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.

Fixed my outside tap - it has been leaking around the handle for a while, but with the irrigation system the tap is turned on all the time (there’s a timer so the water isn’t actually running 24/7), which means it leaked much more. Was actually quite easy, and I’m now a bit shamefaced I didn’t fix it earlier.

And we put some steel edging around the flower beds, and I planted out some bare root geums that I had in pots. I have an old flower bed which we are returning to grass (we moved the plants over Easter) and my last job before summer is to dig it over and re-seed it.

I'll start the new thread in the morning. Can't see us filling up overnight but I'll hop on it first thing.

Wet week ahead forecast for us so any gardening I do get done will be very damp gardening.

It’s a drizzly day today which will be good for the garden. We’re off to a lovely garden centre about 20 miles away which always has fabulous plants. DH thinks I’m not going to buy anything. Haha. What are we going for then?

I changed tack and went out into the garden today and pulled up loads of weeds, except they weren't weeds. They were potatoes.

My boot potatoes. Had completely forgotten about them.

Saved a few baby potatoes and a few tiny potatoes ended up getting mixed back into the soil.

I can’t yet call what we have even drizzle, it’s more like being in a damp cloud but it does seem to be getting heavier, which is good. New water butt has arrived a day early so just need to persuade DH to go outside and fit it 🙄

Shorts on my dog walk were a mistake, it’s quite chilly. Time to break out the long pants again 🙁

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/5537036-what-have-you-done-in-the-garden-today-part-9?reply=152655380

I've made the new thread just in case you all get the bug to go outside on this drizzly grey day, but can we fill this one up first please

I put on my long trousers and planted out nine more zinnia, these went in an allotment bed, zinnia Forecast. They are in mixed bright colours so wanted them set apart from the calmer coral/peach/lime ones in the front garden. Also in the allotment today I planted out 15 Mirai Picnic corn. I sowed 120, the germination rate was shocking. My two other sweet corn varieties have an almost 100% germination rate so it's not my method. M. Picnic are the best tasting corn I have ever eaten, hence sowing 120! Very sad.

I sowed zinnia seeds for first time but they are very weak looking, don’t know if anything will come of them.

Never grown them but I recall last year someone on here being very impressed with them.
Are they something commonly seen in supermarket garden sections and places like the Range?

That was probably me being very impressed last year, it was my first time growing them. I started them in the greenhouse, mostly, but also sowed direct. The direct sown seeds were very slow and some didn't come up at all but the others romped away. Apparently they love heat, something we did not have for a long time this spring. That may have been your downfall.

This is one from last year:

I have not seen them in garden sections. Don't know Range. Mine came from Chiltern Seeds.

Beautiful!

It probably was you.

It rained all day yesterday so never got out. Everything is looking so fresh today though.

No gardening for me today. It's a DIY day.

Desperately need to get my new plants in the ground though so if the weather isn't too bad after school pick up later I may make a mad dash with a shovel in hand. Luckily prepared the beds yesterday.

I'm not planting my new artichoke in the ground though just in case it turns out to be a massive cardoon again. Been stung by mislabelled plants before.

Could do with picking up some wood chip mulch before I put that in a pot to keep some moisture in as I haven't got round to setting up an irrigation system for the pots yet.

Have just been for a turn around the garden and everything smells so fresh and green, lots of flowers bursting out.

DH got the new waterbutt fitted yesterday afternoon and this morning it is full! We had a good inch of rain overnight, just what was needed.

I’ll pop out and do some dead heading (what I call lady gardening 😁) later this morning and then we are forecast more rain this afternoon, so I’ll update my gardening notebook with what worked/didn’t work so far this year.

I’ve got some 50 pence Ammi to plant from the clearance section. I’m going to spread them about so they can self seed. I’ll have to weed a bit though to find spaces.The rain has stopped and there is a tiny patch of blue n the sky. My garden is just bursting with roses.

The weather does seem to be picking up, cross my fingers and touch wood.

Maybe I will get chance to put my plants in the ground today.

Stepped out onto the patio and the plants looked SO HAPPY to have had a proper drenching. Though slightly fear we will have slugmageddon tonight...

I deadheaded a load of geraniums as it’s bin day tomorrow and there was space.
I should really rip up a load of geraniums to leave space for the later summer crops, but I’m running a bee-friendly planting workshop and geraniums root really well so I’m saving the big wildflower purge for then. Don’t worry, I’ll still have plenty left afterwards, but this way I can spread the joy and more bees get to enjoy the pollen in more places.

Managed to get my new plants out and found the tiny red Suffolk grape plant I'd completely forgotten about still in it's nursery pot. I've no idea where to put it but I'm surprised it's alive. It's pot was dry and I expect it's not been rained on much as it was under a table.

Got pickled by the butternut squash and now I remember I am quite allergic to cucurbit stems and my arms and face have all come up in hives.

Time for a nice bath to soothe it all down I think.

Said a heartfelt thank you for the rain, better for the plants and for my shoulders not having to lug big heavy watering cans to the end of my very long garden

glad I did some planting yesterday before the rain, spring onions, radishes, sprouts, cabbage and pumpkin. Wanted to plant some Delica or Crown Prince pumpkin but can’t find any plants. Am I too late to start off from seed?

I’ve been away for a couple of days so had a lot of catching up to do Ystd. I’ve done some tidying and dead heading, my peony went over pretty quickly 🙁

I gave all the plants in pots a feed and potted on some seedlings that needed it.

Im really glad it’s cooled off and we’ve had some rain.

This is more bamboo, isn't it? 😭

This bit of bamboo is to the right of my neighbours shed where his big clump is to the left, both next to our fence now but the right side one is new.

The left one, we had to dig all it's bastard roots up.

I don't think this new clump was intentionally planted either as it's in this sort of no-mans-land, technically owned by the neighbour but he doesn't use it.

I'm going to go out tomorrow and stick my phone over the fence because I'm too short to see over.

Just decided to look from our upstairs window.

You can see on the left the bamboo clump he's recently topped for canes and the distance the new clump has travelled.

He's completely fenced that bit of land off to himself.

I want to be neighbourly and address it but this isn't his first bloody bamboo offense.

I don’t really understand. He’s fenced himself out of part of his garden, and more bamboo is sprouting?. Think we need a diagram. But yes, If the bamboo can then travel into your garden, not telling him is cutting off your nose to spite your face

This is my best attempt at a diagram.

I'm going to take a fence panel out tomorrow and inspect it more closely I think.

He has said he isn't bothered about the space there in the past and even asked if I'd just chuck some sunflower seeds over or something to brighten it up because he doesn't go in there, so I'm certain he hasn't unbarricaded his fence to plant a new bamboo there, plus it's overgrown with dock, brambles, sticky willy and nettles.

I'm really hoping my eyes are just wrong and it's not bamboo at all.