GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

EssexHebridean

Loving all the great tips on here! Thanks Redo for starting it - it's a great idea!

While our garden might be quite small, we're packing a fair bit into it and a lot of veg and so it's taking a bit of effort. We're also new to the world of actually having a garden - although not complete strangers to veg growing as we had allotments years ago so there is a degree of re-learning to be done! 

Slug deterrents - we're finding some success with the wool pellet stuff (I think Themadvix recommended that to me originally?) which is of course pet and wildlife safe too, and in the past we've found crushed eggshells work pretty well too. 

Main weedy pests out the back are bindweed and creeping cinquefoil - both of which are determined little critters and require regular attention. Also a fair bit of hawkweed in the (small) lawn. We don't possess a lawnmower, but the patch of lawn we have is small enough that it can be managed with shears and a strimmer, so all good there! I also discovered a fair amount of smooth sow thistle when we got back from holiday, and some Herb Robert which just pulls out, so I don't mind too much. The front is mainly creeping wood sorrel which we've agreed we'll leave for now as the yellow flowers are pretty, plus the sow thistles again - and the treatment for those is simply to keep yanking them out so easy enough, if repetitive.

Current jobs needing done on the veg front are to get some additional cucumbers sown I think - we're currently down to one which appears to be doing well, and 1 which is a bit half-hearted but may cheer up. Also runner beans - hoping we're not too late to get those going as both the first batches failed so we're taking it that the seed we have is probably duff. This would be more annoying if we hadn't bought it at the end of last growing season for about 50p. I think we'll try the nursery on saturday to see if we can get plants - he just might still have some - and if not, then we'll need some new seed. The broad beans have succumbed to blackfly while we were away - and are probably a total loss, but we'll see. the dilute soap solution spray is in action anyway. I also want to get the next sowing of radishes and carrots done at the weekend, and probably some more herbs as mine seem to not be doing much at the moment, and something's eaten most of the coriander. 

We have one pot at the front looking a bit sad, that will need some more pretty stuff found to plant in it (if we're going to the nursery then I will have a look and see what he has as his plant babies are excellent quality) - I will leave the ranunculus in place and just cut back though - you never know, they may come back next year. we did a bit of weeding out there on Monday evening so that will be fine until the weekend now. 

kazwookie

I use left over patio paver bricks! I just put the bulk of the brick under the pot, so I can only see the small edge

Brie

happy to have the gardeners coming tomorrow.  unhappy that rain is expected though I know they will often manage to work through it.  I try to think of some jobs that aren't dependent on sunshine (pruning, weeding, etc) but feel sorry for them should it get torrential.  I always give them a cup of tea (well the boss likes tea, the lad just wants water) and if there is excess baked goods at the food bank I'll bring some of that along for them to have. 

(for those what don't know me the food bank gets bread and pastry donated and sometimes there is so much we have no place to store it and can't keep it around, giving it to someone not quite so needy is better than binning it)

redofromstart

Things have been a bit off kilter here, and I've done more cleaning than garden tidying. Some weeding done, and the first priority of watering, but I absolutely must plant out various things and give them a good soak before we go away for a few days.  The Last Courgette is clinging grimly on with one leaf remaining, and two cucumber seedlings popped through.  I think I'll keep them in a big pot for now.

the cat mint cuttings have taken well, a rare success for me.  

greenbee

Greenhouse watering and the rest of the pot feet done today.

I have a spare climbing courgette and a blue banana squash... and about a billion tomatoes - unless I get more beds built at the weekend. 

Broad beans need their tops pinching out (no blackfly, but they've reached the top of the cage) and I'm just hoping they've set seed as otherwise all I've had so far this year is half a dozen mangeout, some radishes (must sow more) and salad leaves (ditto). There was another asparagus fern when I looked today, so maybe the asparagus isn't all dead... although one frond each isn't exactly going to ensure survival. 

EssexHebridean

We did 15 minutes in the garden last night - a bit of planning for stuff to get sorted at the weekend, but also a bit of weeding - some more bindweed, and some of the tough grass that's appearing from round the edges of the slabs we haven't loose-laid properly yet. (Getting three more of those sorted is on the "weekend jobs" list!)

Blackfly plants....sorry, broad beans....sprayed with soap solution while trying to avoid the ladybirds.

Also harvested some more lettuce, and 2 more radishes that were ready to go with a salad last night.

Delighted to see that our three remaining chard plants look a bit happier having had some of the stuff shading them removed - I'll probably factor in a stir fry for next week which means I will remove a coupe of the bolted pak choi plants to pick the leaves off for that - that will help further with the light issue.

We're delighted with our potatoes - they're growing like the clappers, although hopefully that doesn't indicate that they are doing all their growing upwards and nothing below the surface! 

themadvix

I certainly use the wool pellets @EssexHebridean but I can't take credit. And frankly, they've not been enough this year - the slugs are tough devils and I've caught them wandering across the pellets more than once (plus caught the remains of plants where they've still managed to get to them). I brought out the big guns last night and nematoded (is that a verb?!) the allotment. Never done it before so we'll see what happens... I'm just so fed up with the allotment at the moment - weeds are growing like there's no tomorrow, veg aren't doing much because it's so cold (especially overnight) and what is there just gets eaten! Turned up yesterday to find a bird had just pulled all my (remaining, not slug-eaten) carlin peas out - I promptly replanted and have netted now. Sorry, moan over! I have harvested all my garlic now and am very pleased with it - and the lot I netted certainly hasn't been damaged by leaf miner either (not cleaned and checked the unnetted stuff as I only pulled it before nematoding (it must be a verb!).

That's interesting about the cork feet @greenbee, I might investigate them for our olive, which is in a pot and now on our new decking - we don't want the wood to rot beneath it and cork feet sound more stable than terracotta for a large pot.

Off to the allotment again now with a jobs list... at least work has eased enough that I have time to make some progress.

Cherryfudge

Thanks for all the talk on pot feet! I'd not heard of cork ones either but am now wondering if we have any wine corks hanging around. If you are ever short of them, the grass around the Eiffel Tower is thick with them, so if anyone just happens to be there, you could treat it as a garden resource!

My SiL lives in Switzerland and has large tubs of plants which seem to cope with Swiss winters better than mine do with Yorkshire winters. She told me to try pot feet as raising the pots off the frosty soil is key. The fact they get several feet of snow doesn't seem as important.

I forget what day I last updated but I've mown the grass recently. I need to do it again today before the rain settles in. Unfortunately the ground elder is absolutely on the war path and keeps coming up. All I'm prepared to do at present is cut off leaves as they appear in the hope of weakening it and at least curtailing the spread. Largely successful in the latter but some areas I've not tackled for a couple of weeks are definitely staging a come-back.

My daughter has retrieved her Swiss Cheese plant and a tomato plant so there's a little more space indoors. My orange pips haven't germinated yet: I keep checking. I've also started the overdue weeding by the front path, as we had someone come to quote for a new path. I'm amazed how far the border had spread over the old path! (Blush). I need to dig a few things up and rehome them/give away offshoots, and I still haven't tackled the weeds in the pots. However, DH has cut back the front hedge (I can't reach the top) so it's looking better so long as you only look at the top, not the sides.

Tasks while it's dry:
cut grass
attack ground elder
check how soft fruit is doing
weed front garden.

redofromstart

15 minutes of planting out, and 15 minutes of weeding inbetween the rain.

i should have taken my tablets first...

themadvix

Definitely not managing to stick to 15 minuteses here today - allotment watered, partially strimmed (it ran out of cable 🙄), potatoes dug up (not all, but enough to feed us tonight and Sunday), garlic peeled and trimmed and left to dry, plum pruned and plums thinned. In garden I’ve potted on, set slug traps, sown edamame and calabrese, fed toms and berries and tidied up a bit, ready for people coming over on Sunday (you’d like to think we might enjoy the garden, it being June, but it seems unlikely!). Need to mow back lawn, but first need to get blade fixed as it’s rather misshapen after Mr MV had a run-in with a log at the weekend.