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?

Aha,thank you for the explanation@MereDintofPandiculation .
Its a bugger of a thing.

I weeded, cut back and mulched a small area of the rose bed, and placed our new bird feeder there. It was so lovely. Perhaps we should downsize, and then an hour like that once a week would keep the garden in shape. As it was, I felt guilty that I didn’t make a start on the long shady border that’s never worked.

I made my mum a small bunch of flowers from my garden for her birthday on Saturday. It had a sage, rosemary, buddleia and some shasta daisys. She loved it!

Dh mowed the grass on Saturday as well as it was a bit too long to leave for after all the rain we have due this week. I suspect we may have a few more mows before end of season. My dd commented on him mowing as it's usually me. I love mowing as it's quite small and my mower has a box to collect the cuttings. My old mower was easier to use, a hover mower, but didn't collect them and I'd end up with a green dog afterwards 😆 not to mention all the raking up.

I noticed one of the flower buds on my purple hibiscus shrub have started to open! Surely very late as I'm sure it usually flowers in the summer. I saw it had buds ages ago, but nothing happened so thought they'd just drop off.

I’ve got one of those junipers. It’s coming out soon I think.

Beautiful white cyclamen and trailing winter pansies now potted in with the Cupressus Arizonica on the approach to the front door. Really cheers up the space. 😁

In the back garden we have planted a couple of new evergreen shrubs and I have found a space to plant a new choisya which I will buy this afternoon when I pop out. So much is still flowering that it is difficult to properly tidy up, but the bees and other insects are loving it.

I did some weeding and tidying in order to fill the last inch of space in the green bin. It was so satisfying, and gave me a chance to look at what’s working, and what isn’t. Lovely to get a dry day.

So pleased I found this thread! I've neglected my garden all summer after having a baby so everything was a bit wild, luckily it's small! The jasmine had gone really spindly so I gave it a trim and planted some cyclamen my mum gave me, never had them before. While I was out there I was thinking my amelanchier is still looking really thin even after 2-3 years - does anyone have any suggestions to help thicken it?

@Foreverexhausted1 . Welcome. No tips for the amalanchier beyond saying it looks really sculptural and healthy, better that than a hefty beast taking over. They are quite elegant trees.

Finally my bulbs arrived from J. Parker so I’ve planted up a few pots with them.I’ve still got lots to plant though.
We had frost this morning so I’ve bitten the bullet and hacked off the leaves from my Abyssinian banana, wrapped it in fleece and put it in the corner where the kitchen meets the house. It’s very sheltered there but if it gets too cold I’ll move it into the shed.
What to do with my pelargoniums? They look lovely at the moment. Last years went into the shed but didn’t survive.

@BestIsWest for your pelargoniums, you could try doing what I've done, which is to remove them from their pots, shake off the main bulk of compost from the roots, cut off the leaves, flowers and any dead stems from previous flowering and then loosely wrap in dry newspaper and store in crates or big paper sacks eg old Amazon delivery bags (if I have an deliveries in sacks I always save them as they come in handy!)

photo below from some I did last weekend.

I think, if it doesn't work, so what, they'd have gone on the compost heap anyway 😀 I like to experiment and see what happens.

the tutorial I reviewed said the stems will harden off naturally but in the Spring, if kept protected, and planted back into new fresh moist compost, they miraculously sprout from the stems. Can't wait!

That sounds good @daisychain01. I’ll give that a go this year, definitely worth a shot. They are still looking great at the moment so I’m reluctant to take them up!

How were your bulbs? I’ve just had a note saying mine will be with me in 3-5 days - saved me the job of ringing to say “where are they?”

My pelargoniums stay my frost free porch and flower all through the winter

Yesterday I pruned some overhanging roses, collected windfall apples and quinces, harvested tomatoes, watered the greenhouse, cleared out various tree spinach plants that had gone over, swept the floor. It felt like quite a lot

They look good @MereDintofPandiculation. I’m pleased with them. I had tulips, allium, small iris and mixed narcissi.

I’d forgotten that I’d already bought tulips, hyacinths and more allium. What on earth am I going to do with 100 allium in a garden 30 feet long?

@BestIsWest plant some alliums out now and keep some behind to plant in spring so you can have 50 early alliums and 50 late ones in the same space.

With our windfall apples we've made enough to have had two crumbles over the past 10 days and 3 tuppaware containers that are in the freezer. They are remarkably sweet this year, we didn't add any sugar, just some spice and a handful of dried fruit. Nothing quite like apple in the middle of winter!

I've cut back all the rainbow chard, thinking they've probably had their chips and ready for the compost, but lo and beyond some very healthy leaves have formed in the past week, so I'm all set for putting them back in the greenhouse and trying for winter chard. They have a wonderful robust earthy flavour in the winter.

Genius @InMySpareTime!

I would never put sugar in dessert apples that I'm cooking with - are yours desserts or cookers?

All my windfalls are going into apple cake,

Mmm like the sound of apple cake. Is that the one that's sponge with sliced apple on top? I love sponge cake full stop but with apple, even better.

im not sure what viariety ours are, they certainly aren't as big as bramleys, they're smaller and rounder, but the past few years they've been quite sharp -definitely not sweet. Not sure if the tree has matured or something. We're having it pruned and reshaped on Monday, as the branches are all twisted and out of shape, so they can get disease from the branches rubbing against each other (so said our Forestry Commission chap who's sorting it out - he knows his trees!)

Mmm like the sound of apple cake. Is that the one that's sponge with sliced apple on top? I love sponge cake full stop but with apple, even better. What I usually do is an ordinary Victoria sponge batter (the one that’s equal weights of eggs, sugar, flour, fat - is that Victoria sponge?) poured over some pre-softened apples in chunks. If there’s not many apples, it holds together as a sliceable cake. If there’s lots more apples than sponge, I think it’s Queen of Puddings. Sometimes I chuck a clove in with the apples or put cinnamon in the sponge, or use brown sugar not white.

Also make a grape cake which is Victoria sponge with some vanilla essence, half the batter into the tin, then a layer of grapes, then the rest of the batter on top.

Cook till the usual test, of the cake bouncing back if you depress it with a finger tip.

All of these can be cooked in a microwave if I’m short of time. Don’t look so pretty, so dish up as slices on their side, or, for the apple cake, turn upside down so the fruit’s on the top.

or you could be fancy and slice the apples and arrange in a nice spiral pattern in the bottom of the tin, sponge cake on top, then turn it out upside down.

im not sure what viariety ours are, they certainly aren't as big as bramleys, they're smaller and rounder, but the past few years they've been quite sharp -definitely not sweet. Is it possible they’re not yet ripe? Some varieties don’t ripen till December or Jan - you have to pick them unripe and let them ripen in store.

or you could be fancy and slice the apples and arrange in a nice spiral pattern in the bottom of the tin, sponge cake on top, then turn it out upside down. I tried that today. The cake mixture seeped into and under the apples, so when I tipped it out it looked more like a heap of mashed potatoes

Can I ask if any one has fig trees that actually produce figs that successfully manage to ripen, what variety do you have and where abouts in the country are you?

Had my fig tree for 3 years and I thought this year surely is the year as it started budding earlier and put lots of buds out but they're still all small and really hard.

I'm in south Yorkshire and I can't remember what the variety was when I picked it up, but it had a fancy sounding name and I was clearly a sucker for marketing.

I'd love to make some fig tarts off the back of this apple cake chat, and next year I want to be on track to make that happen.

I have an unnamed variety from Lidl (probably brown turkey) that was very productive in the greenhouse. Less so now it's been moved outside, but still a few ripen in a good year if the squirrels don't steal them. Northern Ireland.

It did take years to start producing though.

Take off the buds that form in summer. It's the ones that form in winter that will ripen the following summer.