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

KajiKita

@MissRikkiC, beds don’t have to be uniform - your layout sounds cottagey 😊 The strawberries will throw themselves about anyway 😉

And yes, with weather working on the manure - rain, frost etc the remaining lumps will either break down or become crumbly by the time spring really gets going 😊

KK

MissRikkiC

Thanks KK, that’s reassuring. I probably should have have waited then for it to turn into beautiful crumbly matter before planting the asparagus but they’d been in a box for probably 3 weeks already so I was getting antsy! 

Cherryfudge

I'm watching the garden come back to life: the bird song is exquisite and things are emerging from the earth faster than I can keep track.

A couple of weeks ago I had a freebie dried up pot of white crocuses that a local shop was giving away and stuck them out of doors in the hope the corms would have enough reserves to build up for next spring. Today I saw they have strong new leaves despite being apparently completely dead when I got them. Now I'm off to research whether I should prune (or should have pruned) my philadelphus. It's in a tub but I need to find a space in the soil as it's at risk of dehydrating in a hot spell.

greenbee

Two out of three raised beds constructed. The large ones are quite hard work on my own, but manageable. I need to measure a couple more beds and look for the most cost effective solution. 

Aubergines and peppers have germinated, so I need to keep an eye on them and try to keep them alive!

Cheery_Daff

I've finally got out into the garden this weekend, behind many of you but we're so high up and exposed here that the garden is behind everywhere else - we've only got our first crocus showing this week. 

Anyway, I've cleared a load of dried ferns out of the terraced bed in the front garden, pruned roses, and tidied up all the patio planters near the house. Sounds quite a lot but it actually probably took less than an hour in total (but I didn't clean up after myself so all the ferns are still needing to be picked up). A job for another day!

Little and often is definitely the way forwards 😊

ajmoney

I feel like I am about 2 years behind in the garden as that is the last time I managed any kind of winter tidy up. 
I started with a bit of pruning this morning. It is the wrong time but if I don't it is just going to keep multiplying. My garden bin is full now but I will see if I can do some more later and put it in a rubble sack to take to the tip. 
The garden looks so bare but I am going to try and get some bedding plants in for colour later in the week.

EssexHebridean

Loving hearing what everyone has been up to!

We too have used the improved weather as an incentive to get out and get stuff done!
 
Two metal arches ordered, delivered, built and erected - those now form the start of a tunnel over the path which will during the growing season be used for squashes and beans we think.
Some discussion about how to tackle the planting on the lawn side of those lead to a bit of digging and we now have a strip of dug over soil along the edge of the lawn - it works really well as it nicely defines the curvy path, and by some miracle I managed to get it nice and straight even without using a proper edging tool! 
Two raspberry canes acquired and planted into the bit of land we are claiming out the back - they cost us £6 for the pair so if they fail, so be it! 
Compost bought yesterday - just three 50l bags of the same stuff we used last year so far, but that's a decent starting point. We'll be nabbing some bags of Lil's or Al's cheap stuff to use for topping up the veg beds I think as that's a relatively inexpensive way of adding organic matter. 
Remembered to check the clearance section in the orange DIY place yesterday and nabbed a boisterous looking oregano in a pot for £2. That's currently tucked under cover of the house wall and will probably be planted in next weekend.
Used a £5 voucher from said orange DIY place to get money off the enormous tub of wood preserver/paint we bought - that will deal with the shed and office, the new timber for the extended woodstore and maybe some fence panels as well. It was worth signing up to their loyalty thing as they do seem to randomly send out these vouchers. 
Took another layer off one of the raised beds including cutting through one section as we decided that the bed with the bulbs and pretty stuff in it could stay at its current height. 

We've also started a list of seeds we want to get - that's going to include some different tomatoes I think, winter squash of some description and almost certainly some cuca-melons which I nearly succumbed to last year and definitely am this year just out of curiosity! The KG magazine subscription has done a decent job of ensuring that we have a good amount of the things we really want to grow though - hopefully the suggestion that we might get round courgettes in next months will prove accurate!

The renewal for the garden waste subscription has popped through on email today and we are agreed that as things stand we aren't intending to renew - we could buy the bags if really needed but with luck now things are organised as we want all we'll have to get rid of should be tomato and potato plants plus the odd annoying weds, and those can mostly get piled up at the back anyway. 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, I never did get round to signing up for the orange DIY loyalty scheme (stupid really as I've used it loads lately). Must get on the case. 

I've contemplated investing in a tonne bag of topsoil this year. Not for the veg beds, but for the lawn. No, I do NOT keep ANYWHERE near a bowling green lawn 😂😂 mine is more akin to a tussocky field (which is what it's surrounded by). Doesn't need to be completely flat but it's hard to get the mower over with all molehills and the dips from occasional cow intruder hooves and idiot delivery drivers 🙄 I do try to redistribute molehills into dips but I'm thinking a good dose of topsoil and some grass seed might stop me breaking my ankle while putting the washing out 😂

redofromstart

The orange DIY loyalty scheme often gives you a printed voucher at the till (mine was £7 off £70), and then a day or two later an email comes through with a different one (£3 off a £25 for me).

redofromstart

Yesterday I potted up some bare root stuff - three pink peonies into pots, three honeysuckle rosea into pots for now, and three roses 'Violet Perfume' into the front garden under the Snug window - full sun there, and hopefully if they take we will get the scent in.

I exited an ancient leaking water butt, it was perished when we moved here 18 years ago so you can only imagine the foot of sludge in the bottom. 

DS1 moved the compost and bark mountain up the steps to the hard standing for me which was really helpful, ready for me to crack on with the remaining four raised beds.  The hard standing used to be home to an ancient motorhome, and gets full sun for most of the day.  I was thinking of adding some narrow planters to it, but it also would be a good place for another potting bench, and perhaps a cold frame or a mini greenhouse.  Aldee have their wood and perspex greenhouses, and their wooden potting benches in on thursday.  

I still haven't actually planted any seeds, although I have warmed up some compost ready.