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

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  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,781 Forumite
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    I've been gradually planting things and weeding. Need to get on with sowing more stuff though. 

    Also need to get a bigger fork out to try to dig the docks out of the strawberry bed. Hand fork and border fork both tried and not working. 
  • redofromstart
    redofromstart Posts: 5,824 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    We have been labouring away at the lawn. Many bags of top soil raked into the holes, and the ancient electric scarifier was put to good use yesterday. We need to apply one last layer I think before we wait for some rain before we add the seed. 

    Lots of things bursting into flower much earlier than usual. I was very pleased to see a flower head firming on one of my new young magnolias, a lovely dark red. 
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 17,111 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    I've finally got round to poking around in my seedling pots. It's been at least 3 weeks since I planted them, possibly longer, and so far I have one radish seedling, and one red chard, which is keeling over in the middle 🤔

    Got a bit suspicious, so checked a few of the bean pots - pretty much all the beans have either vanished (presumably rotted away as the soil wasn't disturbed) or are there, but disintegrating and definitely not growing. 

    I'm not usually a very attentive gardener, and it's usually better than this!! So I'm assuming the conpost, which was organic compost - bought from the local tip, but as it's organic i assume not made from the waste they collect (which i didn't realise til I got home - that's usually what they sell, and I've planted seeds in it before). 

    Goodness knows what this stuff is. 

    It's possible I let everything dry out too much at the start, but that wouldn't have killed pretty much EVERYTHING, surely?! 

    Might wang a few replacement seeds in the pots tomorrow, see if that comes to anything, and if not, I'll have to replace the compost and just stick the rest of it on the garden. 

    Weird. 


  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,781 Forumite
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    I read (but can't find it now) something about some kind of pesticide issue with organic compost that has had manure added. I also can't remember what it was which doesn't help either! 

    I've certainly had compost in the past that has killed things, but that was compost that reeked when it was opened and basically had too much ammonia. I dumped it at the time - I now know you can at least fix that.
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 17,111 Forumite
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    Ah yes, we had that with horse manure when I used to do the community garden. Didnt occur to me that this would have that issue - I think I just thought (quite reasonably!!) organic meant no non-organic pesticides. Will check.
  • Cherryfudge
    Cherryfudge Posts: 13,195 Forumite
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    DH and I have spent some time on the garden - partly mowing the grass ahead of being away a few days, mostly taking the ground elder as close to ground level as possible and even getting a few roots out. Where we have succeeded, there's a sheet of dark plastic in the hopes of delaying the return. There's still a lot I've not reached! However where it grows through clumps of geraniums, the geraniums seem to be choking it back a bit.

    I bought some bedding plants and tomatoes for the wall baskets and hanging baskets, and got one wall basket planted up. I also decided to sow the rhubarb seeds. The packet said 60 seeds and it was dated for last year, so I'm expecting lower germination but actually once I'd sown 60, there must have been about 20 left in the packet! I've no plans for them - if by some vague chance more than a very few of the sown ones germinate, I'll have to set up in business just to get rid of some!

    All but one of the garlic plants are doing really well and the tomato plants are next to them in a big plastic tray in the hope of catching any rain while we're away. I wish I'd had time to put them in bigger pots but that's just not going to happen this side of the holiday.
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  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,781 Forumite
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    I think it's been sneaking in through unauthorised use Cheery. It shouldn't be in organic compost, but it has been reported. 

    In shock news, we've had about 2mm of rain this morning, so when I've recovered from being woken up by the cat, taking the dog out, reading the news, taking the dog for a walk, feeding everyone, and being looked at grumpily by the dog because it's too cold to leave the kitchen door open, I may go out and scatter bonemeal about. There are trees and shrubs that need feeding. Unfortunately I don't have enough bark to mulch them (the two builders' bags that the tree surgeons left just did the front garden - next time I have a tree down I'll make sure we have space set up for them to leave all of it ... or at least fill every builders' bag I own!).

    Temperatures are going to be down to 4C again tonight, so I'm hoping the stuff that's been moved to the staging outside but doesn't yet have anywhere to be planted will be OK. Unfortunately I still haven't got round to creating a planting plan, so it will all be very much 'stick it in where there is space and hope it looks OK' for this year. 

    My neighbour is going to be taking up some of the paving slabs on the patio next week and filling the gaps with stones, which will mean my pots will drain down rather than leaving composty trails of dirt all over the paving. It will also mean I need to source more large pots and possibly relocate lots of hostas... The patio is north facing and only really gets the sun in the late afternoon/evening. 
  • KajiKita
    KajiKita Posts: 7,587 Forumite
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    @cherryfudge, have you seen this: 
    https://www.jackwallington.com/how-to-remove-ground-elder-organically/

    It looks like your approach is the right one and some elephants ears (Bergenia) would be worth considering.

    KK
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  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,781 Forumite
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    I've been out and dug in bonemeal round the magnolia grandiflora and the fruit trees (weeding as I went). Helped by the dog... Having a rest before the next task, which will depend on where the sunshine is!

  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,781 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    One more raised bed made and installed. Next one laid out for construction. It's probably going to be a construction kind of day... there are either one large or two small ones to make after that, the raspberry frames have been lying around for over a year, and I need to get some wire up on the fence for all the clematis I planted. Other than that, I might pull out the odd weed as I pass it.

    We've just had another rain shower which is nice :)
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