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

greenbee

Today I have planted the last of the cosmos. With help from the cats 🙄. One piece of staging has been taken down in the greenhouse and cucumbers moved to a huge gravel tray along the back of the greenhouse where they can grow nice and tall. More gravel trays put in down the side for peppers to keep them tidy and allow more water/humidity if it does ever get hot. As there was then space, three more tomatoes have been potted up (although the pots are a bit small - I need to get more big pots for next year). 

Lavenders have all been potted up. I'm not sure they'll like the compost that much (it isn't great, and I really do need to get organised so I can mix commercial stuff to make something better). They also need to come out of the greenhouse soon - so I need to get some more paving down outside the greenhouse so I can set up the portable staging and make it useable. I should also get the shed by the compost heap cleaned, tidied and sorted out so I can use it as storage for things like pots, paper/card for compost, wool for slug repellent, netting etc. But at the moment it's too spidery and I think it leaks. It could also have a water butt on it, but as it's under a conifer, I'll have to work out how to avoid the needles clogging up the gutter/downpipe/butt. 

Anyway, good progress made. Pity the weeds aren't dying particularly quickly. I suspect the rain has something to do with it, so next time we have a couple of days with no rain forecast I need to re-spray. 

Floss

GB, you can get connectors from downpipe to butt, and lids too, but you may need fine mesh over the gutters to keep the needles out.

Sun_Addict

As the weather was fairly decent here today with, shock horror, no rain, I managed to paint the gate to the back garden plus part of the fence that runs alongside the back garden. Looks so much better for a lick of paint. Also picked loads of mangetout and sugar snap peas that are growing faster than I can pick them! Oh and almost forgot pulled up some sneaky weeds that had appeared in the drive. 

Cherryfudge

No gardening achieved today but we went to our daughter's and admired their garden. Does that count? They've made a patio and a raised bed around the lawn, positioned to get the best of the sun, and are now waiting for the garden furniture they've ordered. At the far side of the house they have a cordyline palm which has decided to flower, and olive trees, also flowering. I'm very impressed!

We had so much rain last night that the tomato plants and rhubarb, currently tucked under a cotoneaster, went from probably needing water to having standing water in the saucers, despite their sheltered position.

Tomorrow I should get the houseplants fed.

Cheery_Daff

Plenty of rain here sadly 🙄 But inspired by the open gardens at the local village today, I did get outside for a bit. Patio is temporarily on hold as my back is still a bit delicate after last weekend, so I got the scythe out and tackled some of the long grass in various places. Can actually see the gooseberries now! Not the rhubarb though, that was completely engulfed weeks ago sadly 🙄 Definitely need to move it for next year.

If we do get any dry weather this week I want to finish off the patio, doing little bits in the evenings. Could also do with throwing the strimmer around if it stops raining.

Brie

Attempted to plant out the sunflowers with the OH's assistance which lasted all of 10 minutes before he fell over and injured himself.  No idea where most of the seedlings have gone!!!

Cherryfudge

Oh no! @Brie. I hope he's all right? And I suspect slugs have stolen the seedlings, but perhaps they will turn up.

EssexHebridean

Ouch Brie - hope he's OK!

We seem to have achieved a fair bit over the weekend. Everything that was on the June list in the gardening book has been dealt with apart from sowing some more salad leaves - but I need to work out where those are going as we are out of large pots and I don't have much trough space left either.  

- Sown - more Carrots, bush beans, coriander, cucumbers. Radishes were done on Friday. 

- Bought and sown - Borlotti beans, spring onions

- Bought and planted - Runner beans (plentifully slug protected, so fingers crossed!) plus a tarragon, and also some plants for the front garden, so a summer planting pot which had finished has had some bits added to make it look a bit better. That includes a "hard" basil and a different (creeping) Thyme - so some useful stuff as well! I left the ranunculus in place as there is always a chance they will come back next year, and the aquilegia in there is also staying put as I want it to seed anyway, but that should definitely be all good for next year.  

Also bought two more packs of tall canes - H0m3 B@rg@ins have packs of 20 for £1.99 if anyone needs them - some packs are a bit full of weak and feeble ones but there are some with thicker ones if you sort through. Tomato food purchased - our last bottle was of indeterminate age, had long since lost its label, and we binned it when we moved! 

Garden bargain of the weekend was a blackcurrant from the orange DIY store's clearance section - £2.25, yes please!  Need to sort room to get it planted but we think we know where it's going, and it will be fine in its pot for a while anyway. It actually had a few fruit on it so we were even able to taste-test it! 

Other jobs dealt with:
- Framework built for the growbag tomatoes so those could be staked in. 
- Sunflowers given a bit of extra support from canes as they had flopped a bit in the wind.
- some of the loose laid slabs lifted, ants nests dealt with, grass and weeds around pulled out, and placed back down again - they still need final placement and levelling but that will improve things for now.
- MrEH tidied the grass a bit
- more weeding - just trying to keep on top of that. 
- honeysuckle tied in - it's a sneaky through the fence from next door thing but I'm delighted was it was something I had on my list to get anyway! 

Much discussion about the rebuild of the log store too - and we might even have come up with a DIY plan for that - just needs a bit of further decision making I think... 

Has anyone else found that herbs have been slow to get going this year? In particular basil - I've done three sowings now, and none are going anywhere much fast. 

Cherryfudge

Impressive list, @EssexHebridean! Re the herbs, I've sown coriander twice and got nothing.

Farway

Cherryfudge said:

Impressive list, @EssexHebridean! Re the herbs, I've sown coriander twice and got nothing.

For a quick fix, pop into Asda and buy a growing pot one for a quid, in the fresh herb grocery section, not garden.

It'll soon grow outside, just give it a bit of TLC for a week or so