popular What have you done today in the Garden?

I am getting ready to head outdoors and dig potatoes. I harvested a ripe pumpkin and a butternut squash so far. If I find anything else ready, I will grab them also.

There are several pumkins out there but not yet ripe, and loads of those bird house gourds. I looked it up, and the internet says the bird house gourds are edible but have some toxic things in them, so they are not recommended. Some sites say they are okay to eat, and others no... I need to look up when to harvest them, and if pumpkins will ripen off the vine or not? There are nasty gray cucumber/squash beetles in the main pumpkin patch, and I HATE using poisons. I don't want to poison my bees and butterflies and other pollinators. I guess the birds are not seeing them.

Okay, so I can pick the unripe pumpkins and put them in a sunny spot to ripen... They are well shaded where they are, so I will find a sunny spot for them.

 

Weeded the edge of this border, trimmed the edge of the grass and cut it with a pair of scissors, the shears were too heavy at the moment and watered the polyanthus.

 

I left the lawn sprinklers on for an hour this morning as I knew it was going to be very warm. Our soil is a bit sandy, being alluvial, as our houses were built on what was at one time the Mersey flood plain and until the sixties, farmland, so it's very free draining.

 

Still trimming and a mowing and a mulching. Have more piles of trimmings to mulch from today.
The temps have been in the 100’s and high 90’s the pastures are so dry.

 

Sprayed the Himalayan blackberry’s coming back after eliminating them earlier this year.

A rechargable 1gallon sprayer is a game changer. Easy to use no pumping and it’s easy to get those weeds that pop up in the middle of plants . It offers a pressure control from drip soft thru normal, as well as the ease of carrying a small container around. The easiest sprayer I have ever used… There are several sizes to choose from.

 

I did more weedeating. The grass needs mowing AGAIN !!
Then I moved a mound of dirt. Nine wheelbarrow loads and dumped it all in the ditch. Every time they remove the sticks and garden debris from the ditch they take dirt with it, so much so that the ditch is way too wide and deep. It was an ideal spot to dump the excess dirt into.

 

Deadheading this morning, which is always a pleasantly satisfying garden task. Quite a job as I haven't had a chance to do it for a good few days recently.
Also picked some Plums.

 

Nothing today it's raining but only light rain, which is good.

 

Nothing here today, either.
It was laundry day, then the shopping and then it rained.

The blooms on the hydrangea that was on "sentry duty" outside the front door had faded and I'd replaced it with this heather. But it won't be flowering for quite a while.




But I had to go into B&Q for some DIY bits and these mini Chrysanthemums "followed me home." They were only twelve quid, but I did need to buy a bag of compost to be able to move them into a much bigger pot, which would still fit inside the big Apta ceramic one.

The did look a little a tiny bit droopy, although the compost was damp,. B&Q aren't very good at keeping their stock well watered. But I gave them a feed and plenty of water so they will recover.

 

Loggie- that border looks pretty nice to me. It is good that you are able to begin using your hand again. A wrist can sometimes take a while to heal thoroughly.

Did loads of deadheading and cleaning yesterday…and harvesting.

 

I've been trimming and pruning. I got my lemon tree which had a lot of die-back from last winter's snow storm. When I pruned it this spring there wasn't much left to it. It was rather lopsided. It put on lots of growth so, it needed thinning and water sprouts removed.

Then I pruned the bamboo, removed leaves lower than my head and 4 big fat canes I can use for bean poles next spring. I see about 8 more that will be fat enough and tall enough to remove in a couple months. Those I removed for poles haven't leafed out yet and are this year's growth but, not withstanding, they are tall, fat and sturdy.

After that I trimmed my jasmine again !! I swear it grows a foot a week !! I started trimming my apricot tree but it stared getting too hot so, that's for later.

 

Annie— It is fun reading your posts about things that to not grow (well) here. You’ve been busy, mate.

 

Thank you Sjoerd

 

Sjoerd, absolutely awesome tomatoes...yum

 

Did some more weeding and trimming the grass edge on another border, hubby bought a new pair of shears that are a bit lighter so that i could use them, needed a new pair anyway because the old ones went rusty.