What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

This is one of our wisterias, It is in the narrow bed next to the kitchen window.

I've trained it to grow over the fence and along the side of the house, over the last few years.

I stopped it at the corner of the house, I could have trained it round the front, but we've this mayleen clematis in a big tub, that grows over the front door.

I've given it a prune and collected all the dead foliage. Hard to see when it's dormant.
It took an age as there's all the thin leaf spines to collect as well as wet leaves today.

I'm hoping for a lot blooms on it this year, It'll get a closer prune between Christmas and New Year.

I've taken the six hebes out of the troughs and put them on the little patio behind the shed. I'll re-pot them and tidy them up ready for next year. (here in July)

The troughs are now in the shed. It gets quite warm in there, which will help them dry out. When dry I'll give them a coat of Dulux Woodsheen, but I won't put them out again until the spring.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Rain yesterday, rain tomorrow, but sunshine today. Did a fair bit of tidying up, mixed compost in with the earth I removed when I made a pile of rotten wood, then put it back on the pile ready for Spring. I should have tidied up some of the mess the badger made, but I came in for a shower instead. See my post in 'Animals in your garden' and you will understand why.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Lllleeeaaaavvveeesss

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Still relocating leaves. what else, LOL

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Must get round to 'relocating' leaves, there are a lot, but they are wet so won't go anywhere, and I have so much else to do. The missus is on holiday so there is washing, cooking, shopping, housekeeping to do on top of the garden, plus I am editing a book and decorating.. The leaves are wet and not going anywhere. Yesterday I prepared another two buckets with four or five inch pieces of wood about inch and a half diameter jammed upright into the bottom. Compost into them next, I find an inch or so of compost and then a bucket of water washes it down between the gaps nicely. The broad beans in the first two buckets are doing well, catching up with those planted out in the garden fast.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

We have harvested everything except the remaining parsley, a few onions and and the parsnips now, because it was all finished or would be in day or so as the forecast is for freezing overnight. The last things yesterday were the peppers and hardy mini kiwis - last of the bell peppers and more mad hatter chilis than I ever dreamed of, the scotch bonnets and the Carolina reapers. Bell peppers did well this year. We made stufffed peppers and froze them last week, so gotta find something to do with these now. Over 200 mad hatters off one plant - prolific! most too late to ripen on the plant, but trying to do it indoors with some. They are delicious green though - mildest chili ever by a long way, but tasty and crunchy. Chili hater's chili! Scotch bonnet gave me a couple of beautiful ones - very late getting going and setting fruit. Same with the reapers. Fabulous plant but no fruit set until very late. Then the thing went ballistic - too late. But did get a few nice ones and a handful of little ones. Currently trying to ripen some of them indoors in a bag with a ripe tomato. Had to cut all the remaining Basil, which did great this year.

But that was all yesterday. To answer the question as asked, I pulled - actually kind of dug up - a parsnip, to see how they are doing. Very nice! Very pleased. Cut it into strips and sauteed in a little bacon fat, EV olive oil and butter with a little sprinkle of salt and pepper. OMG! The absolute tenderest, mildest parsnip I have ever tasted. Made a nice big helping to go with my leftover fried chicken. Terrific alternative to fries (chips to you Brits out there). "my", because Corinne is out of town, her brother had some serious surgery yesterday, I think these will convert her to liking parsnips! Now I gotta go see how my sourdough starter is doing and make some bagels.

An update. Dug up all the parsnips after the first frosts. Even though they were grow from seed quite close to each other, they are excellent. Mostly nice big ones. The very tender - no woody centers. Peeled, cut and froze most of them and even ate a few raw while I was doing it. Did get a ton of little tiny Carolina Reapers along with 2 or 3 reasonable size ones. Only one ripened on the plant, but they all ripened indoors in a paper bag. Made 12/31 sauce - my own invention. It is crazy wicked hot!! But great flavor. It's gonna last a while.(12/31 - when the grim reaper sees out the old year. I think someone already has the name Grim Reaper Sauce.) Planing on making 1/1 Sauce with some of the Mad Hatters next!

 

[powermjp]

Must get round to 'relocating' leaves, there are a lot, but they are wet so won't go anywhere, and I have so much else to do. The missus is on holiday so there is washing, cooking, shopping, housekeeping to do on top of the garden, plus I am editing a book and decorating.. The leaves are wet and not going anywhere. Yesterday I prepared another two buckets with four or five inch pieces of wood about inch and a half diameter jammed upright into the bottom. Compost into them next, I find an inch or so of compost and then a bucket of water washes it down between the gaps nicely. The broad beans in the first two buckets are doing well, catching up with those planted out in the garden fast.

Same here! i have a load of leaf work, and getting them into compost

 

[Wallflower]

Well, today was a mild day in the 50s and I hope I didn’t screw up, but I decided to go ahead and plant two 2 gal zebra grasses, I planted and covered with straw, anybody think I screwed up? Zone 6 here

 

[DirtMechanic]

I fertilized a bit with some starter for roots and put out a bag of fescue seed on the formerly shady spots. Amazing how much change occurs when the leaves come down and the sun can get through.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Guess.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Guess.

Leaves?

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Leaves?

your a winner. but last night it rained like crazy, so no leaves today. house cleaning. wonderful life. LOL.

 

[Sheal]

I cleared this patch of ground of rocks 18 months ago but due to an arm injury and various other issues, I've only just got back to it. Today while the sun shone I spent a couple of hours clearing the rest of the large stones. It now needs to be dug over and levelled ready for grass seeding next Spring.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I cleared this patch of ground of rocks 18 months ago but due to an arm injury and various other issues, I've only just got back to it. Today while the sun shone I spent a couple of hours clearing the rest of the large stones. It now needs to be dug over and levelled ready for grass seeding next Spring.

Good to hear you are up and about, a bit of outdoors and sunshine works miracles
That area looks as though it might get a lot of shade from the trees. I have a largish oak at the end of my garden and some long time ago someone planted cyclamen which have seeded and spread under it. After a couple of years consistently attacking the brambles and docks which had been allowed to grow the cyclamen are doing really well, and this time of year there is dense, very marked foliage. Just a thought. Snow drops can do well at the base of trees as well. It seems as though the trees and the bulbs grow in volume together.

 

[Sean Regan]

Cleared a lot more leaves today, but still plenty more wisteria leaves to come down.


When they go a bit more yellow, as usual, I'll give them, "a bit of a hand."

I've pruned off the dead wood from the smallest acer palmatum, I do this every year, usually a bit later, but already as it's been so warm, there's lots of tiny leaf buds already showing.



This is what I pruned off today, there's likely be a few more later. These branches would have been under the canopy and died off during the year.



The sight of all these might give rise to some concern for anyone unfamiliar with these plants. But this was from last time.



And here it is in all its glory in June.