

Sowed some sunflowers, dill & coriander and emptied out some pots, ready to receive the Sarah Raven “bargains” I got in her “sale” today. “” because they are just normal price once in the sale.

I’ve been getting to grips with the paper potter. I have several - they’re the ideal Christmas gift for the keen gardener, doncha know - but rarely use them because the paper seems to act like a homing beacon for every slug within miles. But, I’m determined to move on all my seedlings and have run out of small plastic pots, so needs must.

I’ve been prowling for lily beetles. I haven’t found any yet, but they’re the one exception to my no kill policy.

Weather still cold and grey and my seedlings still aren’t growing . I did buy a couple of tomato plants which have flower buds on but that’s currently the highlight of the greenhouse.

My tomatoes are getting a bit too big to be indoors! Do you think they'd be ok in a mini greenhouse? I think temps will get to about 5/6 overnight in a couple of weeks according to BBC weather (sigh, they are much higher before that).

I bought some tomato plants, they've been out in my growhouse through the recent couple of frost nights and are ok I think, @ChaoticCrumble.

Alerted by this thread I checked my lilies yesterday evening...arghh, they were fine at the weekend but now one has quite a lot of holes. I found three of the red ravagers.

No other gardening yesterday, we went to Martin Mere WWT - lovely sunny day (I noticed a faint tan line when I took my watch off ) and so much birdsong. (Well... not all of it song. Honks,quacks, whistles, barks and screeches too)

Not quite enough sun for a tan line here, I'm still paperwhite from the winter.
Forecast is 21C here today which will be nice if it actually happens.
My tomatoes are barely at true leaf stage, but plenty germinated. Hopefully I'll get some good swaps for them.
I've accumulated a network of people who swap various seedlings to mitigate the "all or nothing" germination issue.

I have weather envy now. 9degrees and heavy rain here and more of the same for the rest of the week. At least it means I can’t mow the lawns.

I have a three-ish hour window today when it will not rain and I could plant the last of my kale. But the bed is full of forget-me-nots that I would be clearing first (I let it fill the beds in early spring and only clear when it is time to plant; it works well at reducing weeds and is easy to pull out, I don't dig it out). But I know the forget-me-not plants will be very wet and I will get very wet clearing them... No.

I do need the space in the greenhouse. The kale seedlings should/could be outside but we have so many pigeons, the kale would not last long. I put the kale plants outside the door of the greenhouse the other day while I worked inside and the bloody pigeons came within minutes.

"I'm right here!" I screamed.

Maybe I will fashion something with netting.

@DougAndTheSlugs i think we may be twins. I have sacrificial forget me nots and nigella, just clear a space when I need it. So today I will be planting out some peas, which are fat little plants and potting on some tiddly tomatoes . I have grandchildren descending at the weekend, so need to get my garden stuff done.

I’ve just been hassled by a pigeon to serve it lunch. Birdbath had nothing in it except water, unacceptable.

I went out with ancient grain posh roll.

I have sacrificial forget-me-nots, alpine strawberries, and early dog violets (Viola reichenbachiana)

I've never sacrificed many of my forget me nots in the past, but may do to plant out some seedlings (lychnis coronaris and perhaps the larger cosmos so far) before we have a weeks holiday else they may dry out in the growhouse. We're bringing the break forward from the week after next as there looks to be a bit of decent enough weather in some parts of the country for a while but then rain again.