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

KajiKita

I have a plan ….

This afternoon I am hoping to sneak out of work 30 minutes early, get home, into my scruffs and out into the garden! Mr KK has been told we are having a takeaway and he’s collecting it - normally my job to ring it through and negotiate all of that, so I will get to garden for c. 2 glorious hours without interruption ….! 🤞

Target: Clearing of sit spot border. Spreading of sterile compost. Possibly planting but at least laying out the pots that need a home ….

There will be a whirlwind!

KK

greenbee

Torrential rain here again, so gardening very unlikely, although plants dug up from my mum’s garden yesterday are being delivered today (and it looks like rather than being planted on delivery which is what I told her has to happen if she’s sending stuff over) I’ll end up having to do them… so they may not survive as I’m not sure when I’ll fit it in.

Cherryfudge

Hello, what a great idea for a thread! May I join please?

I will apologise in advance for the number of times I will mention ground elder. I've spent lots of time in the garden this year, 90% of which has been cutting it back to stop it spreading. Meanwhile most of the rest goes to rack and ruin, though it's a lovely shade of green. Everything is green, that is, not just the ground elder.

I prefer never to use chemicals, though I'm working my way through houseplant fertiliser indoors and can't swear it never goes out of doors. However, I've taken advice on the ground elder and there doesn't seem to be an alternative to weedkiller. To get to that stage, I have to be able to separate out the plants it's grown through and put them in pots... which is why I'm searching the lawn for it most days and simply chopping off leaves. I think I've succeeded in limiting the more adventitious bits, but not got round to digging out and potting up, and that won't happen at present as a lot of the 'keepers' are geraniums which are coming into flower. At least all the mowing has the grass looking better than usual.

There's also a huge male fern which had, at last count, 12 component clumps - that's after I forked and sawed through four that I've given away. It's also now too big to handle till it dies back overwinter.

There's lots of soft fruit, and I'd love to get the garden to the stage where I can grow veg. Meanwhile there are odd pots of stuff being kept as alive as possible. I also seem to be the only one hacking a way through the access lane at the back, which is a bit time consuming, and we're in the middle of a rather long term project to replace our front path (if there's a magic way to get workmen to return calls, I haven't found it).

I'm hoping the weather holds fair today and I can return to the g/e battle.

ArbitraryRandom

LessImpecunious said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

Dug out another 5 bindweed shoots. Starting to have a bit of a problem as digging down to get them out is risking/actually disturbing the roots of my veg. Not sure if there's a decent solution for that other than to be as careful as I can this year and properly cover/smother the beds as soon as the crop is harvested and for as long as possible. Not something I'm going to be able to address quickly by any method. 

From personal experience smothering unlikely to work - they just bide their time and wait until any covering is removed... I lever (rather than dig) out bindweed shoots (ideally as soon as they appear) and as much root as possible with a narrow pointed trowel (any long pointed implement would do), avoids too much disturbance to nearby plants, and over time weakens the plants until they (mostly) give up...

Yeah, I'm not expecting any one method to be the silver bullet; more a combination of stoping them get a toe hold, smothering, and maybe a targeted application (painting the leaves) with something systemic if any do get established (if I need to travel for work for an extended period or when the roots of the surrounding plants are at too much risk).  During the hottest weather I was also thinking about getting my cloches out again... If I managed to successfully cook a tomato in a matter of hours, I do wonder what it might do to bind weed  

At the moment, I'm actually using my hands - easing into the soil around the shoot and using open fingers to 'fork' the soil out around the stem. Main reason for avoiding a trowel is trying to get the shoot out as long as possible, but I also think it lets me be a little more careful/aware of the roots of the surrounding plants. 

For the beds, even 6 months covered will help to weaken the few roots under there compared to not doing so, but I am more and more thinking that for the rest of the garden I might need to completely cover with a thick DPM for a few years, perhaps with a good layer of decorative bark over the top, to at least get it surpassed to a manageable level. Such a blanket (if you'll excuse the pun) approach will set me back on getting the garden I want 'finished', but I don't see a practical alternative given how much of it there is all over the garden. Something I don't have to decide about until after I have the patio and new shed base. 

This weekend's chores:
- Try to identify where to put 20 brassica plugs I'm expecting delivered in the next week.
- Try to diagnose what's wrong with my rosemary. Maybe move? 
- Tidy up my allums/herbs and put any decent looking damaged/trimmed leaves into my freezer stock bag.
- Get the area for the new composter cleared (pick where it's going).
- Poke the local gardener and mention the forecast is dry for a couple of days so he can bring his mower if he's got time to cut.
- Patrol for bindweed (Edit: Did a bit of a more thorough look this morning, with it not being so cold and grey out. Lost count at 10 of the blighters. Some just poking through so reasonably since yesterday, but one or two at 6 plus inches so I obviously missed them for a few days. My middle name from now on shall be Sisyphus )

Cherryfudge

redofromstart said:

Weekly Tasks  

1. think about what you want from your garden, what you use it for and what the barriers are to that.  Somewhere to sit?somewhere that smells nice? Somewhere that looks tidy?  Do you have a budget, if not what do you need to compromise on or womble? Can you pick anything up from free cycle, or local people giving away excess seedlings, or cheap end of season seeds. Can you spend 15 minutes progressing towards that aim?

2. Spend at least 15 minutes removing weeds before they set seed. If you haven't got any then feel free to call round and help me.

3. do you have seedlings or young plants that need hardening off before the big move outdoors? Time to get this going if you haven't already. 

4. Have you got any plants hanging round in pots that really need to be planted out? Make a space and get them in and watered. 

Feed back on what you have done - love before and after photos.
Suggestions for things to add would be appreciated.

1. What do I want from my garden? To get it to a point where the ivy and ground elder are minimal and not in the places where I am busy growing flowers and vegetables (building on a couple of years of fighting ivy, here).
2. 15s of weeding... tbc
3. no.  
4. need to pot on my peppers and sow some more seeds.

KajiKita

Befores ….

kazwookie

Going to follow along, I 'love' weeding!!

Today weeded the roses, emptied water from saucers from pots that tend to dry out, at the moment they are drowning!.

Staked toms plants.

Very first early spuds should be ready next week so may have a rummage around the plant and see what is there.

Greenbee can you put the toms at the end of your drive with a sign 'free to a good home'

KajiKita

Two wheelbarrow loads of ‘stuff’ later …

greenbee

kazwookie said:

Going to follow along, I 'love' weeding!!

When are you coming over?

Greenbee can you put the toms at the end of your drive with a sign 'free to a good home'

People don't really pass the end of the drive (plus I'm always short of pots, so don't want to put them out to vanish), but I will post on the gardening whatsapp group and possibly the FB group over the weekend. 

Cherryfudge

A bit more than half an hour in the garden today as the weather was kind and I didn't have to be anywhere (apart from doing housework, but we won't mention that). The ground elder was, as ever, sprouting anew so I took the mower over the grass, which should at least weaken the onslaught. It just regenerates incredibly fast. I've spent about 15 minutes of my garden time weeding, too, and ruthlessly cut off a scion of the greengage which came up in the lawn.

@KajiKita, what a glorious orange your poppies are!