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

greenbee

I've run out of the bits I need to connect up all the soaker hoses in the veg plot, and also don't want to start making more hosepipe connections until I know exactly what lengths I need to cut. So I'm hoping that after the overnight soak on Friday night it can cope until the pump and other bits arrive tomorrow and can be set up. 

I've deadheaded/cut back the nepeta and geraniums. I hate doing it when there are still flowers, but I'm hoping that it'll encourage new growth. I need to sort out some way of watering the beds in front of the house as they are bone dry and even the stuff that normally doesn't mind is looking sad. They're not near any water supply either. Probably more irrigation hose of some kind (maybe sprinkler hose as it will go on the surface rather than being buried) which I can connect to either rainwater harvesting or the tap using a long hose. I guess I should measure... 

SuzeQStan

Bone dry here too @greenbee - me on other hand was literally wringing wet by time I used the last drip of my rain barrels in my watering cans 1st thing this morning. 

Since you mentioned it I have been looking into solar irrigation systems - I know you said it’s fiddly but I’ve identified  a corner that will allow a new 600l waterbutt connected to grey and runoff opportunity (for a new total of 1600l capacity) And those solar irrigation systems seem good value for money so will
start small and see what happens. thanks for the heads up.

I’ve got lots of free pressure treated wood from Ol!o to make some kind of screen around it so  just need to get the cheapest/ugliest 600l container I can find. 

Also cut back nepeta today - theory - If you cut enough back it won’t have the opportunity to look bedraggled and woebegone with thirst  😬

Cherryfudge

Between us, DH and I have invested about an hour and a half in the garden today: more ground elder has gone, and the area we covered back in about April has very little new growth.

We also decided the gooseberries were ready to pick and have harvested 890g from the most prolific bush. I looked up pruning and a light summer prune seems to be okay so I've shortened the leggy bit to the requisite five leaves, more or less. It will need a more thorough prune at some point but I think that's winter.

SuzeQStan

We cut our gooseberry back to
ground last winter and it’s as big as it was before its drastic haircut - fruit output poor but suppose to be expected 

Cherryfudge

SuzeQStan said:

We cut our gooseberry back to
ground last winter and it’s as big as it was before its drastic haircut - fruit output poor but suppose to be expected 

I wonder if ours has also benefitted from its most recent haircut? Not as much as yours, but this year's growth has been strong. Mind you, it was planted before a fence was put up to the south of it and a huge bramble has been allowed to grow along the fence - so perhaps it's just trying to find the sun?

Nothing done in the garden today - from lunchtime onwards it's poured down. The new drain coped admirably though the soakaway briefly turned into a small pond! It was encouraging to see how fast the extra water went away, but it's left me wondering if it's such a good idea to put a pond over it. Might I find the goldfish on the lawn after another downpour?

kazwookie

Loads of rain here, water butts filling up nicely.

Plus I seem to have loads of very small (I guess) baby frogs (froglets) hopping around the garden they are the size of a small finger nail or even smaller, cats were showing an interest, but wandered off as the frogs were no fun to play with.

greenbee

Lucky thing having froglets, Kaz! My connected water butts are full, and the IBC looks like it's almost back to full, however, I don't have the energy to either transport more over to the new butts in buckets or attempt to set up a syphon.

Cherryfudge

Last weekend we had a visitor and heavy rain, so no gardening has happened. This morning I've spent half an hour in the front adjacent to the path, picking bits of mortar out of the soil. My only complaint about the builders is that they didn't put sheeting over the areas adjacent to the path so now there's sand and mortar where I want to grow things - and sand doesn't separate out of grass very well. Neither does plantain - nearly as much plantain as grass in that area, and the bit I cleared a while ago has some as well.

I've remembered to choose some of the homeless irises and bag them up as I have an opportunity to donate them this afternoon. There's still a big bag left, and some euphorbias and creeping jenny so those need rehoming too. There's a community garden near here that has a donations place where they could go and perhaps someone will get to have beautiful irises for free.

SuzeQStan

Aw that’s really lovely @Cherryfudge - am sure the community garden will be thrilled - if not there’s always the free sites - lots of gardeners on lookout for freebies on those 👍🏻😊

kazwookie

Well water butts are full to over flowing. Plus I have worked put where I can put another 500L on, the gap was looking at me all the time, hidden in plain sight as it were.

Garden currently part flooded.