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 ❤️

This is a first, found at the side of the garage. I've never seen anything this size before. Believe it's a stag beetle, he was huge and gave me a bit of a start. 😆

I have a log pile in the garden and wonder if he was in that.

@BoarBrush is that a blackberry bramble on the right? My neighbour has those too, and they grow through the shared hedge. I have to shove my head into it and cut them back every so often but they always come back. I did try a bit of weed killer on the leaves in spring but it hasn’t done much.

I did hack all the suckers off my overgrown rose, and discovered more than half of the stems were suckers coming from a huge growth off to one side, which I have now sawn away. So it is looking much more sedate now (I inherited it like this, looking at the thickness of the side growth, probably been like that for a decade). I honestly thought some idiot had planted a rambler in the middle of a flower bed initially, but no I think the original rose was a shrub or hybrid tea. Hoping I haven’t killed it, and it might flower next year.

The wood pigeons have finally moved out of my yew which needs a serious trim, so I'm going to attempt that this afternoon. It needed doing weeks ago but the darned birds decided to nest in it, the twits.

Wonderful find - he is a she, no antlers!

They spend a good few years as larvae (up to 7) underground eating rotting wood, so definitely leave that log pile where it is, it may have siblings emerging soon.

Just going through my Google galleries and these 2 lovely pictures came up. My giant cardoon, RIP, but all 4' and 11" of me could not reach the top to trim it down plus it was rooting so dangerously close to the conservatory.

And a neighbours tree during last March's snow storm and the tree covered in it. It's so nostalgic for me, because I've spent all my life looking out of this window every time it snowed and I remember getting the "it's Christmas!" feeling as a child, who didn't understand the passage of time or that sometimes we would get freak snows in spring. Can't take credit for all of the beautiful trees my neighbours have grown, but I am grateful I get to see them whenever I want.

Have started to tidy up my pots and move away what has finished for the year. How’s everyone’s roses doing this year ? Mine are usually beautiful but this year because of never ending rain and wind they are not looking great. Something has enjoyed eating most of the leaves too. I’ve just given everything a feed and hope the next few days of warm weather revives them.

This evening I’ve picked sweet peas, dead headed roses, and planted a couple of perennials I bought to fill in gaps in a herbaceous bed. The apple tree in this bed is determinedly ’June dropping’, so it’s covered in more tiny apples than I can be bothered to pick up.

I need to water the greenhouse tomatoes.

Oh it's Ms Stag Beetle not Mr.

Thank you for the info Agapornis, every day's a school day. Xx 😀

Yesterday I emptied all my pots of dead box bushes. Planted some bedding plants. Had a tidy and a sweep around. Today I planted a few more bedding plants and watered a few dry pots.

We've been pulling out the brambles that were intertwined with our roses and our pom pom tree (not actually sure what kind of tree/shrub it is meant to be).

We're only about half way done and I know we'll never be rid of them for good. The front looks so naked now.

I am looking for bed space for 18 tomato orphans that have been given to me. I have already started and planted out 14 of my own, but hey. Free stuff!

Cut the grass.

I bought a very pretty osteospermum plant, a lovely soft blush pink called Marshmallow so I've put into a bright blue pot, I also planted a poppy that is from some seeds I chucked about last year. It's a red one, quite small so I will collect the seed and hope I will get more of them next year.

Fed all the pots with Tomorite and did a bit of deadheading.

I'm going to try to poppy ice cube hack next year.

Have also seen a cornstarch mix for carrots that seems too good to be true but if it works then it sounds like a game changer. I've got a few bare spots in the garden so might just try that. Only issue is they're in my unfiltered compost bed so I know they'll come out wonky even if they do germinate well.

I’ve been picking morello cherries. I’ve got a good crop this year, and they are much easier to stone than in any previous year, it’s bizarre - the stone comes out cleanly almost every time.

And my Perovskia has exploded, I’m going to have to cut it back, which I haven’t needed in the past.

And I’ve discovered a lovely pale apricot foxglove has seeded itself in the front. I haven’t grown them for years so I don’t know where it came from . Funnily enough ordinary pink ones seeded themselves in the back this year, for the first time, too.

DH has spent 3 days hard pruning the eucalyptus
I've had to move all my pots, hanging baskets and furniture from underneath..I put the branches through the shredder. Where have you had wind and rain anji2011? I'm east Sussex,10 minutes away from the sea,had showers yesterday,then it was 28c ,so it dried up really quickly . I had a good cherry crop... Stella,they were over at the beginning of June. Every day around 6am,DH is watering (I do the greenhouses) and I'm dead heading. It was 18c, overnight, going to be hot!

Have already had to erect a hessian sail shade for my uchiki kuris this morning. How will they cope on the even hotter days to come I wonder.

Weeded. Tried to tame the Russian vine somewhat, to keep it out of a tree. Added more support for my heavy hydrangea flower heads. That hydrangea hedge should be glorious this year 😀

Made a refreshing drink from garden produce.
Peppermint, blackcurrants and raspberries steeped in boiling water with a bit of sugar and left to cool.
I love this bit of the garden year, everything is growing furiously and I can graze the garden for free snacks whenever I want.

Ate my first blueberry. Not quite ripe despite being blue, it always takes longer than I think.

The hydrangea is looking the best it's done since I gave is a bit chop five years ago. Lots of flowers, not too heavy.
Fennel is about to flower too.

The hot May sun and then two weeks of rain has been perfect for my garden, everything is looking really lush. The grass hasn't been this tall and green in years!

The pollen is killing me. The antihistamines are double killing me.

The final things in pots and trays have been transplanted into the garden or their final big pots. I have also taken advantage of the heat and washed loads of plastic pots so they can be put away for the next use. I have more to do but I’ve broken the back of that job.

Greenhouse is empty apart from tomatoes and chillies; DH has just had one of the first jalapenos and said it’s very hot! I have teeny tomatoes appearing.

I’ll feed everything tomorrow but I’m done for the day. Have picked some fresh sweet peas for the kitchen (pinks ones on right are perennials, which have been really prolific this year, the annuals on the left are very scented).

Half an hour ago during my slug and snail hunt, I found Ms Stag Beetle on her back and unable to get on her front. I turned her over and off she went.

That's my good deed for the day then.

Thinned out Pak Choi and beetroot, potted on some hollyhock seedlings (64 of them), tidied up the tomato plants and watered a handful of newish plants that are still settling in

I have spent most of today doing my absolute least favourite garden chore, trimming the front hedge.

I am my own worst enemy - because I hate it I only do it once a year (it’s privet), and so it always needs a major reshape when I do eventually force myself to do it and it always ends up taking hours. Plus I have no more room in my green waste bin and I’m not even finished. And there is more privet in the back, but we have robins nesting in there so I won’t touch that until September (there’s definitely nothing nesting in the front hedge).

Honestly I’ve decided I’m going to get it cut professionally every winter from now on, and hope it then just needs a light trim at the end of summer.

Next year you'll be in hollyhock hell! I only planted 4 last year, and now I have seedlings popping up in the most unexpected of places.

I've just stopped pulling them up now and accepted my cottagecore fate.