What did you do in your garden today?

[Esther Knapicius]

Very cold. refilled bird feeders. turned on cat's water bowl heater (usually it is off from noon to 8 pm----on a timer) . house stuff today.

 

[MoominAli]

Today, I ave been mostly sieving compost View attachment 18844

Stupid question, do you just dump through the crate? I tried doing this with a gardening sieve for a full day and it absolutely destroyed my shoulders

 

[MoominAli]

I've got a fever and coughing so it was a challenge getting out. Managed to do a little circuit to check up since we've had snow again (after t-shirts at work last week) After the patrol I realised I'm actually too sick for any action and went home again.

 

[gary350]

Stupid question, do you just dump through the crate? I tried doing this with a gardening sieve for a full day and it absolutely destroyed my shoulders

Buy a used cement mixer, throw several tennis ball size rocks in with compose it turns everything to small pieces in a few hours. It will even smash dead sticks to saw dust.

 

[MoominAli]

Mind Blown, bravo!

 

[gary350]

Today I ordered 250 candy onion seeds on ebay. I also bought, watermelon seeds, cantaloupe seeds, and a bi-metal 120 volt thermostat on ebay. I bought several 50 lbs. bags of, 0-20-20 fertilizer, 21-0-0 fertilizer, 6-12-12 fertilizer, 41-0-0 fertilizer, plus 1/2 lb bag of G90 sweet corn seeds at Farmers Co-op for a total of $84. Wow prices are up this use to cost about $30. total. I bought 15 lbs of Red seed potatoes $15. total. Last week 2 nets arrived in the mail, 8'x25' and 8'x40'.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

/\ /\ Now all you have to do is use it all gary350, I sometimes wonder if 350 is because you allow yourself 15 days off each year

Topped up heaters in greenhouse, warmer tonight so I switched from candles to paraffin lamps, cheaper but messier. Dug a bit, chopped a bit and sawed a bit, spread some ash from the wood burner, came inside and warmed my hands.

 

[Sean Regan]

Nothing today.
Garden through the French windows at 9.30am

Bright sunshine now and the snow is starting to melt.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Leaf removal again yesterday. Today raining. so inside stuff. or a trip to shop.

 

[gary350]

/\ /\ Now all you have to do is use it all gary350, I sometimes wonder if 350 is because you allow yourself 15 days off each year

Topped up heaters in greenhouse, warmer tonight so I switched from candles to paraffin lamps, cheaper but messier. Dug a bit, chopped a bit and sawed a bit, spread some ash from the wood burner, came inside and warmed my hands.

350 is for my Chevy 350 engine. This old farm truck full of bullet holes sat in a field for many years before it was rescued.

Dec 21 angle of our sun was 30.5 degrees at our location 37129.

Jan 19 angle of our sun is 38.2 degrees. Jan 21 angle will be about 38.5 degrees.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Still raining here. really just soggy damp outside.

 

[Sean Regan]

Clear blue skies, +3c, snow still hanging around.

 

[Sean Regan]

We've some hyacinths that have finished flowering which were a Christmas present, I'm going to get some compost tomorrow and pot them up but keep them in the shed for now.

 

[gary350]

All 98 garlic are dead after

3 days of -2°f temperatures killed them. Every place that had a garlic clove growing now has a blob of mush. I have 11 garlic heads setting in 11 glasses of water soon as they grow roots and tops I will transplant them. It will take a month to grow tops. It might be too late to plant garlic. I read online garlic is good down to 0°f.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Mind Blown, bravo!

I have some half inch hardware cloth I make a tube of and stick into the cement mixer when I have a big pile being opened, but really just stretching some over the wheelbarrow works too.

 

[Sean Regan]

Potted out these ten M&S hyacinth bulbs that were a Christmas present for my wife. They're now cut down and planted in two narrow rectangular green plastic troughs. I'll keep them in the shed for now but they'll fit on the top step of the patio next to the French windows.
They were on our Dwell coffee table we've had for a number of years. The two halves slide sideways to reveal storage space below.
Never seen one like it since.

I had to go to Wilko for the compost. A bit of a pain as I had to push a Sainsbury's trolley from their car park nearly two hundred yards as Wilko is in the middle of a precinct. I bought two large bags, as we've the new mimosa coming at the end of this month or beginning of next and in March some bare root lily of the valley from my wife's favourite shopping channel. 6 x Convallaria majalis Berlin Giant and three majalis Rosea. These will go in some pots.
We have got some lily of the valley in the garden, but they are under the azaleas and rhodos, so never get seen. At one time they started coming up in the edge of the lawn!

I then spent an hour tidying the shed and giving the lawnmower a good clean.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Got out my propagator, nice and clean still since I put it away. Put it on the bedroom windowsill and switched on, all working fine. It is the sort that takes a number of small seed trays with clear covers and planted the first one up with cauliflower seed, then thought "It's a bit early, but no harm trying" and put some parsnip and basil in as well, the basil can stay on the windowsill if they come up. They were old seed, I keep buying or getting given new lots and these are a couple of years old, but the packet says 'Use by 2026', and I have lots more basil seed, including other packets and ones I saved last year

 

[Sean Regan]

Too wet to do anything in the garden, fortunately there's not a lot that needs any attention at the moment.
Our new mimosa is arriving on Friday, so I need to get some compost for it. I can get that on Thursday at Asda when I do the shopping.

These two wooden troughs have been in the Garage since the end of October. The six hebes which were in them are out of sight on the small patio in front of the shed.

I bought these troughs on eBay for £50 each in 2021, the price seems a bargain at the time and even more so, at the moment.

But they are only soft wood. Such things are made from, "renewable resources," fast growing timber with "the density of forced rhubarb" as I unkindly say about such things. "They can rot away while you look at them."

They were only put together with a nail gun, so I made them more durable with about three dozen screws in each.

They got a coat of Dulux Woodsheen inside and out.

I also added six feet to each keep the bases off the patio. The back feet are on the first step up to the new patio, to save space on the main patio front of them.

But I'm going to give them a bit of a sand down and re-paint them, but they won't be going back out for a couple of months.

 

[Sean Regan]

Our mimosa arrived this morning.

I wasn't impressed, it was about 8ft tall and would need its support cane for the rest of my lifetime.
The foliage was looking very tatty and had lost some of its leaves at the end of tiny branches.

Given this cost £70, I considered it unacceptable, so I've e-mailed the supply attached these photos and asked them to collect it and give me a refund.

I've decided that the hebes that we had in the troughs haven't survived the freeze. very well, they're all woody and aren't showing any sign of life. They look dead to me.



They may recover, but they won't be going back in the troughs. I'll find somewhere for them, if only "the green bin."

So I went to the local garden centre this afternoon and bought six more. I'll paint the troughs tomorrow, but keep the hebes in the shed until the end of the month. The little troughs next to the window have the hyacinth bulbs which were a present to my wife at Christmas.
The dozen primroses in pots which were a present from the same friend the Christmas before last, which I planted out along the edge of the long border in the January, are all in flower.

My biggest concerns are always my acer palmatums and the sambucas, but they are doing well and showing buds. The palmatum Taylor is still in the warm, in the freezer room in the garage. That has buds on it too.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Spent some time on assembling an old greenhouse I have been given, it is a total pain, but I will get there in the end. While I was round the back of the other greenhouse working on it I realised that a trough with miniature iris in it was in full bloom, so brought it down on the patio. Went visiting in the car yesterday and got a load of odd bits of wood from a lay-by, so chucked all that in my trench, bar a couple of planks from a pallet that I chopped up for kindling. The badger has been visiting regularly, there is a path worn where he comes in, I like the idea of having him about, but he has dug up the sea holly and made three big holes in the garlic bed.