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 ❤️

Dug up three potato plants this morning and I am covered in sweat, panting, running for shade. And before I was dressed (to be honest I'm still not dressed😄) I was chasing an escaped chicken around the garden. That may be all I do today.

We were expecting a thunderstorm last night with a downpour. Sadly didn't happen.

God these took some digging out. Can't find the one of me up the top of a ladder, but if it pops up as a memory I will be sure to add the full body fit.

Could you hear the Benny Hill song playing while you were sprinting round?

Definitely not. When I am trying to achieve a task I hold my breath, it is a stupid quirk of mine that is hard to fight. So I was running back and forth and through the undergrowth in the sun for 10? minutes, mostly holding my breath. The theme tune to that might be slightly less jaunty and more passie outie!

In the end we gave up on her and sat to drink our tea. She then somehow slipped back in the pen, so the next job is to find her escape route. Not today.

Uh oh, a Dies Irae then

More that than Benny Hill, certainly.

So today as I lay in my pool floaty, I took a glance upwards onto bamboo bastards roof and saw bamboo bastards berry thieving birds. Except he has 4 and I saw 8.

I sat there and counted over and over again, because I thought for a moment I'd spent too long out in the sun and was seeing double. Yep, definitely 8.

8 berry pinching bastard fancy white sky rats.

And he's still not done anything about his bamboo.

No actual gardening but have just had a mammoth watering everything hour. It’s so hot here today, 35 degrees, the garden looks very sad.

This is an old picture of this hole that kept appearing in my bed, no exit to it though. Thought it was a hedgehog. Didn't have it last year after we had new fencing put in but today I've gone out in the garden and it's there again.

I hope it isn't rats.

Went out to assess today and the hole hasn't been remade but the bed has been dug up.

Also found this ichneumon wasp hanging around, thought it was pretty cool.

We had the black ichneumon wasps about a month ago, our current ichneumons have two bright yellow stripes.

I deadheaded roses, dug out all the lemon balm under my fig, tidied up the gravel and pergola. Fished for duckweed with my granddaughters and planted my 2 new Dianthus Carthusanorum bought at Beth Chatto on Thursday. My garden is beginning to look tidier. I’ve cleaned and treated all the wooden furniture and we bought some garden armchairs from John Lewis. . Think I need some bark on the borders, bare soil is just an invitation to weeds, and all the tomatoes need support and food. But that’s for tomorrow.

Why don't I have a friend like you??

wondered what was wrong with my campunala, decided to prune it, fingers crossed it will flower again.
pruned some salvia
dead headed some roses
i dug out the invasive lemon balm a while ago as well as a verbana, woops, planted a new verbana recently as well as a fleabane plant

Happy to Bee friends 🐝

Going to give everything in the garden a really deep water today and then it will have to fend for itself for a while.

I've ordered a new automatic watering system because the old one just doesn't seem to be working.

I've been looking at DIY tower aeroponic/hydroponic systems and I am slowly planning my transition for hopefully next year.

I've only got a rudimentary idea of what I need, and I'm planning on running it mostly on solar if I can as the back garden gets most of the sun, but that will mean I need a battery that can withstand being stored outside in some sort of weatherproof container that won't be a risk of combustion in hot temperatures.

Keep flipping from this is a terrible idea to this is a wonderful idea. We've no outdoor sockets otherwise it would have made the whole concept a lot easier.

I'll keep my thinking cap on.

Does anyone know if I can harvest the peas in the sweetpea pods to plant for next year?

I think I have successfully managed to keep one hydrangea cutting alive. One hasn't made it.

The rose cutting I took earlier in the year from a bush that is spectacular in my parents' garden has finally flourished and has lots of new growth now. I've taken another cutting from a rose bush that was grown from a cutting my mother's took a million years ago from her own childhood home. Let's see if I can get that to take. It is such an unusual and old-fashioned rose, I am really hoping I can get it to grow.

@MargoLivebetter only if they’re not F1 hybrid seeds (those never breed true from saved seed. Heritage varieties are best to save seed from.

Aha, ok. Thank you @InMySpareTime .

I've just cut back an over-enthusiastic fuschsia magellanica, removed a load of rogue weeds & soil, under all of which I rediscovered a set of steps. I'm now drinking tea and admiring a vase of fuchsias on the coffee table.

New build blank garden about 15m x 11m...
Dug out 18m of new path by hand.
Tomorrow I get to move 3tons of ballast and grit.
Day after I try to lay a patio (whish me and my friend luck, it is our first time...).
And with Monday off I should be able to shift the 1ton of top gravel layer....
(And go back to work on Tuesday for a rest...)

I have moved a small hydrangea, planted a persicaria that I was given and put some dahlias into bigger pots. Weeded quite a bit as well. I’ve got some grasses I want to put into bigger pots too but I’m out of compost now.

Finally managed to tame my giant cotoneaster at last. It had been absolutely covered in bees for weeks, but they have all finished now so I've been able to get it back to a more sensible size & shape. It's now down to next door's garage roof level, and in a reasonable lollipop cum umbrella shape. I also managed to avoid chopping off most of the newly forming berries as well.

Next stop is buddleia, 80% of which seems to have kicked the bucket, so that's going to have to come out altogether I think. It never was a particularly attractive one anyway. V tall, with dark purple flowers that didn't last long, and looked like a mess for the other 11 months of the year. Yes. I've decided - it has to go.

Harvested so many onions that the air was heavy with onion, my eyes were tearing from the onion smell.

Wish I could be so ruthless 😂

Finally cut down the massive conifer in our front garden. So much light in the living room now!