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 ❤️

I tidied around my pond yesterday , and planted the last of my bargain plants. Today I’ve been tackling a section of the sunny border which was a jumble of weeds. I found 2 achillea and a carnation in there, so I’ve given them some space and some support! I’ve ordered seeds from Amazon- collections of flowers and veg , so I must prepare a seed bed and space in the green house for any that can be planted now. Need to get onto the veg patch next, but it’s all a bit of a mish mash. I’m not a clear a bed kind of gardener, I’m a work round the nigella and cornflowers and forget I already sowed lettuces in that bare patch type. Don’t stake till your achillea are totally prone amongst the weeds. I would love to be more organised.

I’ve planted out some things that have been in pots for ages, echinacea, geranium, stipa tenuissima, Japanese anemones and a small orange thing that I’ve forgotten the name of. I’ve pulled up the last of the sweet peas and some verbena boniarensis which has self seeded everywhere. I live it but there was just too much. The soil is still so dry though.

The wildflower mix I chucked around everywhere was pretty heavy on the poppies, but they’ve all finished now so I pulled them up. I also harvested the seeds from a couple of alliums and cerinthe. I really need to do some more weeding.

I pruned my box caterpillar and realised I need to spray him again asap for box caterpillars. The universe is messing with me.

Still waiting for more rain to do anything meaningful. We had the two rainfalls last week, which were obviously great, but not that significant and you'd never know we had had them now.

I've managed to keep the small bits of planting I did alive, but I know that the surrounding soil is too hard and dry for the plants to be spreading their roots as they should.

I have really loved the warm weather, but I am so sick of lugging my bloody watering can around every evening - sorry to whinge. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the potentially heavy showers on Wednesday and Thursday that they are talking about for the South comes about!

I had some work done on my chimney today, so now that’s done it can rain as much as it likes!

I feel the same about watering the large number of pots that I have. I've already started emptying them out and told someone yesterday that next year I will definitely not be having anywhere near as many for next summer.

They laughed and said they bet I will have forgotten I said that by next year and will have just as many again then.

No, after this summer and the time it was taking, I don't think I will. 🙄

Does anyone know, when I’m taking seeds from wallflowers, do the pods need to stay on the plant to fully dry out, or can I snip them off whilst they’re a bit green and let them finish drying out indoors?

If they've started to go a bit brown and duller green you should be fine just bung them in a paper bag to finish drying out.

Thanks @Jimmyneutronsforehead. There are quite a few starting to go brown, so I’ll bring some in and see how they go.

On Tuesday I went to the local garden centre with a friend and surprisingly, I didn't buy any plants but I did buy a pack of tulips, white ones, a six pack of wallflowers and a tube of luxury foot cream.

Friend bought a lovely Penstemon and another Salvia.

I went to Aldi on Wednesday and bought two pack of tulips, £1.99 each for 10 bulbs in each pack. Compared to the garden centre price of £4.99 for six bulbs, Aldi definitely won the best value prize.

I buy a lot of tulip bulbs from Aldi and Lidl and always found them excellent both for value, variety and blooms.

Actually, I've just noticed, I did buy plants, the wallflowers. DOH!! 🙄🙄

Still remarkably little. We've only had one night of rain so far after all the talk about a wall to wall water bomb and the other nonsense in the news! In the absence of being able to do any planting, I tried to dig the bed that I've spent the summer clearing and other than the top 2 cm, it is still like concrete.

I also want to fill the lawn and re-seed the bits that are just bare earth, but again I can't do that until more rain is forecast. I might go through and do another scarify - although my ribs ache just thinking about it!

Thank you for the post about Aldi and bulbs @Myblueclematis . I've just added that to my list for this afternoons excursions!

I bought some half price plants at our local nursery, my favourite climber, clematis tangutica, a Japanese anemometer to replace one that died, and a plant that had no name tag, meant to ask what it was at the till, but I forgot. We’ve got builders in right now and I’m trapped in the living room with the dog, or I would take a photo and offer it up for your views.. my bamboo took such a battering in last nights storm, looks like Sideshow Bob after a very rough night. Sure it will bounce back. I’m not a bamboo twat though, it’s a clumper and I keep a close eye @Jimmyneutronsforehead 😀

I think bamboo wanker has actually removed the bamboo from the boundary. I can't see it anymore, but he might also just have given it a hard prune so it's below the fenceline where I can't see. His flammable pile just keeps getting bigger and bigger, thank goodness we've had a torrential downpour.

I have no idea what he's planning on doing with his flammable materials though. Last year he was idiotic enough to light a much smaller one on fire and then continue pouring petrol on it after it had already been lit, and his jerry can exploded and the fences caught alight. Luckily or unluckily depending on how you look at it our other arson enthusiast neighbour, the one who told the street we told him never to darken our doorstep again when we did no such thing, was on hand and they managed to control it in a way only stupid men who think they know better than everyone else could. Contenders for the Darwin awards those two. I have no idea how they've made it to old age.

Our dahlias in the front garden have resurrected themselves from the underworld and there are loads of buds showing up now.

I also realised that I haven't seen a single nasturtium this year. I think my nasturtium blight is over. They've self seeded themselves into oblivion and then the drought has finally eliminated them.

Oh dear, your neighbours, puts me off ever moving, mine are lovely.

Went up to my uncles room and got a better vantage point and indeed the bamboo is still there, along with loads of other weeds that keep peeking through onto our side.

I could be an absolute bastard back and plant loads of brambles along our shared fence line but it looks like he's already got some in his no man's land type space and his bloody pigeons would have a field day picking off those berries.

But this to me means he's unbolted his gate surely because how else would he have gotten in there, so he's no real excuse for not being able to get to it any more.

I think if it's not been removed by the beginning of October there will be an accidental 2 weekly spraying of glyphosate occurring.

Our pool has a few leaks in it and I've joked to my family saying I hope it's not bamboo trying to poke through but I cleaned the spot of ground it's on right at the beginning of spring and the floor of the pool was smooth before and now feels like it's mysteriously got pebbles underneath it so I'm hoping that I haven't jinxed myself somehow because it might be the thing that makes my hair fall out for good if it is.

The other option for the bamboo could have been ammonium sulphamate. (Not sulphate, that's something else).
Also systemic, tricks the plant into stopping growth. Absolutely safe. Used to be sold as weedkiller but because the companies producing it can't afford the certification process, it's now only available as a compost accelerator. If you were to look online you would probably be able to find the dilution rates required.
Of course I'm not advocating its use in this way. Definitely not. Be a shame if you tripped on the way to the compost heap and spilt it over the fence.

That's a very good idea that I will certainly not be considering cough cough wink wink.

In other news I appear to have developed a new tic.

😁

Spent the past week aerating the soil in the grass and appear to have opened an all you can eat buffet ready for the starlings before they migrate.

I wish you could hear the noise. The most beautiful chittering.

That's only the front lawn, they're on the middle lawn and all around the side garden too. There must be about a few hundred or so in the garden.

I found a passion flower! It’s not too far from the original one, that I thought I killed when I accidentally cut the main stem whilst cutting back ivy. I’m so pleased!

It’s not in an ideal location, so I’d like to move it, but I’m dithering - move it now, before the roots get any bigger, and whilst there’s still a bit of decent weather for it to settle in? Or wait until spring when it’s dormant but will have developed longer roots?

We mowed the lawn which has mostly greened up nicely after all the rain. I say ‘we’ - I pulled up some bindweed then sat outside with a book as the weather was perfect.

Sounds lovely @AbsoluteHoot!

I forgot my passion flower pic. It’s only small yet, I’m inclined to move it now (well, tomorrow). If it dies I haven’t lost anything, as I’ve already thought it was dead and been proven wrong twice. The original plant (stump) is at the top of the second pic, up by the fence.

I planted sunflowers this year so I could provide sunflower seeds for the birds - today I have watched a squirrel jump from the bird bath to the sunflowers where he/she then gnawed through the stalk top to decapitate the flower head full of seeds which he/she then ran off with. Couldn’t help being impressed!