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

debtfreewannabe321

Morning all, we've been working away at the base for the greenhouse still and I've been pulling out weeds which is never ending once the sun comes out and it warms up eh. I'm trying to do no dig though so I'm pulling out as much as I can and hoping it will eventually weaken so much it doesn't grow. My idea is to have a lot of plants with ground cover eventually to suffocate growth of the weeds. Not sure if it will work but I'm not fit enough to rotivate the entire garden getting it out 😂.
The worst area seems to be the back section of the garden I don't think it's been touched in years so weeds are everywhere. I've found all sorts of surprising plants (if g00gle reverse image search is right on a few I didn't know). This is the back section after I've spent weeks and weeks now trying to get it up to scratch (ie more plants on show than bindweed and ground elder) the elder had spread throughout the bed in that pic. And there is a huge bed not pictured on the left. I can't get into it though because of huge hedges. The slabs are much clearer now too. The pic at the bottom is of the flower I've found throughout the entire garden popping up everywhere. That one is on the side of the garage! I pulled one out as we were moving stuff and the roots don't seem to be too deep so I'm leaving it where it is okay (ie in an actual bed!) The weather has been on and off here all Easter but yesterday was lovely so we did an Easter hunt through the garden and house for the kids and enjoyed an afternoon carrying on with our jobs 😀. Hopefully it continues to get warmer as I want to get planting some seeds outside soon! 

debtfreewannabe321

Cheery_Daff said:

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 😊

What a gorgeous view!

redofromstart

That looks like aquilegia to me, they self seed quite happily. I like them. If you don't want them then take the flower heads off so that they don't seed. 

greenbee

redofromstart said:

That looks like aquilegia to me, they self seed quite happily. I like them. If you don't want them then take the flower heads off so that they don't seed. 

Looks like aquilegia to me too. If you don’t want them, post them to me. I have lots of space to fill and mostly hypericum coming up in it.

Have planted brunnera, done the last bit of the veg plot fence, moved three primroses, and dug up some boring yellow daffs that were in the wrong place and annoying me (will shove them in the veg plot - have some orange and yellow tulips to move there too). 

Need to get myself and the dog over to my mum’s so I can split logs and he can be spoiled.

greenbee

Since I got back I've got the weed puller out and pulled up a garden bucket of dandelions which are now in the garden waste bin. I reckon if I pull a few up every time I take the dog out for a wee it'll all help!

KajiKita

Yes, acquilegia, common name Granny’s Bonnet 😊 After flowering, cut the whole plant down to the ground, give them a good watering and the plant will resprout fresh leaves to take you through the rest of the year 😊

KK

greenbee

Have continued pulling up dandelions, and also managed to pull up the bulk of the cleavers from the ditch. So garden waste bins are full... although if they're not collected before tomorrow morning's walk, there may be a few more dandelions shoehorned in!

I must remember to stir the hotbin tomorrow, add more cardboard, and shove more grass from the main compost bin into it. I'm not creating a huge amount of food waste. 

redofromstart

It has rained quite a bit here over the last few days after weeks of dry.  This has softened the ground which has made weeding today much easier.  Two trugs full of creeping buttercup gone for me relatively quickly before I ran out of steam.  I also got some top soil in to a few of the lawn holes.

I did notice that the magnolia border soil is much better for two years of mulching, and I think for the first time ever I could get away with direct sowing annual seed.  Equally the weeds are having a field day with nice warm damp soil.

So my suggestions are:

Take a bucket out and fill it with weeds when you have a spare few minutes.  Much easier to to catch them when they are little.
Have you got any summer bulbs festering in the packets?  Most of mine are plant this month and it is a relatively quick job if they are going in pots.  Dahlias? Seed potatoes? 

debtfreewannabe321

I've just weeded ...I spent an hour on it when I'd told myself twenty minutes 🙈 and that was one bed. It was full of ground elder. I got a load out though and half filled a wheelbarrow ☺️!
The aquilegia is sprouting up everywhere and two are coming into flower. One is purple the other looks more pink. They're very pretty so I'm happy to encourage them all the more.
I've just spread a load of seeds. I had full intentions of potting them all and growing in seedling trays then I saw the amount and thought nah, life is too short, compost is too expensive and these were cheap. The bed they went on was already weeded so I raked it over spread as evenly mixed as I could and pushed into the ground a bit. Then watered. What's the odds I get anything? 😆🙈 I have had good results from doing it the lazy way before so have gone with that again....it was foxglove, hollyhock and cornflowers.
I kept back the lupins and will pot them as there weren't quite so many of those 🤣 lazy fair weather gardener for sure....

These pink flowers (ranculas?) are doing so well! Lots of buds on them. They keel over a bit dramatically when they're too hot or dry but perk up again after a good water ☺️🪻.
I'm on a mission to get rid of pots too (once again lazy reason I don't want to water as much) so I planted two roses in pots and something I can't distinguish enough to know what it is. It looks like it had a 50-50 chance of survival 🤷🏻‍♀️. Enjoying coming home after work and spending an hour out in the garden now I finish earlier than my last job 🌼🦋🪻🌸🪷...

greenbee

That's so pretty DFW Mine garden is not currently pretty as there is far too much bare ground.

I've managed to drag myself out and water the greenhouse this morning. 

Yesterday I finished the veg plot fencing by making gates. The dog is not impressed! And then dug the asparagus beds and planted the asparagus crowns. I also made up the frames for the raised planters and stuck the covers on, and planted a cowslip in the orchard. 

I really do need to pot on my veg plants, so will probably take them to the greenhouse a tray at a time to do. But I also need to continue with construction (raised beds, raspberry frames), weeding, planting in the veg plot, planting clematis and installing wires, moving tulips, planting a rose, sowing salad, sowing wildflowers, planting summer bulbs, and going through the rest of the seeds to see what needs sowing next! I'm hoping to get most of this out of the way over the weekend - certainly by the end of the bank holiday. Then I can start thinking about marking out where I want to dig up grass to make new beds, and put in posts/wire/trellis to start creating the framework of the garden ready for moving things and (re)planting in the autumn. I may also let myself buy a few things to fill gaps if I make enough progress!