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

redofromstart

I love your blue and pink mix EH, and the sprawling over the path in a friendly fashion. Looks most inviting. Especially if you can admire while munching peas from the pod.

EssexHebridean

Oh Redo how gorgeous does yours look!

Things sprawling over paths is lovely - although we do have to practice a bit of caution to avoid trampling any beers a the campanula is usually covered in them!

Masses achieved over the weekend with us.
- Bush beans now planted in the main veg bed.
- Direct sown campanula and nasturtiums also along the edge in there - fingers crossed they might do something.
- The few borlottis that have actually germinated are now in by the bean frame
- Narrow trellis is in and a coupe of cucumbers planted to clamber up that
- MrEH dealt with digging the holes in the lawn to take some more courgettes - plan is for them to go over the arches from the other direction. Still need to fit winter squash there somewhere as well
- Sweetcorn planted into the main bed - just 4 of them at the moment, as that was all that came up - I did re-sow though so m still hopeful we might get some more.
- Tomatoes - 6 x Roma (plum type) and 6 x Alicante now in their final pots and final positions
- Tomatoes - 4 x Minibel are in a growbag
- Peppers have been relocated to in front of the compost bin which gets more sun. 
- A nursery trip on Saturday gave us three more bits for the front - a couple of Campanulas (with "bell" type flowers rather than the Star type one in the back) and a Salvia, and also some additional herbs. 
- The first of the 2 wooden wine boxes I found in the street has now been planted with chives, a golden oregano, a thyme and a purple sage
- Greek basils in a pot in the front and in alongside the rosemary at the back

We've given in and dismantled the cheapy Lil's cold frame - it was impossible to leave it with the top open as any gust of wind just pulled it apart. Currently we're questioning whether it is in any way salvageable, and if not, whether we are going to complain to them about it - yes, it was only a bit over £20,  but still, we expected it to be at least useable! 

We had our first full harvest of peas as well - we've just had a few pods at a time until now, but actually had a full - if small - portion each with lunch yesterday! 

Cherryfudge

@redofromstart and @EssexHebridean, how gorgeous are your gardens!  I've just added campanula and verbena to my 'wanted plants' list on the strength of those.

Nothing achieved in the garden over the past few days due to lots of babysitting then a full weekend of Father's Day activities, but this also included a couple of visits to very nice gardens elsewhere, so I'm not complaining (well, not much. I do feel I need as much energy as there is daylight at this time of year).

One of the gardens has a donations stand with a suggested amount per plant so I now have three wallflowers (was down to one and I love my wallflowers) and two yellow foxgloves waiting to go in the side border.

There is more vigorous ground elder growth, but the good news is there's a small cleared area where it's not yet reappeared. Everything is drying up, which is great for laundry but I'm watering more outside and I think I've already lost a peony.  It's strange that Yorkshire has declared a drought when we had enough rain the other week to re-green the grass, but we've been living off last year's deluges and really there's been no significant rain for ever so long.

EssexHebridean

Aww Cherryfudge thank you - that's really kind of you! Both the front, and that side of the back are really "getting there" now - I love a very informal "cottage garden" look - and we're really getting there with it now. 

The front got a boost of a couple more bits at the weekend. First off a random plant popped up in the middle of the main veg bed a few weeks ago - it couldn't stay where it was but we agreed it looked like something interesting so MrEH potted it up and we've been on watch & wait since. It flowered at the weekend - some sort of nicotiana we think, and absolutely gorgeous, so that promptly got relocated to the front garden. Then the stall at the farmers market had some of MrEH's favourite sprawly blue geraniums, so we bought one of those, and also a vivid pink salvia to add a bit more height. At £4 each those were a complete bargain! (Although not as much of a bargain as the free nicotiana, obviously!) 

Veg is coming on - although slowly, and I'm impatient! We've had a good crop off the peas, and might re-sow to give us an additional late crop I think. Toms are now all in their final pots/growbags. Annoyingly we lost another "Minibel" bush one to a slug the other night, although that said, it does have a secondary shoot still there so it may yet cling on. Three courgettes ideally still need a home and right now I have NO idea where they can go, although my final remaining spare growbag might yet come into use - that said, we didn't have much luck with the one in a growbag last year. 

This month's Kitchen Garden mag seeds are two lots of cabbages, and Kohl Rabi - never grown either, and MrEH reckons we don't have space for cabbage but I think I can squeeze some of the compact ones in somewhere... 

Beans of all sorts are going like the clappers - in fact we may need to do something about extending their growing space around the obelisk. Ironically enough my decision to re-sow a couple of seed - one of each type due to poor germination previously - around the underpopulated bits of the frame has turned out with them all making an appearance - so runners we should have a-plenty! I've also done a first sowing of carrots in the main bed, and we've scattered sweet peas and calendula all over the place to see what survives and what doesn't... 

KajiKita

Just a seasonal comment - I have started watering my azalea that lives in the east facing courtyard so that dry roots now won’t lead to bud drop next spring 😊

KK

EssexHebridean

My first trough of salad leaves have aphids all over them...so they will be getting the tops cut off hard tonight and the little devils drowned . Hopefully I might get a new growth springing up, but otherwise with luck the second sowing won't be far behand. As things stand the rocket appear unaffected, although I need to do a further sowing of that now, too.

Cherryfudge

EssexHebridean said:

My first trough of salad leaves have aphids all over them...so they will be getting the tops cut off hard tonight and the little devils drowned . Hopefully I might get a new growth springing up, but otherwise with luck the second sowing won't be far behand. As things stand the rocket appear unaffected, although I need to do a further sowing of that now, too.

I've never tried this but - could the aphid-ridden tops go on the bird feeder? I've watched tiny birds feasting off what I'm pretty sure are aphids on young shoots.

Slow but real progress continues in War of the Ground Elder. I'm cutting back the hardy geraniums that have finished flowering and will try to transplant some without taking GE as well. I'm hoping the pruning will lead to autumn flowers as it usually does.

SuzeQStan

Lots of aphid this year and on plants that are normally unaffected - my lollipop female holly has been inundated to the point of leaf drop and army of ants up and down constantly. There are some small yellow/black stripe insects (not bees about 1/4 the size of a bee) surrounded the aphid holly as well - wonder if they are after the aphid nectar. I have been collecting water in the sink from hand washing and throw it over the whole holly in hopes the soap / cold water shock will help. But so far no progress 

greenbee

I've just been out to pick peas and strawberries (and ignored other stuff that needs doing). There's a ruby tiger moth caterpillar and lots of ladybird larvae. I think they're harlequins unfortunately but I'm not going to squish them incase I'm wrong. Plus I need their help with the white/green/black fly. 

Farway

SuzeQStan said:

Lots of aphid this year and on plants that are normally unaffected - my lollipop female holly has been inundated to the point of leaf drop and army of ants up and down constantly. There are some small yellow/black stripe insects (not bees about 1/4 the size of a bee) surrounded the aphid holly as well - wonder if they are after the aphid nectar. I have been collecting water in the sink from hand washing and throw it over the whole holly in hopes the soap / cold water shock will help. But so far no progress 

Sounds like ladybird larvae, check for a pic of them