popular What have you done today in the Garden?

No reaction from my Covid and Flu jabs.

Did what I wanted to do in the shed and garage and also cleaned my leccy golf trolley. It usually just gets stuck back in its back after playing, but it looks in real state next time I open the bag and I say to myself, "I must give this a clean when I get home," and then don't.
I also hosed down the bag, inside and out and hung it up in the shed to drip-dry.

I've been watching the football on TV. Later, I'll cook our usual Sunday dinner. It's a thick steak shared between us, which I'll cook on our Ninja air-fryer, which is foolproof. "It tells you what and when to do it." Served with fried mushrooms and chips.
We enjoy it so much that my wife suggested we have on Thursdays as well!
I'm not going to argue.

 

Pine needle war is still on…always using the trusty battery op blower to blow them out to pasture and mulched. Also blew the pine needles off & around the water holding tank and another area. Then removed more debris from the garden beds for winter and mulched.. Piled large branches from the wisteria and buddleja along the dedicated area to block the deer path into the garden. Mowed the pastures. The hay grass is really green now that we have had some minor amounts of rain. No deer or antelope scat anywhere in the pastures. Or dirt mounds from ground critters. Checked the critter traps and nobodies home… thank goodness. That generally means not many are sticken around .

Put some mice bait under the barn foundation and inside and around one of the outbuildings. Trimmed up a few branches off the ground and dead branches off a couple rhody’s. Trimmed back a 4’’x14’ tree limb off the cherry tree along with smaller end branches and stacked those up. Added some rock in a couple of path areas. Then mulched the fallen leaves from the white paper birch trees. Been cracken the whip to get everything done .

 

After my carpet cleaning, I did a bit of "garden housework."

Mowing the lawn didn't take long, but collecting fallen leaves took forever.



There were a lot of worm casts on the lawn, which is always a good sign.

 

Daniël— what a posting mate! It was one of those that I kept looking at again and again. Looking and re-reading.

First of all— great harvest. It was sumptuous and varied. You are going to run out of storage room for your harvests if you are not careful.
I am sensitive to space because I have no more space in the freezer. On the pantry shelves there is some room left for the jars of applesauce that still must be made.

Anyway, back to your harvests and further garden work: the Japanese squashes I have grown. My space is a bit limited and my Bride is not enthusiastic about their flavour. We have to make choices, so they have fallen off the list. I still enjoy seeing them though on other gardener’s plots. The colour alone is attractive.

The Solar Flare iris though— is that a bearded iris? I have some iris plants that are meant to be planted deeply and thus, not have their roots exposed. Could you tell me more about these iris plants of yours?

I always enjoy looking at the nodules on my bean plants when they are finished and I lift them to be composted. Sometimes I collect it and toss it into the compost Dalek or rough-up the roots over the bed from whence they came for the leafy plants that will be rotated into that bed the following season. We do not leave the roots stay in the soil usually because it is so difficult to schoffel the upper layer of soil. It is also difficult to min-til and rake the bed level with the roots in situ. The tines just hang up.

I read that you added some of the Rhyzobia to your soil. You realise that that isn’t necessary don’t you? Those bacteria are already in the soil…just waiting for a host to come along. Legumes are the most common hosts, I reckon.

Anyhow the whole process of nitrogen fixation and the symbiosis with the plant and the bacteria is truly fascinating. A sort of Natural miracle, if you will.

The work you do with those roses is also interesting to me. You have a real talent with plant propagation.

It is great that you are planting Tulips for this coming Spring. They will be so lovely. do you intend to plant other things on top of the tulips, so that you will have a succession bloomers in the same container?

Well, you are right to look at various techniques and measures you can implement to make gardening easier for yourself. I get it.

Now then— what I did in the garden today was to pop out there in the rain to check for wind damage from that storm that we had lasting a couple of days. There was no damage, but there were fall apples all over.

During the course of the two storm days, the wind had dislodged a host of apples— good and damaged. They feel into the protective netting and the weight pulled the bottom of the netting loose and there were all the apples, lying about. They had been picked into by the tits, the chiff -chaffs and the Merels (Black birds). Additionally mice and perhaps rats had visited the sudden offering of fruit. I really was not amused. Of course it was my own fault for not making the nets more secure.

We had to throw away many apples; however, we harvested this:


These are Schellinkhouter’s, a race not known well at all outside West-Friesland. We Will get to these gems tomorrow.

When we got home we has some tea to warm up and cut up the last of the Paprika’s for freezing-in. We will also use a portion this evening for supper.

 

Very enjoyable read Sjoerd. Nice info on your experience thru gardening , observant nature of your points and sharing advice with many like minded gardeners. What a charming group . Cheers.

 

Cheers mate.

 

Planted some more polyanthus in spaces where others have died and replanted any crocus that i come across.

 

Another Rinse & Repeat day.

 

I planted two more roses, that were in deck containers, into the ground. This time they went into the chicken yard, near the fence.

They won't need watering there, like they did in the containers. The roots are very deep, so I don't think the hens will hurt them with their scratching.

Three more container roses left to find homes for, then one in the ground I think will benefit from TLC in a container.

 

Nothing yesterday as we unexpectedly had to to attend a couple of medical appointments. Left home at 9:30am and eventually returned home at 7:45pm . Gosh what a day and it entailed a lot of walking ..1 town and 2 different cites and just under 7 miles of walking. Not sure what I can manage out in the garden today, will take things at a slower pace I think. Need to take some bags of fruit down to the community table that has been set up and also round to my older sister this morning...so a bit more walking today.
I will also do some main meals batch cooking that will be easier for my hubs to consume too.
Apart from that I hope at some point maybe to get a few more bulbs planted, but not too worried as it's still early days, especially for Tulips .

 

Nothing today.
There's a lot of fallen leaves from the big acer in the front garden. There'll be even more by the week-end, so I'll attend to them on Sunday, weather permitting.

 

Swept up the twigs and acorns that are once again littered all over the East Patio.

Had to remove some snapped branches from the Lavateras that were damaged in the recent high winds.

Dead headed the Dahlias, Petunias and Geraniums.

Took some cuttings from the Geraniums.

Debating whether to try storing them this year as bare-rooted in the garage rather than pot them all up and house them in the big lean-to coldframe. Does anyone else overwinter them bare-rooted ? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated please.

 

Pac— wow, that looks like serious graft, mate. How are your muscles holding-up?
You work good.

 

Planted some more polyanthus in the borders and a bit of weeding around the existing plants.

 

AH-HH it ain’t nothin mate. Been playing lumberjack for years.