What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

For anyone concerned about pruning wisterias this hard in January.

These are ours today.

I've been pruning more unwanted new growth all summer.

 

[big rockpile]

Sprayed some stuff with Neem.

Seem to be having White Flies lately been after them.

big rockpile

 

[Oliver Buckle]

There is a path around our pond, and at the end it overflows when it is very wet a couple of the stones were out of level. Took them up, levelled them with sharp sand, and created a soak away in the lawn the other side of the path from the pond, then grouted it in. Hopeful probably lly the sand will allow water to percolate beneath the stone, however it is on solid clay and I doubt the soak away will be big enough, I'll probably create a run off under the grass.
Repaired a step between areas of the back yard that had crumbled and left a considerable hole, one less trip hazard.
Hoed and watered.

 

[big rockpile]

Watered everything and pulled some weeds.

My wife said supposed to be extreme heat today to quit.

 

[Sean Regan]

There is a path around our pond, and at the end it overflows when it is very wet a couple of the stones were out of level. Took them up, levelled them with sharp sand, and created a soak away in the lawn the other side of the path from the pond, then grouted it in. Hopeful probably lly the sand will allow water to percolate beneath the stone, however it is on solid clay and I doubt the soak away will be big enough, I'll probably create a run off under the grass.
Repaired a step between areas of the back yard that had crumbled and left a considerable hole, one less trip hazard.
Hoed and watered.

With every pool I've built, I've started with a concrete collar and a length of pipe embedded in the top to act as an overflow, then with more pipe to a soakaway. With our koi pool I used a 1.5" pipe buried under the collar and the path exiting at a house drain under our kitchen window. At the pool end I used a 45 degree bend which by turning I could by degree, alter the height of the pool by several inches.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

A good idea, Sean. We plan to renovate the pond come Autumn and I will bear it in mind.

 

[Sean Regan]

Just some general pond building advice,

This was our 9' x 12' x 18" goldfish pond.
By building a collar, (one side of which here was to be a path), you can get the thing completely level.
Then dig it out. It makes less mess, Let the liner warm up in the sun before fitting it.

Job done!

It was no big deal to convert it to a koi pool.

You can see the overflow top right corner.

Even with our first pool on the patio, I included an overflow, you can just see it between the pond and the fence.

 

[Black_Thumb]

Been out of town for a bit. Got back to grass that was nine inches tall. Took me two passes over it with my tractor at the highest setting to knock it down, and then we added that to our compost pile. We pulled up all the chard, cucumbers, squash, and some dead tomato plants and planted beans. They are doing well! We still have a number of tomato plants (little yellow ones as well as big red Heirlooms) doing well and producing for us. We have also had five watermelons grow even though we hadn't planned them. They have all been delicious so far!

Cooler weather isn't too far away, so in a couple of weeks, I'm going to try my hand at planting onions and spinach. My wife got some kale seeds yesterday as well.

Our chickens are doing great! They have been producing three to five eggs each day (we have five hens), and that is nice! We also just bought 400 pounds of beef (a side of beef, basically) from a local farmer. That was the best decision all year! We got the beef for $2.90 per pound since we bought in bulk. Just ONE ribeye at the grocery store right now is over $20 per pound. Insanity. We also purchased 80 pounds of chicken from another local farmer. That worked out very well as well. That cost about $50.00, if memory serves.

We're looking forward to building two more raised beds for next season bringing our total to six raised beds for gardening! I've been toying with the idea of building a greenhouse just to do everything possible to keep out pests (bugs and animals). Not sure if we'll do that or not.

I hope you all are well! Looks like people have been busy!!

 

[Sean Regan]

Mowed the lawns yesterday and the back one demonstrated that it needed of a bit of scarifying.
I'd done it in the spring, but it was time to do it again, whilst the grass is still growing. I'll give it a feed in a few days.

-old I took more than half a green bin-full off it with my forty-year-old Black & Decker scarifier. (I did give it a service first, a bit of oil and grease and a check of the belt).

I then went over it with my aging Flymo Ultraglide mower. This has a big fan behind the blade and has a wider diameter, so it's as good at collecting grass as it is mowing. I hade to replace the switch a few weeks ago as it had stopped working. It's far better than the new 360 Flymo I bought for the front garden, to save me from having to carry the much heavier one round. The new one throws the grass everywhere and collects very little. But it's a tiny lawn so I'm not bothered.


The lawn's looking dog rough at the moment, but it'll have recovered in a couple of weeks. I just beat the rain!

The riddle is protecting a bit I had to patch, something had started to dig a hole.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Started fertilizing the fruit trees with just P&K and micronutrients for the for last time of the year. 27 down and about 15-20 more to go.

MOD

 

[Black_Thumb]

Let's see. Today we had to corner and trap one of our chickens who had a severe case of crusty butt. We had to give her a warm bath with Dawn dishwashing liquid for 15 minutes, and then I had to clean her butt by hand to clear the problem. I hope she feels better now. She loved the warm bath once we got her in it, but it was rather exciting trying to catch her. LOL

After that, I deadheaded a bunch of our tomato plants, and then I had to do just a little bit of rerouting of the bean vines growing like crazy in one of our raised beds. They are doing so very well!! I'm super excited for our bean crop.

In a week or two, I'll be planting some spinach and onions to try my hand at some fall crops. My wife also picked up some kale and one other veggie, but I don't recall what it is. We'll be putting those in the ground as well.

We harvested another watermelon and it was delicious!!! There are two more growing. I hope they are as good.

My yard is already ready to be cut again. I cut it on Friday and it's already out of control. My son is visiting from Pennsylvania, so I'm a bit behind on the mowing.

Deer have been eating the leaves off of two of our little saplings we planted last year, so I am going to build temporary fences around those later this week after I get my delivery of post holders. Fun times.

 

[MiniOrchardDude]

Fertilized with P&K and micronutrients for 3 pear trees.

Harvested canteloupes and watermelons. Grew a 15 pound hybrid giant canteloupe and a 28 pound crimson sweet.

Dissappointed in the watermelon production this year. The size and quantity is just not there but the canteloupes are consistantly giving fruit.

Harvested my corn and it was delicious raw.

MOD

 

[Black_Thumb]

Going to mow the grass when I finish my coffee. Had to bring my son to the airport this morning for his flight back to Pennsylvania, so all we've done today is feed the chickens and drive for five hours. Now I get to drive for some more hours on my tractor to get the grass under control again. LOL

 

[Oliver Buckle]

cleaned up the edges of the path, did a fair bit of weeding and hoeing, started a new compost heap and mowed up all the weeds and edgings for it, sorted the bottom half of the old heap, I have made a riddle out of a piece of solid wire mesh with wooden edging and I am putting the bottom half of the compost heap through it. I could just leave it another six months, but I have uses for the compost, the larger stuff goes back into the new heap mixed with new stuff to inoculate it.

 

[Black_Thumb]

Thinned out some old watermelon plants and some dead stuff in the tomato plants. Had to reroute some of the bean vines too. Spent some time drilling and sanding some of the headboard boards for the king size bed I'm building. I should be able to finish that up in a week or so before our friends arrive for a visit.

Getting some planters ready to plant some onions (probably some Plethora and some Savannah Sweet) for fall. Should be a good harvest next May or June if all goes well. Kale and Spinach also going into the ground soon!