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

greenbee

I've ordered those four. And a fig. And some more blackcurrants and gooseberries... Together with the other tree deliveries I'll have a busy couple of weeks ahead of me planting!

kazwookie

Anyone seeking fruit trees, I've just seen some in the hallway area of tesco, £7 each, 2 for £12 bare rooted.

greenbee

I've already ordered mine... 

Today's planting is crab apples, a pink hawthorn, a mulberry and a thornless blackberry. It's bitterly cold, so luckily someone else is doing the planting!. 

kazwookie

Bitterly cold this way as well.

I have weeded quickly about 10 weeds, I'm back in now.

redofromstart

We have had snow and then hail here so far today Greenbee and Kaz so you have my sympathy

I talked myself into going to a proper garden centre this morning (and Dobbies, but that doesn't count, closing down sale and just tat left) and got nine Lady Christl first early seed potatoes.  This garden centre sells them loose at c£3 Kilo compared to the £9 kilo bag of the online ones I had looked at. Added bonus that you can choose the nice sized ones.  They will either go in the big pots or in one of my new raised beds.

It was an eye opener looking at the prices of things so I need to focus on propagating things myself, but also I have a better eye for what is actually a good price when I see something. 

There are some useful discount codes on Topcashback for T&M at the moment.  I used the 15% off for my raised beds purchase which stacked with members discount plus the cashback tracked and has paid out today, even though the beds only arrived yesterday 

greenbee

Must remember to measure my beds to see whether I can fit any raised bed frames round them.

My trees have all been planted, just the mulberry to do. Lots of garden waste moved/binned/created and set aside for next time. Fence repairs are going well. 

Cherryfudge

Very cold here but I'm still delighting in seeing bulbs come through. Nothing coming up in the pot of Pheasant's eye narcissi, which is a shame. I found the top of one of them that I'd obviously not planted deeply enough, but I think it's rotted even though I made sure they all drained okay.

Indoors, I'm fighting mealy bug that somehow got in. I'm washing them off under the tap and putting a drop of oil where I can see them hiding in crevasses. If anyone has tips and tricks to get rid of them completely, I'd be grateful. I've no idea how long to leave it before I can count them as gone. One plant has produced a second crop which I've washed off again, so I know this may not be soon.

EssexHebridean

Oh I am SO with you about the bulbs Cherryfudge! We're just seeing colour on our first crocuses - including some of those that MrEH planted into the grass out the front as well - Mind you I can't remember what we have planted where in the garden - so it'll be a voyage of discovery as they all come up! We have identified what we think are probably tulips though... 

redofromstart

I ma glad I made myself spend time doing all of those bulb pots a few months ago, lots to look forward to.  I have some lilies and tree lilies to plant too.  Very few summer bulbs here, and I have to admit that I am tempted by some the deals that are around at the moment for X bulbs for £10 but they generally include something I really don't like (like gladioli, or really bright oranges and yellows) so I am currently resisting.  

A brief trip to our new H&B this morning, which has a garden centre and actually noted some prices:
Compost (Levingtons) £3.50/40 litres (I aim for 10p or under per litre)
Manure - Levingtons £4/50l
Top Soil £3/30l Westland
Bark (big bits) £7/90l
Bark (smaller bits) £5/50l

I have six large raised beds to fill so could be useful for me, although I will probably stick with the nice chap in the village as he puts them in the car for me, and I would rather a small business had the profit.  Vague plan to mix compost/top soil/manure for the bed filling mix, although this may depend on establishing if the cement mixer is still functioning as it has been under a tarpaulin on the patio for many months now.  If it isn't then I can have the scrap man collect it so a result either way.

Far too cold and wet to be doing anything outside here - the soil is soaked even if the rain stopped long enough to do anything.  I did do some major trimming of a random broadleaved evergreen shrub that self seeded on the patio years ago, now six foot high and wide.  He was leaving it in because it would have screened have screened his motorcycle store from anyone nosing over the fence.  I have always disliked it, so yesterday most of it went into the two green waste bins.  I did end up soaked but at least todays paid for bin collection wasn't wasted.

EssexHebridean

Life's too short to live with shrubs you're not a fan of redo - good work getting it gone. Also good work reminding me that we are approaching the end of the paid for year for the garden waste bin and I must make the effort to scout around for anything more that can go in it before the end of next month. I think  we've decided we're going to hold off renewing on the basis that we may not get enough use from it - it's only been out a handful of times this year - and when we DO need to get rid of stuff, likely to mostly be finished tomato and potato plants which we won't compost due to the blight risk, we can buy the bags that the council also offer and use those. 

Those prices on compost and manure are useful - we found that about the best of what we were using last year was  the W3stland reduced peat one which was available at 3 x 50l bags for £15 in Bee and Emm, topped up with the even cheaper one from Lil's which did fine for just bulking up the levels ion the various beds. There will be less of that to be done this year but we'll no doubt still end up buying a few bags of that too. Manure we usually get from our favourite garden centre so will probably continue to do that as IIRC it was about the same price as the one you've mentioned.  I need to check my list for where we got growbags from as well - we found them very good, and they were very cost-effective. From memory I think they were from HB.