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

debtfreewannabe321

Ah thank you cherry fudge, I have to do past the blue stick still that was my measuring stick so I could do one section at a time...I have got up to the two apple trees and want to lift stones and weed around those as well but that can be a winter job really picking out stones and some gentle weeding, we believe there are two rhubarbs in that section too...although need to wait for them to grow back to make sure that's what they definitely are. 
I want to buy some lavender, my last one died, I think my mistake I cut it too far back...so it is on my list to get for next year

SuzeQStan

Did some hard pruning on leggy lavenders here as well Cherry back in September and think most will make it bar one that cut back to old wood. 

Is it too late to set cuttings from the bits you have in your vase in a clear placky bag/gritty compost on bright windowsill?

redofromstart

Always worth a try - nothing to lose. It's probably my year to replace the drive lavenders here. They earn their keep without fail as they are between my drive wall and the single track road. Actually mine got squished for a 'big fat wedding' episode in the church next door  a few years back.

SuzeQStan

Intriguing!  I need to know more- did the lavenders recover after this misfortune?!

Cherryfudge

SuzeQStan said:

Is it too late to set cuttings from the bits you have in your vase in a clear placky bag/gritty compost on bright windowsill?

I did wonder... seeing as you've mentioned it I could try! I was in the Walled Garden at Helmsley recently and noticed in their greenhouse what was clearly an experiment with rosemary cuttings from different ages of twigs. The semi ripe cuttings seemed to be doing best. I don't think rosemary and lavender can be that different to start, can they? And nothing lost if none takes.

greenbee

Needed some fresh air and realised that it was getting cold and the light levels were dropping, so I've nipped out and cut back the toms, peppers, aubergines, courgettes and squash that are over. The rest of the toms will probably go during the week, and then the compost will be put to one side to mulch borders. There are a couple of courgette plants and one squash still hanging on in there. I harvested 3 padron peppers and two courgettes while I was out. 

Tomorrow's job really does need to be laying more cardboard on the path I didn't finish, and topping it up with a couple of barrow-loads of woodchip as it's getting slippery. And then there is a LOT of scything to be done still. 

redofromstart

The daily window of opportunity is clearly much smaller

greenbee

Cleared the drive of the worst of the leaves this morning, which filled a builders' bag. So that's the first batch of next year's leaf mould started. Then laid new cardboard on the slimy stuff I hadn't got round to covering and covered it with woodchip - so I now only have one back of 'fresh' woodchip left. I may use it to top up the paths.

Tomatoes picked and brought in, tomato plants cut down and put in garden waste. Lots of bamboos corralled into the bin that I've been keeping cardboard in. They all need sorting. Some deadheading of cosmos done (not much), and three barrow-loads of compost dumped on two veg plot beds (we mixed up home-made compost, home-made leaf mould, and commercial compost and the mix seems good) which were then covered with plastic mesh to avoid them being mistake for cat loos. 

Tomorrow I want to clear and top up a couple more veg beds as well as do some scything as I'm running very behind. And possibly rake up yet more leaves. 

ajmoney

I haven't made a start on the leaves yet. Hopefully there will be some light left when I get home tomorrow to start.

ElmoR

Hello all

I like the idea of a fly lady approach to gardening! Especially since we have moved this year and now have a much bigger garden. It's all opportunities/exciting but also a lot of work/overwhelming. It's hard to know where to start, so first job is read back through the thread, pick up tips and see what should have been done in the past few months and needs to be caught up on.

There's a few names here that I recognise from the mortgage free wannabees  Waves to anyone who remembers me. At the moment, our new place has no shed and no greenhouse. My garden tools are in the garage and DH moves them around all the time so I can never find them easily. The shed is therefore a priority! But first it needs a base laid. Have some landscapers coming to do that at some point this month hopefully. They will also be cutting back one boundary of hedges/bushes to a manageable height and laying a base for a greenhouse. No money for an actual greenhouse in the foreseeable future though

Hopefully reading posts and dropping in regularly will prevent me getting overwhelmed by the tasks all mounting up and the garden slowly turning into a weedfest...