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

KajiKita

@cheerydaff I was in exactly your position last year with an excess of seed packets I didn’t really want …
I gave them to a local community garden. Whether they passed them on or used them I have no idea, but they really appreciated the donation. 

KK

Cherryfudge

redofromstart said:

Cherry, Mr Redo swore by the Roughneck spades and forks for his hard landscaping projects. I like nice wooden handled things but I don't look after them properly - leaving them out rather than lovingly oiling and putting them away for the winter - so good ones are wasted on me, but work bought me Kent & Stowe SS stuff as my leaving present. They look no better than my older stuff a year on, and I think KK found them unresponsive in terms of 'lifetime guarantee'.  I find the 'border' size easier to use for most jobs. 

Thanks @redofromstart, I will see if any of the local places do the Roughneck ones: it's a bit like buying shoes in that I want to try before I buy! And I have a feeling I have something from Kent and Stowe and if I'm right, it seems robust and is nice to handle. Only I'm not going into the shed in the dark to check.   Having a couple of names to look out for is useful as it can be hard to tell from just looking.

debtfreewannabe321

I'm quiet on here but I still read. I'm not really up to the part where I can just potter around much yet (sadly I can't wait for this stage!)
However we've been clearing and cleaning and building and planting over the last month or so. Thought I'd share an update pic or two. I've since moved a few trees though and it's a bit too wet to get a pic through the window today. First pic is the day we moved in (last August) and the second pic is the back part of the garden you can't see from this pic as it's hidden- I spent hours cleaning up broken glass from the summerhouse and trying to weed it (umm neverending job). Third pic is from my daughter's bedroom window. The patio on the left wall will be where the greenhouse is going. We're hoping to get some pergolas in the raised beds too to create a walkthrough....as greenhouse will cut off that left path. It's looking a lot better but we're still in the clearing wood and piles of rubbish stage ...can't wait to sit back and just 'be' in the garden 😆. I'm trying to do it all on a very tight budget so using lots of scraps around the garden for it and cheap scaffolding for the beds etc. and plants we've brought with us as well as bargains in the SM and garden centre (got lots reduced yesterday so I picked up a few). 
Always open to suggestions on how to keep on top of it though hence why I'm still in here reading. DP is the builder not the gardener (he once pulled out all my poppies thinking they were weeds 🙈). 

Working_Mum

what an amazing transformation DFW123 - you should be so proud of yourself. You can clearly see all of the hard work you've put in!
I have a York Stone wall too and my plan this weekend is to mix some Erigeron seeds with soil and pop it in between the cracks in the hope I'll have gorgeous flowers popping their heads out soon. As they grow like topsy I'm hoping they'll self seed like mad!
My 82 year old next door neighbour always describes her gardening as "never ending work in progress!" make sure you take time to sit in those chairs and see what you've made and appreciate it fully.
((WM))

EssexHebridean

We're having to do battle with cats mistaking our garden as a toilet at the moment - there are complex arrangements of canes and string everywhere! This is next door's extremely cute pair of black kittens - they're adorable but would be more so if they weren't constantly sh***ing in my veg patch! 

If all our peas produce pods we're going to be eating a LOT of peas - handily though we discovered the local garden centre had rolls of pea and bean netting for £1.50 a go - bought three so one used and two stashed. With luck the peas will make their own way up it. 

Sunflowers are behaving with their usual ludicrous enthusiasm - well, the giant ones are, the small ones are doing precisely nothing so suspect we're not getting any of those.  We're going to have to bit the bullet and plant the big ones out tonight though I think - they will then be surrounded with wool pellets and crushed eggs shells as a multiple deterrent to all things molluscey.

7 scarlet kale plants poking through at last count - which will be plenty, but again, a significant risk of them being eaten. Turnips and beetroot are in a similar situation but all we can do is cross our fingers really. 

Potatoes (first earlies) are appearing - they're doing better in the bags than the ones we popped into the new strip of bed, but with luck those are just in a mor shady area so will appear eventually. 

Anything else for sowing/planting will now have to be dealt with once we're back - although there are a mass of bishops crown chillies that might have gone straggly by that point! 

Cheery_Daff

Hope you're all out enjoying your gardens! 😊

I've checked on my seeds, no germination yet (but it's only been a few days). Greenhouse is warming nicely, although there's a broken pane I should replace - I do have a spare square of plastic glass stuff, it's just in a slightly awkward place, but it's not going to get any easier!

kazwookie

Yes I was, CD, I've been helping my new neighbour deal with her 10 year over grown garden, I had the chain saw out to cut back small trees, (they were checked first for any nesting birds)  Shines halo

redofromstart

I was out admiring a pay to enter garden which happened to be hosting a plant fair.  I only bought one plant (another Daphne) so I am definitely polishing my halo.  

Cheery_Daff

Well excellent work to both of you! 

I have made a start on something I've been meaning to do for a while - placing some stones to create edges. I don't mow all of it, and this will make some more defined paths.

Going to sow flower seeds in that bed on the right (round the edge of the veg patch) and put another line of stones on the left 😊

greenbee

Have almost finished fencing the veg plot (one small section to do and gates to work out so the dog can't get in!), as well as cleaning the patio, getting some of the furniture out, working out where we want slabs taking out, and rearranging all the pots on them to get an idea of what it will look like. 

I also mowed. 

I have brunnera and clematis to plant, the fencing to finish, asparagus beds to prep, raised bed that I've nearly finished building to finish an install, a rose to plant next to one of the arches, and I need to help the dog with the dandelion eradication programme! I seem to remember reading somewhere (no idea where) that dandelions grow on poor soil, and their long tap root helps bring nutrients to the surface, so may be I should be encouraging them to help me improve the soil quality.

I definitely need to get on and order Blood Fish & Bone, as well as bio-digester mulch so my poor garden gets fed. And to use up the feed I've got in the meantime.