What have you done in the garden today? Part 6

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Something has made a start on my cabbages.

The chives are fully blossomed and I want to try making chive flower vinegar, but I'm torn because they also look so pretty on the plant, and we don't really use much vinegar in our house so it would be a waste if nobody liked it.

Fond memories of childhood where my friend and I would fill a bucket with chives from my mums garden and then go and sit in the playhouse and eat them, then go home smelling very oniony.

Rescued 2 ladybirds from the swimming pool even though they absolutely terrify me.

Pulled up all my accidental radishes as they were too overcrowded to form many decent sized radishes and I'm going to replace them with purposefully planted radishes instead.

Cabbages are so difficult. Ours are netted and the slugs (so far!) are few so don’t know what’s getting them

@Jimmyneutronsforehead I was doing the same with my chive flowers, but mainly because there were so many bees on them. Have you tried chive vinegar before? It is really nice and just adds a little something extra to salad dressing. Plus it's a lovely pink colour.

No I've not tried it before but I saw it on a reel last year and saved it so I could give it a try. I eat a lot of things with sauces or dressings but everyone else in our house likes their salads and snacks plain as they come so there'd only be me using it.

I've got an abundance of mason jars or varying sizes just sat gathering dust because I never use them but I think I'm going to give it a go and next year split my chives so I've got some for looking pretty in the garden and some for eating.

My chives all seem to have died this year, after having potfuls and them tending to spread.

My chives are looking a bit sorry for themselves as well, I think it's too hot and dry for them.

How about chive flower salt?

My garden is a mess. It was my favourite thing about this house, but we needed an extension to move in Mum. The day the build finished, my late Dh had his stroke. I spent two years looking after both Mum and DH whilst working full-time and then looking after DH and working. I never did get on top of the garden.

I lost DH during lockdown. I was pretty much pole-axed. The garden was bad enough then, but it's now a jungle.

I started on the boundaries. I've got the hedges back into shape - even got a compliment from the neighbour opposite! (I'd kept on top of the hedging, but a neighbour decided to help me one day to repay me for giving his mum a lift to a hospital and ruined the shape by undercutting them.)

I now have the hedges cut with the broadest part at the bottom and gradually tapering up. They're not perfect, but I'm happier with them.

DH had built a raised border in front of the greenhouse. It was full of ivy, brambles and weeds and the log fencing at the front has rotted. I've spent the last few days hauling up ivy, brambles etc. I'm afraid that I've also used a bit glyphosate. I'm keeping it well away from flowering plants.

The raised bed still isn't clear, but I'm getting there. I've also cleared a path round the side of the house to the back garden and I've strimmed some areas. I can only manage a bit at a time - I'm 65 with a bit of osteoarthritis in my spine and dodgy knees, so I stop when I feel the back going.

I'll get there.

There are self-seeded viola labrodorica, Welsh poppies (yellow and green) and aquilegia and a packet of love-in-the mist that I scattered last year has produced some bonny blue flowers.

The morello blossom is nearly past, but I see that cherries are setting. The crabapple blossom is also past, but the lilac blossom is ready to open.

I heard recently that garlic chives have white flowers. Mine have purple but I'm sure they taste more garlicky than the normal chives and they were labelled as garlic ones.

Anyway, todays task was to finish the emptying of two of my water butts. I don't know if they'd ever been done, there was a good couple of inches of gunk in the bottom. I tipped them over and left them over night, gave them a couple of rinses with the watering can then left them to dry - perfect weather for it. I brushed whatever I could of what was left and put them back in place. It sounds like a quick and easy enough job but when you can't bend it's a bit more of a faff. I had intended to get the hose out and do a proper job but that was a step too far. I'm pleased it's done though and am looking forward to the rain now.

I also cleaned the gutters as much as I could with a bodged thing and have made a couple of tennis balls from chicken wire to go at the top of the downpipes in the hope of keeping the water in the butts a bit cleaner in future.

Oh. I like this idea.

Hello @WearyAuldWumman , I've seen you a lot in other departments where I'm under a different name or two 🙂. It sounds like you've made good inroads with all that you have to do in the garden. Aches and pains are such a bloody frustration, aren't they. My garden is full of self seeded aquilegia too, some are quite ugly (IMO) but some are just lovely. They are such good fillers and the Welsh poppies are lovely pops of colour but I do try and cut the seedheads off so they don't spread too far (ha 🙄😆). The foxgloves have just started to open in the last few days too, which the bees are enjoying.

There's always so much to be done but it's good to take the time to stop and appreciate the results of our efforts and what nature treats us to.

It all sounds lovely.

I don't think I'll have any foxgloves in blossom this year, but it should be fine for next year. I do tend to favour the white over the purple, but I like both.

Found a packet of California poppy seeds, I have never been able to get them to germinate but, more in hope than expectation, I scattered them on the bed where I'm hoping some Cosmos and Zinnia may grow.

My Morning Glory have grown incrementally bigger but their leaves haven't opened yet.

@WearyAuldWumman yes, the purple are more prevalent which makes the white ones nicer 😄. I've just had a look out the window, I've got one that looks almost yellow but I suspect it'll be white when the flowers open.

I've finally planted out the sweetpeas. Woo hoo. Lets hope they grow now, the beans that I planted out a couple of weeks ago seem to be sulking even though I hardened them off.

I love days like this - a big list of things to do before a weather event (much needed rain) comes. I am the Miss Wilmott of forget-me-nots today, the seeds are all over me. I cleared some of them out of the border and have planted some young calendula plants and sown blue flax seeds in their place. Fingers crossed they'll do something.

I also planted a courgette and a few brassicas. Cleaned out all the bird baths and feeders and got the buttercup out of a cage thing that's been bothering me for months. Not much on my knees work but my back has fallen out with me even so. Tosser.

Not my garden but I built an arbour seat for the PILs and DH replaced their rusty iron gutter and drainpipe with new plastic (with a diverter for the water butt).
Now they can sit out in the garden all summer and enjoy it in peace.

How lovely!
So many threads where people seem to begrudge doing things for DPs/DPILs.
Hope they do enjoy sitting in the space.

Discovered a foxglove in bud next to the greenhouse.

Trimmed the Berberis now that it's stopped blooming and weeded round about said berberis plus a rose. Fed the roses.

I just watered the plants today and sat in the garden watching the birds.

Saw a house sparrow and I couldn't tell if it was just a really fluffy and fat adult or a really fluffy and fat juvenile. I couldn't make out how it could possibly fly. It was like a sparrow that had swallowed a duck egg whole.

Got flirted with by a male wood pigeon. His mate often waits for him on top of our garage roof opposite the kitchen window where they say carpe diem and put us off our biscuits, but she didn't show up today.

Topped up the bird bath, put some left over seed and fat balls out, and planned a trip to the garden centre for some more compost for this weekend.

Cut the grass. A fairly high cut so the daisies were spared. Strained the nettle fertiliser....jeez,it stinks!
Picked lemon balm
Cleared some of the foliage out of the pond. It's just one big matted mess.

The PILs’ water butt diverter definitely works, the water butt DH fitted yesterday is 1/3 full this morning. Must have been decent rain last night.
hopefully the same is true back home, my garden needs a good dousing after so long without rain.

Cool, damp, and breezy here this morning. I'm already missing the sun but the garden seems to be sighing with relief.

I really need to do a full sweep for bindweed; little bits popping up everywhere. A few other jobs to do too. I'll pull on a sweater and go and make a weekend list after this coffee.

One of my Morning Glories has finally spread its baby leaves. They remind me, in shape, of the wings of a dragonfly. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to put them

Saw the bees enjoying my chive flowers quite vigorously today so I've decided I'm not going to do anything with them.

As much as I'd love to make chive flower salt and/or vinegar I enjoy watching the bees more.

I made my wisteria tree thingy earlier in the week, I need some compost for the plant pots and some of those plant pot wheel thingies because it'll be too heavy to move when it's all filled up. The dog knocked it over though and all my flowers came off.

I had bought some modular obelisks for it prior to seeing the tree frame but I'm going to repurpose those for the very neglected grape vine, although if the tree trellis works then the grape vine might also be getting the same treatment, and they can be natural parasols seen as our parasol lever has broken and is currently being used as a washing line prop, in which case I'll use the modular obelisks for some perennial sweet peas.

Really looking forward to my trip to the garden centre tomorrow, have promised DS we will stop at the dam to feed the ducks and get an ice-cream on our way back.