What have you done in the garden today? Part 8

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

A continuation thread.

Thank you to MereDintOfPandiculation for threads 1 through 6. We wouldn't have built this lovely gardening community without you.

No gardening job is too small or too big to tell us about.

Spring is springing into action, let's get mucky.

I have some new beds (cut last weekend) so am scouring village plant sales to try to fill them up on the cheap! I've got geraniums, gaura philadelphus, lady's mantle, hollyhocks, mexian fleabane, phlox, irises, and some annuals like cornflower, cosmos, sweet william, and calendula to go in. It might end up a bit haphazard, but I can't afford garden centre prices - and I am going for a cottage garden look!

Sharpening my elbows for the WI sale tomorrow morning....

My kind of gardening @WishIWasHibernating , look carefully at the plants you buy as some will be further divisible, especially geraniums, campanula, hosta, iris. Look out for sedums too, you can just snap a bit off and stick it in the ground for a new plant in weeks. And check out FB marketplace for free/ cheap plants. I’m on holiday now , but missing my garden.

Happy belated birthday @Jimmyneutronsforehead. I love an IKEA trip.

Have been ill with a horrible lurgy that put me in bed for three days. I’ve been promoted to the sofa but longing to be out there - I’ve got stuff to plant and I want to move a couple of things. Missed my volunteer day as well and I look forward to it so much, it’s wonderful to see things coming to life.

Took a moment to appreciate some more of our peonies today before one good wind comes and blows them all away. Ignore the weeds. As grandpa pig says, weeds are cheeky flowers that are growing in the wrong spot.

Lovely peonies op. I have some peony bare roots I bought months ago and forgot about. Think it’s worth putting them in the ground now for next year?

I had a good garden day, got another load of carrot seeds sewn, more onions and potatoes planted, after I got the first in a few weeks ago. I have volunteer potatoes coming up where I don’t want them to which I’ll need to deal with.

The pumpkin, squash and courgette plants that went in 2 days ago are looking fine despite a couple of really cold nights. Tonight forecast is 3 then due to go up. I really want to get tomatoes in, my seedlings are really slow so I bought a couple of plants in the dobbies 20% off event the other day. Also got a huge runner bean plant for £1.20 so that’s in too, never grown them and not sure I like to eat them! Also started more lettuce and beetroot indoors, potted up some marigolds, and potted on Coleus seedlings. Also never grown that so unsure whether they will become houseplants or go outdoors. Tomorrow planning to tackle the front garden which is a riot.

Oh and has anyone grown ginger? I have a root that I bought a while ago and having watched a vid online, need to find a shallow container to grow it in and gather it needs heat. Wonder if I can keep it indoors until summer…

I'm by no means a peony expert, but my nan (who planted all of ours some 45 ish years ago) says they need a cold and a wet period to activate and you should leave them very close to the surface.

I would plant them because the worst that could happen is nothing.

They may grow but they won't flower for a year, sometimes years, and they really don't like being disturbed at all so where they go is where they need to go for good. They don't do well in pots, well not round here anyway, because they like consistent ground water whilst also not being too soggy. They are really dramatic plants but so beautiful once you get them right.

I love lady's mantle. Raindrops look so pretty on it and i like the lime green blooms and unusual shape of the leaves. I remember Adam Frost talking about how alchemists used to use the beads of water on the leaves for their alchemy

The only thing I’ve done in the garden today is to collect up the bits of a broken clothes rail, that have been shoved in a corner for months, and taken them to the tip.

I saw on social media that people were putting spring onions roots in water to regrow. Been meaning to try it for ages, and finally got around to it. I put them in one of those blue and white bowls that you get pate in. They did indeed grow! (Apparently some of what you see on the internet is actually true. Who knew?) They fell over and grew all curved, up the sides of the bowl, so I 3D printed a thingy to hold them in place so they’ll grow vertically. I’m pretty pleased with it. They’re growing fast, too!

Finally back having got past the Error 404 message!
I had an experimental go at making peony jam yesterday with success. I only had 4 heads from a dark flowering one this year as the builders are still intent on throwing bags of sand on any borders, but I am pleased with the 4 jars I got from it. I thought I would mention it as I know most of them will be passing their prime and someone might like to try it (long winded way I came to think of it after watching Storyville's The Mistress Dispeller in China and they have a peony festival with peony cakes which got me googling). I removed the petals and steeped overnight with 1 mug water per flower head, squashed the petals through muslin in the morning (no longer than 12hrs). I did a rough recipe of 1 good mug of sugar to every 2 medium heads, and 3 tablespoons of lemon. It is a wonderful golden magenta colour and tastes a lot better than it smelled when steeping and cooking (quite woody).

Well I know what I'm doing today!

I hadn't seen your picture yet either! It is definitely the right time for them to be put to use and my friends are all keen to try it, so quite fun!

I know the woody smell you mean. When I tried that magnolia wine last year the smell was... undesirable and unpalatable. But the syrup used to make the wine with was amazing.

Shame I haven't made any this year. I haven't had access to any magnolia.

I transplanted my Bowl of Beauty into the ground from a pot this year. Lots of leaves but no buds so I’m assuming it’s sulking.

At the start of the next thread, I will post some of the recipes that have come up across the boards for anybody who is interested in trying to make any of them. I've saved your post Wipeywipey, and I'm really excited to try it.

If anybody else has any interesting recipes from their own gardens and would like to share them I am starting to collect them ahead of time.

I'm not clever enough to make a link tree so depending on how many we get the opening post of the next thread might be quite long.

I am just raking some weeds and I've mangled this one up, can someone reassure me that isn't the stem of the knotweed please 😭

Doesn’t look like knotweed to me. Where the leaf is attached at the top is a different shape to the knotweed leaf.

Thank you. I just saw the speckled red stem and thought oh bugger. It is the bed closest to the fucking bamboo neighbour, who also has bloody brambles coming through now. He's got this patch of almost no mans land, but it is definitely his land he's just fenced it off, and the stuff growing in there is so dense I can't tell what's what so really panicked that knotweed had made it's way through.

Just sat minding my own business in the garden when this brave beauty kept making it's way over to me. It got about 3 foot away from me, waited a bit and then took off. Felt like a real princess.

Oh! I love blackbirds. My favourite bird. Where I volunteer we have some very cheeky robins who monitor what we’re doing for worms, tell us off if we’re not working fast enough and sit on the tools, wheelbarrows etc. one landed on my hand once.

Done nothing in the garden for days as just too bloody cold and windy. I'm just leaving it to hang in there until warmer weather comes.

Jimmyneutronsforehead

Is it hogweed?

The last of my dahlias has sprouted! I’d just about given up but a shoot has appeared overnight.

I think it was a dandelion-type plant looking at the other stems of surviving weeds in the garden. It had very dandelion looking leaves but hadn't got to flower yet. I might never know for certain but we've no hogweed nearby so although I can't say no for certain, it doesn't seem like it would be it it was the only one locally. Thankfully was wearing gloves anyway.

I have tidied the patio, potted on about 8 salvia cuttings, new pots for 3 rose cuttings and planted some cosmos seedlings that have not done very well this year.
Think I might mow the lawn after dinner.