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've been out to have another look at the buddleia, and some of it looks salvageable, at least for this summer so the butterflies can enjoy it. We can be ruthless with that one another time.

Meanwhile, the neighbours are complaining yet again about something else that needed cutting back weeks ago and which we've not done yet. But that was because some dim-witted wood pigeons decided it was the ideal place to build their nest. They've gone now, so when it is cooler in the morning, that is next for the chop. I don't think NDN realises that this tree is self-sown and the trunk of it is actually on their land so isn't my responsibility. But I'm damned if I'm letting them come into my garden to get at it. They can't reach it at all from their side.

This weekend:
I cut the spent heads off my hydrangea.

I potted up a tray of geraniums that I got for a discounted price when I popped into a local Tesco for some milk.
I cut the spent heads off my lavender bush.

I deadheaded roses.

The surviving hydrangea cutting is doing well and my second rose cutting also seems to be doing ok. Fingers crossed for that one, as I really like the idea of a rose from my mother's childhood home growing in my garden. My mother was a child in the 1930s and my current house is 1930s, so it all fits together really well.
I did some more training along the fence of the tendrils from the honeysuckle I planted last year.
I hacked back the ivy that has been going crazy over one area of the fence. I like it but it was thriving a bit too much!
I think my sweet peas are pretty much done. They have been a huge success. Definitely doing them again next year.
One of my dahlias is going to flower. The one that was and is ravaged by insects and looks at death's door has 5 flower heads on it. The one that wasn't ravaged and looks healthy and lush, has no flower heads!
I fed all the pots.

It was lovely and I enjoyed every minute of it!!!!

OK I've been away from this thread for a while because I have been watering, and other things.

Like getting my foot broken. Am wearing a quite awkward boot to help the bone heal. Also quite bruised. So watering is a flippin' pain and I have come to hate the steps up into my back garden.

However, I am back out in the garden and have noticed some of the squash are finding it difficult to set fruit. The babies all just drop off. It's happening with the candy roasters and the Atlantic Giant. Could be the plants are stressed with the hot weather but I have a lot of uchiki kuri babies grown into teenagers. Just saying.

Gosh I hope your foot heals soon.

I've not tried to grow giant pumpkins but I have avidly followed a lot of American accounts for a few years for the giant pumpkin festivals and the attention and care they require is insane. They do get heat stress quite badly, and also need a lot of energy so the tendrils need encouraging into the ground so more roots can grow from the auxiliary nodes, as well as plenty of feed and rooting hormone and some other bits they like to keep secret. Their stems also thicken quite fast so need straightening out otherwise they get stressed and split too.

I really want to give it a go but I haven't been confident in our weather or having time to tend to them as its a multiple times a day job.

Everything in my garden is dead. Been in an ME flare and decorating has been my priority when energy has allowed. Popping off to the DIY thread to moan about how I've had an allergic reaction to some emulsion today.

Sorry to hear about your issues Jimmy. Everything dead???!! That is truly horrible, never mind metatarsals.

The giant pumpkins grown for competition are far off my league. I saw someone with a ten pound garlic too! No desire to do that sort of thing because I would need a lot more knowledge than I have. DGS and I wanted a BIG pumpkin though and it looks as though that isn't going to happen.

Have just watered the needy this morning because we will be out most of the day. Best wishes for non-reactive emulsion 😯

I think the allergic reaction was entirely my fault.

I wanted smooth feet so a few week ago I used one of those foot peels, but its left my feet looking like I've got leprosy, so I bought this mild body chemical exfoliating stuff and used that on my feet and legs on friday, huzzah, lovely smooth skin instantly. Didn't consider that it would leave my skin sensitive. Then I got paint on me and that's when I had the allergic reaction. It's the same paint I've been using for weeks and it's not the first time I've had it on me.

Today my leg is fine, I've just slept like a log from the antihistamines.

The only things that have survived are my strawberries and wisteria. I'm going to pull the onions today as they have stunted from the heat, but everything else pretty much crisped up one night despite watering. It's one of the reasons I am looking at a tower hydroponics system for next year instead. I was on the fence about it all but I am just going to do it.

Sorry to hear you've not been feeling great @Jimmyneutronsforehead . I hope you can at least enjoy the strawberries!

Bad luck on the broken foot @ILikeDungs . Hope it doesn't take too long too heal.

Someone talk to me about ants!!! If I stand still in my garden for more than 2 seconds, ants start to wander over me. My garden furniture is covered in the buggers, they are EVERYWHERE!!!! I'm not keen on chemical insecticides, as I kind of think that they have a job to do. BUT is there anything that will deter them, so I could at least sit on my garden chairs without being covered in them?

Other than the pots and specific plants I have planted and therefore watered, everything else has now taken on the appearance of the desiccated planes of barren Greek islands in August. All the grass I painstakingly and carefully planted in the Spring has died. Even the well established areas of the lawn look decimated. I can't bring myself to water grass when we are so short of water in the South, so I do wonder if it can revive itself. Thank goodness I am not a farmer trying to cultivate crops.

Bamboo wankers bloody pigeons have upped the ante.

They keep coming and shitting on our pool cover, so when we lift the cover off any wet patches spill into the pool so then we have to spend time and money sorting that out.

They've never been bothered before and have just suddenly taken a massive fancy to it and I know they are creatures of habit so this is going to be a nuisance for sure.

I moved our scarecrow to right by the pool but it has just provided an extra perch.

Also found their pure brilliant white feathers in my strawberry plants with no strawberries to be found!

It was already a difficult summer. Too hot. Having to water constantly. A foot injury making watering more challenging. It can't get worse, can it?

How about...NO WATER.

The village has no water, since early yesterday. We get a dribble out of the kitchen tap, would take a few minutes to fill a glass. The loo is upstairs; there is no pressure to get water up there at all. In this situation it seems wrong to worry about the plants I suppose...but of course to me it is my job to keep them alive. This is horrible.

The water company has just updated with "Our teams are continuing to investigate the cause" FFS

I do hope you get your water back soon.
I have decided to let some of my plants die because I can't justify watering everything. It's sad, I have invested 100s of hours over 4 years getting the garden as I want it but hopefully some of the native perennials will regrow when we have some rain. I am on a chalk and flint hillside that just drains immediately.

The water came back at 2:20. I have been busy saving lives since then! But like you hussie I can't save them all.* *I am done in for now and have to do the hydrangea hedge and rudbeckia tomorrow.

I didn't realise how I could be so close to losing everything, with seven water butts. But when the water went off two just happened to be mostly empty. My greenhouse tomatoes chillies and aubergine can empty one butt at a go almost. They have to be done every day in this weather of course. And I didn't know how long it would last so wasn't sure how to ration. AAaarrrgghhh.

Panic over for now. Sadly I have sacrificed the Atlantic Giants. They were not happy anyway and repeatedly dropping their babies. I think they were too far from the main action so I didn't get to them enough. There's always next year.

I've put some stepping stones down next to the beehive so I can access it better. And I've planted some camomile lawn plants around the stones to eventually fill in the gaps.

Happy flying ant day!

We used some of the pool water to water some of the dead plants and there's some signs of life returning.

Completely unable to use the pool. Gave it a whirl and ants just kept landing in it and on us.

Our peonies and dahlias out front are hanging by a thread. We never water them anyway and they are usually fine with reaching for deep water but since we've removed all the brambles there's just no shade from the sun on the soil so even though we have been hand watering them, they're getting scorched.

My poor crocosmia, gutted for it. The more I look round the garden the more I know I just need to change tack. These heatwaves aren't going anywhere, I need a better system.

My tomatoes live!

I think they're very stunted though so I will savour the 12 tomatoes growing on them all this year.

The onions have cured, they're on the smaller side but we had some with our tea yesterday and home grown onions just taste so much better than shop bought.

DPs garden died back including the mares tail but it seems to be making a resurgence, but hopefully now it will be significantly weakened so we might be able to spot-tackle it.

The pallet planters I made a few years ago were only meant to be temporary houses for my raspberries and seen as they died and never came back this year I have decided it's time to dismantle those and reclaim some patio space.

We put our new parasol up but it needs some modification to stop it spinning in the wind.

The dogwood that was in my old neighbours garden and ended up resprouting on our side when the new neighbour went concrete slab crazy just won't die no matter what I do to it. I hate that it grows so fast and it takes up so much space in the garden as I wanted to put an outdoor shower there. I love being in the pool surrounded by all my plants but a big issue is me and one of the girls have really thirsty, porous and mildly textured hair that loves to matt and tangle up even when our hair is tied back and it means traipsing through the house and up the stairs to wash our hair after getting out of the pool and I just really want to be able to get out of the pool and wash our hair and then be dried and dressed before we leave the conservatory back into the house.

We've tried everything to kill this dogwood. The only benefit to hacking away at it every year is the free garden canes it provides, which I was going to weave the outdoor shower screens from and plant some evergreen clematis to climb up it and provide privacy.

Right down the corner of the garden there are some really beautiful hollyhocks, courtesy of last year's plants.

I’d love an outdoor shower and I don’t have a pool. Thanks so much for this thread, I’ve been feeling like a monster because so much of my garden is dead. I’ve started watering now, to save the stuff that’s hanging by a thread, but before I was only doing the greenhouse, pots and refilling my small pond which has a not so slow leak. I had to do the pond for the tadpoles. I thought they were all froglets now but looked last night and there are still taddies too. I’m going to strulch my kale and broccoli today. I’ve been deadheading the sweetpeas but I don’t think there’s much life left in them and they only got a few feet up their arches. The leeks bolted, the beetroot withered and I never really saw the lettuce and spinach. Peas are dead, beans are pathetic. Even the acanthus died. And crocosmia is from South Africa ffs. I’ve lost lavender, thyme and oregano, both in pots and in the ground. My borders are a dusty wasteland.

I have been watering a lot, my new paths are finished, and now I have 2tons of bark chip to barrow through to the back garden this week.

@Zebracat my leeks bolted last year and I forgot to pull them up, they’ve flowered and are the best Alliums I’ve ever grown! Covered in bees all summer so far.
I’ve had to water with a hose for the first time in four years, my apple, pear and blueberry plants were starting to shrivel and drop fruit. We’re not in a hosepipe ban area but I don’t like using it unless I absolutely need to. Watered the roots in the evening with a slow trickle hose to minimise runoff and evaporation. Added pine needles as an ericaceous mulch on the fruit shrubs.

All my most recent cuttings have turned up their toes and died on me! I think they don't like the heat, regardless of the watering, so I'm going to pause for a while and try again when it gets cooler again.

Obviously watering is pretty much all consuming! I have so much stuff I want to plant, but the ground is like concrete and I know I'd have to water even more than I'm doing all my pots, which are at least in the shade, so I'm putting that off too for now. I'm trying to reuse as much grey water as I can for watering and as well as using everything from the washing up bowl, I'm standing in a big plastic tub when I shower to use that too. We don't have a hosepipe ban here yet, but I'm sure it can't be far away.

@Zebracat do it!

My original plan was some bamboo screening for privacy, some decorative pebbles and some plastic floor tiles on top for drainage and we have a camping shower that we use when we are camping that you just put in a bucket and it makes the water warm-ish. Not going to pretend it's perfect but it's good for when the weather is hot. I just needed to figure out a way to mount it.

Then I decided I actually hate the bamboo screening idea, and wanted a living privacy screen that I didn't have to worry about replanting each season so want a climbing perennial that didn't mind a bit of shampoo water being rinsed on it.

Our back garden is pretty small but it's square. It fits our 10ft pool and then there's loads of dead/unusable space around it which has just grown weeds and where bamboo wankers bamboo originally shot up a few years ago and we had to dig it all out and it just seemed to disturb loads of dormant weeds into action.

Salting the ground has suppressed a lot of weeds but there's some tough cookies that have survived and dare I say even thrived. They should be easy to tackle, and then I will be laying new membrane, playground bark going down, and then I can tackle the back of our conservatory which currently has my veg plots and I am printing some hydroponic towers as we speak to replace them with. It will mean no more long thick vining veg like squash or pumpkins, but it will give me more stability in heat waves next year for veg.

I am trying to do everything on the cheap and DIY as much as I can, so I may reuse some of the 7ft tree stakes we have to make the posts for our outdoor shower, but I don't want it to look cheap. I want it to look nice, but functional.

Your plans sound solid, Jimmy. Clematis armandii is an evergreen climber, might work for your screening? The leek flowers were lovely but I pulled them up yesterday, couldn’t bear the evidence of my failure. Regret it now.

Ive seen this base for shower that would fit lovely in the garden. Im just trying to find a decent but cheapish trellis that wont rot for climbers to climb up. That's today's job.

Very snazzy. I was envisioning something much more makeshift - bucket on a pulley or a plastic bag with holes😂

Lol, it may end up being that at this rate. Like some mouse trap from Tom and Jerry.

Watered, weeded and planted some kale and fennel.

Back from a short break and all my sweet peas are dead. My salvia cuttings and hydrangeas might just survive. DD did manage to feed and water the dogs however so I am thankful for that!