What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

This reminded me.
When I built my koi pool in 1986, I wanted a simulated "bridge" over the return of the water from the filters in the garage.

I made a mold and filled it with fine mix concrete, topped with bits of York stone, to match the paths and patio. It was absolute pain to lift and put in position.

But it needed reinforcing. A couple of years later, my wife said to me, "Do you know what happened to that collapsible stainless steel pan stand we had?"
I said, "It probably got chucked out."

This was a "test fit." This was as low as I could get the pipes to exit the garage. I had to drop their height by fitting some "S" bends to them up against the garage wall.
This dropped them down by 9." Then I could put the bridge where I wanted it. Nothing is easy in pool building.

The pan stand is still there in the "bridge." The granite setts replaced the ornamental wooden balustrade, which rotted away over the years.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Ok, let me know how that method works.

Slowly.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Fertilized and added compost to my pear and apple trees. Hope to do another 9-10 tomorrow.

MOD

 

[YumYum]

Fertilized and added compost to my pear and apple trees. Hope to do another 9-10 tomorrow.

MOD

Do you have any multigrafted trees?

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Do you have any multigrafted trees?

I had 2 that I removed, never buy one again. Had a 4-1 european pear and 4-1 peach, nectarine and apricot. I still have a 3-1 plum that only the Burbank flowers and gives fruit.

The reason why I would never buy a multigraph is due to the nature of each variety having different disease resistance and different vigor. One variety would excel only for me to prune in order to maintain the less vigorous varieties the same size. Then each would react differently to bacterial spot or any disease that is concentrated in my area. Some had resistance but other had none so back to trimming down the variety that is growing good. It was a losing battle. I won the war by getting rid of them. Kept the plum since it was growing OK but now its really just a Burbank plum.

I can not grow most European pears in my Fabraea infected environment. Took me a while to figure that out. Pulled a Moonglow 1 years ago. It supposedly did have some resistance but not enough for my area. Asian pears have a natural resistance and grow extremely well for me. 1 asian pear gives me giant pears, and the other 2 asian pears will flower for the first time this year. The Barlet will also flower. The Gem has grown OK but sometime get really infected during the rainy season. The structure looks good so I am keeping it. The pears should be interesting this year.

The 3-1 plum I currently have is more of a Burbank plum. That variety took over the tree and flowers beautifully. I have a branch of Damson and a branch of Stanely. Those havent flowered yet and are very small compared to the rest. I debated earlier this month to prune those varieties off when I was giving them a trim. I left it to remind me never to buy another multi graph tree again.

They probably work great in a less humid environment with less diseases that are in my area.

MOD

 

[Sean Regan]

Did a bit this morning. Mowed the back lawn, got half a grass box off of it.
I'm pleased that this sambucas survived the winter. It's doing very nicely. I used to swop it over with a mimosa, in the winter. But that got killed by the frost two winters ago.
Anyway, it was always a struggle to lift it out from its spot, as it would damage the azaleas if I didn't lift it high enough. But now I don't have to bother.
There's already some little flower buds forming. That green cane is there as I've been trying to get that branch to grow closer to the centre. I moved it further in after I took this photo.

I gave all the roses a "foliar feed." We've nearly two dozen altogether. So far no sign of any blackspot, but there was a bit of greenfly on one, but I've sorted that.

I meant to mention the other day.

The tap on the side of the shed supplied the hose on the front and another spout is for filling a watering can.

It has a length of hose attached to it. This means it will reach the bottom of the watering can. So if I need to mix some plant food or whatever. I've no need to stir it, as the hose disturbs the food enough to dilute it. I also don't get any water over my shoes.

 

[Donatello]

I'm making a boarder around my garden plot. I ran the cultivator over the entire 30 by20 plot and now I need to add the boarder. This will help me define the size , help me stay weed free, and limit the size.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

To tired from yesterday's fertilizing. Only managed to add compost and fertilizer to 4 trees. 3 interspecifics and one Japanese plum.

MOD

 

[lifegardener]

First Hollywood Hibiscus of the Season. .

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Quite a bit more on the HK project, coming on well, I guess about a third of the veg garden is done or almost done. I don't go mad, don't want to be laid up, but I keep pegging away a bit at a time, same with the HK containers.
Spread compost and manure and fertiliser on the patch I intend planting potatoes on and got most of the way across it turning it into the top of the soil. Almost finished my stand for containers. I got a bunch of off cuts from my brother in law of fencing timber about 2"x11/2". It is two tier and will take four buckets on each with a strip across the front of each for something smaller. It is hard wood, takes both hands to drive the screws and there are about forty of them, almost finished.
Found my devil's fingers, they were mixed up with some seed trays the missus had planted, "What are these? Are they yours?"
Lots more things starting to sprout, lots of potting on to do.

 

[NewLeafTX]

First Hollywood Hibiscus of the Season. .
View attachment 102243

What is your USDA Zone, if you don't mind sharing?

 

[NewLeafTX]

Quite busy trying to get my seeds sown before it's too late in the year/too warm to do so. Two hours in the Cottage Garden today.

Put seedling pots under covered patio because a rainstorm is coming tomorrow morning. Don't want any storm- toppled pots nor washed-out seedlings!

Radishes are up in the cottage garden. About half eaten by wildlife, so a good thing I sowed them thickly.

Mixed Brassicas are up in the cottage garden, about half of them drowned, or washed away. Recent heavy rain put their section of the garden under water 6 hrs.

Sowed four nine foot rows of Bush green beans. Three different varieties. May edit this post & add variety names, when I remember the variety names. LOL.

Sowed one 6 foot row of Lavender, near the lettuce row, as an experiment. These seeds were very cheap, so no idea of their quality.

A few flower volunteers have sprouted up in the Cottage garden from last year's self sowing plants. Likely Cosmos, Zinnia, & Plains coreopsis. I do hope the lawn cutting crew leave these seedlings alone & don't try to remove them or weed eat them, mistaking them as weeds. (This has happened before). I may need to hang a sign up in the Cottage garden, in Spanish, telling them not to cut anything inside my roped off area.

Sowed two nine foot rows of Cottage garden flower seed mix, to attract pollinators to the garden & beautify the area.
Flower mix includes California poppy, Alyssum, wildflowers, Calendula, Bachelor buttons, and many more.

My garden area is less than 1/4 acre.
However, I always grow about 5-10 times as many plants as I have room for. I have found this to be necessary if I want reliably good outcomes. I always have moderate to heavy losses of plants throughout the growing season.

This is due to floods, doodlebugs eating some of the seedlings, ants eating some of my seeds & seedlings, wildlife like squirrels and birds eating the plants, pest insects such as cabbage loopers, flea beetles, and army worms, droughts killing plants &/or reducing yield, tunneling critters such as voles doing plant damage, and (rarely), humans stealing some of my plants or taking some of my crop yield without asking.

For all the above reasons, I would much rather end up with too many seedlings & plants, than too few. My budget is very tight, so I cannot just go buy pesticides, a terrier dog, and bird netting, nor go buy seedlings and/or plants for myself from a garden center.

 

[big rockpile]

Did some watering.

Sprayed my Potatoes and Beets with Neem.

Had a couple pretty good size Pots planted Coleus and Geraniums in one and Marigolds in the other.

Potted up some Lavender, took one pot to the house.

Repotted Peace Lily and Aloe.

Put up bunch of sticky cards.

Everything is coming up in the yard and Raised Beds.

Boys worked up my Garden, worked the Cover Crop in.

big rockpile

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Finished working over the patch and planted potatoes, started taking out a new trench and backfilling the old one.

 

[NewLeafTX]

Moved seedling pots back out into the sunlight from under their storm-sheltered location.

Adjusted soil level in several Amaryllis pots. Mom in law read they prefer to have their bulbs slightly exposed to the air. Used the soil I removed from those pots to sow some tiny-seeded flowers, small-seeded Brassicas, and small-seeded salad mix, in the Cottage Garden.

My garden soil is about 70 percent heavy clay, so I get better germination rates when I sow small-seeds/ tiny-seeds by covering the seeds with potting mix, instead of covering with the heavy garden soil.

Planted a Self-composting Container, inspired by Hugelkultur:
Rainstorm knocked a rotten branch out of a mature pine. The wood was rotten enough to crumble easily by hand, so I picked up the rotten wood, crumbled it into a big pot. Then filled the top half of the pot with high organic matter potting mix and a couple handfuls compost. Then planted a 5" tall volunteer Capsicum seedling in the pot.

Noticed an interesting pink-flowered wildflower in the mint family has popped up in a partly shady area of the backyard lawn. This plant is certainly uncommon, and hopefully not threatened/endangered. My guess is it's a Warnockia. If it's not a protected plant, I'm going to transplant a few of them into my butterfly/pollinator garden area.

I will try to take pics of it tomorrow to get it identified. Informed Mom in law that this pretty, bee-supporting, patch of wildflowers will die if she uses weed- &- feed anyplace near it, so it's better for the Earth and our bees/pollinators to only use those chemicals on the front lawn, if at all.