What have you done in the garden today? Part 9

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Welcome to part 9.

We love hearing about all of your gardening adventures, purchases, tips and tricks and very worthy boasts about what has gone well for you, as well as all of the behind the scenes bloopers.

We're well into the growing season, after a long wet and windy start to the year and a fast and hot spring.

We also love hearing about what you've made from your garden forage.

We are just about out of peony season, but this recipe was beautiful especially in a sponge cake, mixed in with a glass of lemonade and with my morning yoghurt and oats.

Wipeywipey's peony jam (soft set, syrupy) recipe:

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).

for a firmer set

per 1 head of petals, 1 cup of water
Steeped in freshly boiled water for 10 minutes- a large French press works
Brought back up to a boil on the hob
Add 1 cup of sugar per head of petals (or a full bag if you use 4 petals), reduce to a simmer and gently mix in the sugar until dissolved
Add 2 Tbsp lemon juice
Add 2 Tbsp pectin powder, seived in slowly
Bring to a boil again for a minute or 2
Let cool just enough to jar up safely without burning your hands.

We are also out of magnolia season, but if I can find the magnolia syrup recipe for drinks, mead and wine, I shall post that once I've found where I got the recipe from or the book I wrote it down in. It's very similar to Wipey's peony recipe, with optional additions like ginger and spices.

Please feel free to share any of your garden favourites ❤️

Please can we fill up thread 8 before starting this new thread?
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/5497253-what-have-you-done-in-the-garden-today-part-8?page=39&reply=152654573

Planted 30 leeks in the allotment, we are due rain tonight and most of the week. The dry and sunny spell has put on a lot of growth in the veg, but I know once it gets wet the slugs and snails will be particularly hungry!

No sign of any rain here! (London)

Have been at work so nothing done in the garden today - will need to go out and water when I get home.

We’ve been away for the past 9 days & was very worried about the garden, especially the pots but apart from a few droopy plants all have survived & the garden has exploded into a jungle.
Thankfully the rain arrived here (Somerset) about an hour or so ago & it’s much cooler so everything should revive.

Rained all day yesterday and never got to the garden centre so literally did nothing all day. Thanks for the new thread. I’m off to volunteer at a project to restore an old garden this morning. Highlight of my week.

Rain! At last some rain - in fact bucket loads of the stuff last night with roads flooded this morning. We've had barely anything since the end of March and my local water company had started sending out messages asking people not to water their lawns and stark warnings of a hosepipe ban pending.

I've been unable to dig or do proper weeding because the ground had been like solid cement and my poor lawn that I worked so hard on was turning into a brown dustbowl.

Quickly checked my water butt before I left for work this morning and it is full again - hallelujah! I know it will probably rain every day now for the rest of summer, but I just want to record this moment of rain drop happiness!

Checking in thanks for new thread.

Went to the garden centre today and forgot to sedate before I elate.

Ended up with big puffy eyes and sneezed so hard it was a gamble between plaiting my legs or covering my face which I did not win.

Bloody lilies are starting to bloom, my sworn enemies.

Went for some wood chip mulch, and was so desperate to get out I've forgotten to pick a bag up even though I paid for it at the till.

Oof @Jimmyneutronsforehead . That’s horrible. But I bet if you go back and explain they will believe you.
I’m trying to do at least one thing every day, because it is all running away from me. Today, we emptied and cleaned the shed, did that calculation about how many pots I need to keep, answer - at least a hundred less than I have. Started to clear the weeds from the paths and margins. I just dont know how people keep such tidy gardens. Tip run and more weeding tomorrow.

I did ring and they asked me if I still had my receipt but I wasn't given a receipt, and I paid cash as well so no bloody proof of purchase there either.

Paid 10 pounds for that bag of mulch and all it got me was the most expensive wee I've ever involuntarily had.

That is truly shit customer service. It’s so unlikely that someone would ring up with a story like that if it wasn’t true. That’s the kind of stuff that makes me dig my heels in. I would be sending a beautifully polite email to the owner/ chief exec, explaining that I am disabled and experienced a medical emergency mid purchase, hence leaving without the mulch. I would tell them that you are a keen gardener (with a social media presence?), and a regular customer at their store. But I’m petty.

An admission from thread 8 hit home:

Zebracat ...but my patch is productive again, or would be if it wasn’t for the slugs and my inability to remove self seeded flowers

I had procrastinated as long as I could, then simply had to rip out many beautiful self seeded calendula, poppies, nigella and foxgloves to plant my dwarf french beans in one of my beds today. Aaaargh it felt horrible. And in truth I left loads of flowers, telling myself "if they get in the way later I'll take them out".

I feel like a monster

Oh @ILikeDungs , I did something truly appalling today. I was weeding the path margin which is full of crocosmia, nigella, violets daises and forget me nots. And as such a perfect hiding place for slugs and snails. I’m afraid I found some slug pellets, put them in a bucket with water and then added every one of the slimies I found. I’m mortified, I never kill anything. And now I’ve got a bucket of poisoned Slugs to get rid of. But I’d made a gorgeous big bed, filled it with kale, broccoli, courgette and pumpkins, and there is nothing left but the odd stalk. And a massive patch of oxeye daisies and perennial cornflowers. Maybe I should just let it be flowers.

They're not my favourite garden centre. They're a big one but they're not a franchise or anything as far as I know. They just get away with it because they're big and cheap.

They've done some shady stuff before like charge me twice for things, their tills are from a pre-scanner era so someone stands at the end of the till shouting prices out and someone at the till rings it up and you have to sit with your receipt and double check they have got it right which often they don't but as soon as you leave their doors they deny responsibility for it.

Hampsons world of plants in Durkar, wakefield if anybody is local, you'll probably have had this experience.

We go there because they have a fairly cheap Cafe and ice-cream stand so if you're out for lunch and a mooch round a garden centre they are good for that, but my favourite local garden centre is Horsfields at Pot House Hamlet in Barnsley if there's any one else local. It's small and they don't have much in the winter season because they grow most of their stock themselves and only buy in seasonal stock buy they always have something new and unusual.

Reighton nurseries at Filey is my absolute favourite though but we only get there when we go up to our caravan at the coast. 9 acres of heaven and a fresh bake stand for sweet and savoury pastries and drinks and a nice outdoor seating area and it always tastes better when you're on holiday.

Well I do love the cornflowers. But I'd say, don't give up. Be your plant's champion and kill those slugs and snails with the zeal of a mother protecting her babies. Develop your inner killer instinct!

Ok, that may not be you. Buy Strulch? It has helped me deter the slimy pests in the past (not so troubled by them atm). Lay beer traps. Look for the eggs and bin them.

My kale and cabbages get eaten by pigeons. I was tired of constant netting so I didn't grow them this year.

That does not sound good. I’m glad it’s not your favourite garden centre. I can’t go to my favourite charity shop anymore, because last time I went the female manager asked a male volunteer to help hang a picture, and he said “what are you trying to do” I laughed and said , “ooh avoid that phrase with women. “ He went bonkers, said he’d never been so insulted, that I was abusing him, he was ranting and raving. It was so weird. I felt threatened and I left. I really intended no offence.
@ILikeDungs Thank you. I’m going to forgive myself, and buy some replacement plants. And I can get down the path now to maintain them. How do other people deal with snails? I have a pond, lots of frogs and birds.

And yes to Strulch, I’ve ordered some.

Managed to mow my lawn between rain showers today (got half of it done, then it rained for about 2 minutes, ran out and finished it, rained for another 5-10 mins, weeded, then it rained properly so I’ve gone in. Poor DS had a very late dinner tonight! (He isn’t bothered)

Weekend plan is to dig over a bed - we moved all the actual plants out into a new border by the fence ages ago, and we are going to sow lawn seed but haven’t gotten around to it yet. So now we have a bed full of self-seeded fennel, poppies and dandelions, plus the never-ending green alkanet.

There is also a very sad looking rose in there - it is clearly ancient (certainly pre-dates us), and is mostly suckers. I really don’t want to dig up a healthy rose but equally it looks more like a bramble, snags me every time I walk past with the lawnmower, and the only flowers it ever produces are dog rose flowers on the suckers (there are “normal” stalks too but they don’t flower). Do people think it might be salvageable?

A note to say thank you to all of you.

I lurk and love!

I'm finally getting out to mow!

I may be some time.

I’ve just done a bit of weeding today, and snipping bindweed stems to pull off later. Got stung by a nettle!

Planted a hydrangea, bought it with blooms which were starting to wilt so I pruned the blooms after putting in the ground and have put cuttings in rooting powder and into some ericeous compost hoping to get another one or two shrubs out of it

I put strulch under my strawberries , courgettes and broccoli and snipped off all the slugged fruit. Weeded rather indiscriminatelyPulled the over planted grasses out of half my wildish bed, so I can put some new plants in. Picked lots of raspberries blackberries and cherries. I’m going to make a compote.

Picked some strawberries today. They were a lot more tart than I expected. Have also reseeded some patches of grass that had been destroyed by dog wee and not seemed to recover.

No movement from NDN on the bamboo front. He has been made aware of it, and says he'll "have a look" but that was a good week ago, and it's gotten bushier since then.

We have moved.

The garden is a modest size but has great potential. However , at the moment it is terrible!

I am not a gardener. I kill everything, but I really want to learn.

So today I cleaned it, put up reed fencing, cut back the weeds, and planted ferns that a neighbour was throwing away.

I plan to implement a suggestion here - lay cardboard and cover with mulch to try and improve the very impacted, dry soil.

Why did nobody tell me how tiring it is??

Plus - my hands hurt.