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.

Lots of rain AND thunder here, so Stevie Nicks is in my good books.

No, never. I was just thinking I ought to grow some more cress and even mustard too. I think they are very trendy nowadays and called "micro-greens"!

And I now have an earworm, though at least we also had the rain and thunder. Which was a real relief, actually.

I suppose when the rain washes me clean, I'll know. 🤷‍♀️

We're heading to our caravan today, and the forecast is more thunderstorms, so good ol' Stevie might have a chance to redeem herself.

We had rain thunder and lightning. It was incredible. My roses look so good right now. I picked a bunch to take to a friend who did me a favour. @Jimmyneutronsforehead I only like to have edible plants in my veg patch, unless they are really obviously not, like cosmos. Because If I send
Dh up to pick something,I need to be sure he won’t kill us. Maybe camomile?
I felt panicked in my friends garden just now because she has saxifrage in with her strawberries. But she explained they never eat anything they grow, even though they have fruit and herbs and alliums. She does olio too. People are weird.

Yesterday planted out runner beans and sweetcorn. Today planted out my lavender and lupins and filled up my potatoes.

No rain in Central South East! Next job is to plant out my butternut squash swellings.

Another ID please! Would anyone recognise the attached. DH thought he was planting chilli seeds but this is what has come up and is definitely not like any chilli I've ever seen!

Yeah that's a weed. Can't remember the name but it looks like buckwheat, balsam and a willowherb all rolled into one.

Google lens reckons its a Saskatchewan wildflower of sorts possibly persecaria

Thank you so much @Shedmistress and @Jimmyneutronsforehead they are now in the bin!! Terrified of the links with knotweed.

Off to my favourite garden centre today. Hoping to find a bleeding heart. I can never seem to find them, and had no luck with the ones I've ordered online.

I don't know how any gardeners have time or energy to post on here. I'm still pulling sycamore seedlings 😥😂

Edited to say I did plant out my runner beans yesterday, on a ricketty support made from catalpa prunings

Got DH to break up the old fence (ours and the other side of next door’s as we’re neighbourly and they were too poorly for fence installation).
Now I just need to paint the new fence panels, which is a fairly mammoth task as I like striped fences.
Also got the garden sofa set up for summer, trying to make the most of the brief interlude between “far too hot” and “call this a summer?”. About 20-25C would do me just fine.

No bleeding heart. Grr.

Did get 1 pumpkin 1 butternut squash 2 different varieties of tomato 6 runner beans and an artichoke though for £9.20.

Now just got to get them back home and not let them scald in the car!

My bleeding heart is just finishing flowering. It's been lovely. The clematis and the first of the ornamental poppies are out . This is my rambling,looks after itself a lot garden at the best time of year. Loads of greenery,things sprawling and creeping and tangling,flowers all over the place.Loads of shelter for wildlife and for Jericho the cat to doze in the long grass.

Anyone here in London and able to tell me if it rained on Friday? I had to go away for the weekend and didn’t have anyone to water my plants (all in pots). Convinced many will be dead by the time I get back tomorrow and they have taken so much love and work I’ll be rather sad

Sorry, no rain in South London 😭

I spent yesterday setting up an irrigation system, was much easier than expected and didn’t cost much. Would recommend.

Well done! Sounds very impressive.
but oh no…my poor plants…

For reassurance, my newly-planted seedlings survived the bank holiday weekend when I left them unwatered through that heatwave, and this weekend is much more humid than that was.
Your plants are probably fine, and might have developed nice deep taproots looking for water that will make them more resilient through the summer.

If it was only 2 days without water, they might look a bit wilted but they shouldn’t have actually died. I normally only do mine every 2 days anyway (it was only about 28C yesterday and is 20C this morning, so not as hot as at the start of the week).

I have fed and watered everything this morning and got a bit excited when I thought I heard thunder but it was the neighbour’s MG starting up 😩

I have ordered another water butt to be delivered on Tuesday so it is bound to rain before it arrives! Forecast showing rain every day next week but it often misses us.

Planted out the Atlantic Giants yesterday, amongst the sycamore seedlings, and they were way ready for a place in the ground poor things. One was sown by GD, one by GS. A planting hole was prepared by each child in ?November and I went and put them in the wrong holes! GC were away so I had to plant. They have forgiven me 😀

Yesterday I put out my serpentine squash to climb over an arch. This will allow them to hang and grow long rather than curly.

Today I am half way through planting out my zinnias in the front garden. 23 done, 22 to go: Coral Beauty, Oklahoma Salmon, Mazurkia, Lilliput Salmon, Benary's Giant Salmon Rose. Benary's Giant Coral, Queen Lime Orange and Queen Lemon Peach. I have a group of zinnia Forcast to go in an allotment bed. Other people are mad for dahlias, I think zinnias can be just as satisfying and there is no faff with lifting tubers, storing etc. They are an annual, eager to grow, perfect for cut flowers, what more could you ask?

Harvested a load of onions this morning to make caramelised onions. Cooked the onions just need to caramelise them later.

Then just spent 2 hours planting the tomatoes and onions and courgettes that I bought on Monday. Going to give the garden a good soaking later and tomorrow, plant all the remaining tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes that I sowed a while ago.

It has cooled today but it it still stonking out there.

Thanks @Tigerbalmshark and @InMySpareTime it was a pretty desolate scene when we got back - my tomato seedlings/ plants looking very shrivelled and sorry for themselves. But I’m hoping with a lot of water and a cooler night things might look better by the morning. Chilli seedlings looking fantastic- I guess that makes sense.

So much!

Did a trip to the local specialist hanging basket nursery & The Range to pick up bedding plants.

Planted up my final planters with lobelia and begonia.

Planted my leftover begonias in a pot with a young Hidcote lavender to fill it out for this year.

Took out 2 rosemary bushes that simply haven't coped in pots with our exposed western aspect and replaced them with wallflowers.

Painted a freshly jet washed masonry wall with stabilising solution ahead of repainting next weekend.

Shamefully, put down roundup on a large tree shaded bed of weeds that I’m going to mulch and start 20 odd bare root bigroot geraniums on. Some things I just don’t have time for with kids/FT job and 1/3 of an acre and weeding a horrible totally infested bed is one of them.

Did my usual Sunday liquid feed & deadhead of all the roses.