What did you do in the garden today?

Is usually a chat starter, but really, can anyone get excited about the fact that I pulled out 8 wheelbarrow loads of knee high weeds on Monday? That's about all it is here at the moment. Weed, weed, weed. Occasionally feed & mulch.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I finally planted the 2 apricots and 3 peaches that have been sitting waiting. Fortunately only one was bare rooted - an impulse buy - the funny little donut shaped peach that has been in all the shops.
I put in my potatoes, and planted out my leeks, did a bit more weeding and came inside feeling somewhat self satisfied and very grubby :-)

Today I will .....probably pull lots more weeds. I need to remember to follow my tracks with mulch or there will be another lot of weeds when I turn round at the end of the day.

What did you do in the garden today?

The taller the weed easier to pull out I say

Have some tall weeds around the pots They're on the agenda but not today - they're at the bottom of the list.

Attended to my very neglected flower beds instead. Shovelled several wheelbarrow loads of horse manure and fresh mushroom compost on - forked it all in lightly. Will spread the sugar cane mulch we got yesterday over it this afternoon when the heat has gone out of the day. Have taken some of it down to the chook pen to lay under the roosts. I'm pooped already - had to come in for a coffee - not used to hard yakka - had 6 months off LOL

So I'm grubby too and my nails will take some scrubbing LOL

Glad it's out of the way - have heaps more to do today if it doesn't get too hot - feed the pots and fork in some more compost, take a pic of an orchid for Marion to check out - have a question about it. That's enough for a day

ahhh, lovely days, lovely clouds, thought it was going to rain, but it didn't.

I got my rose garden looking nice for the family to overlook when they come down on Sunday for a few days,

I have 3 barrow loads of creeping oxalis, mixed in with spent Heart's ease plants , and my fingernails and hands are wonderfully dirty, gives a good feeling after it is all done and ready for inspection LOL
today, I will spread some manures and then some newspaper to try to get rid of creeping axalis, knowing that IT WILL BE BACK .

Marion

Not much here today in and out with the boy all day, but next 2 days are going to be nice so will try and get a few things done I keep putting off

Pssttt love you avatar marion

Went to a local park to pick up a half a yard of city supplied wood chips for use as mulch next growing season 2009. I now have a pile of 2.5 cubic yards, and it will be composed a bit ready for use. The chips were small and ideal. It seems I am the only person picking them up, since I see the hole left form previous trips.

http://www.durgan.org/ShortURL/?FCOVW 8 September 2008 Killing Grass and Storing Wood Chips

Garden area is being enlarged to 8 by 26 feet. A tarp was pegged over the grass ready for
spring conditioning. The tarp is utilized for storing city supplied wood chips for Fall and Spring use. A half a cubic yard box in the van is used for transport, and a wheelbarrow for moving from the van to the garden area. Four trips were made today, and more will be undertaken, since about seven cubic yards is required.

I gather you don't have a day job Durgan? LOL
I look forward to retiring from mine, and spending more time in the garden.
I have a little 6ft X 4 ft trailer that I tow if I need to pick up soil, manure or anything, but, even though it is supposed to hold 1 cubic metre, it is impractical to do so. I would generally collect 1/2 cm if it was soil, sand, or a heavy mulch, and maybe 3/4 for something lighter. I don't want to destroy my car engine towing anything too heavy for it, and I don't like having stuff overflowing off the back of the trailer. Not that people around here worry, but I imagine your neighbours might be a bit more fussy than ours.

Here's a photo of out the front of our house, in winter last year, with snow and all. That's my hubbys little run around car. In the background you can see typical Aussie bush.

Umm - not big enough for 6 of the biggest round bales of hay - not even big enough for 2 dozen bales of sugar cane mulch. You need a truck LOL

I spent most of the day putting the final touches into the October Victorian Iris Society newsletter. Drove into Ballarat to get the black and white pages double side copied at Office works. Sat in the car and realised I hadn't taken my purse. A quick search of my handbag turned up $25 and there was some parking meter money. A $2 coin was visible wedged down the side of the seat and I tried for ages to prise it loose until it went completely out of my reach. One of the side pockets turned up $1 very sticky coin, and another 10c so I just cratched together the $33 for the copying and didn't have to drive all the way home and back in.
Came home and did the coloured pages here - slow work. The one side prints easily, but for some reason the second side jams up and double, triple, etc feeds spreading the printing out over several pages. SO.....(Grrrr).....I had to hand feed 63 pages. While I did that. I sat and stapled the printed pages, and now I have to do the folding, labelling, and stamping.
Well by 4.30 I was sick of that, and a sunny day with no gardening was not a happy day. I packed it in and drove up to our little farmlet to feed my 2 incredibly domesticated feral cats, and ended up doing 1 hour of weeding in the iris beds. Well actually weeding with one hand, and rubbing a big fat furry white tummy with the other. Neither of them really wanted a feed, so I assume there have been some baby bunnies killed.

So at least SOME gardeing got done today :-)
Cheers, Jan

I did a bit of watering today , that was t, spent the day out shopping for food, a bit stock up so we can eat

I didn't do very much outside today but I've been doing bits every day since the weather's been better. I turned the compost heap and fed the worms. Mulched the fruit trees with horse manure (I fed them with B&B yesterday and watered them deeply), I pulled up a load of Oxalis from around the greenhouse and moved all my cuttings outside on to a stand with shelves. I potted up lots of little Bacolas as people are always asking for bits of it when they come here and it is a pretty ground cover. Pity about the smell though if you walk on it! Did a general inspection of the roses looking for aphids and blackspot. yesterday i found some powdery mildew so that got the milk & water treatment. I just love enjoying all the Spring growth, can't get enough of it!

My minor effort today. Waiting for Australia to send back the Sun.

http://www.durgan.org/ShortURL/?OMLUB 28 September 2008. Preparing Garden Beds for Over-wintering

I cleared most of my own compost bins, and spread on various beds throughout the yard. Sometimes I have cleared the compost bins in the Spring, but it is often frozen when the time comes, and spreading must be delayed, hence doing it in the Fall. Also, fall season spreading gives the compost some time to filter into the bed.

Yesterday we paid attention to the beans & cucumbers for the coming season. I have a complete rundown on my blog with before and after photos of the areas we worked in.

Then this morning I planted out 4 apple cucumber seedlings, 4 continental cucumber seedlings and 1 eggplant.

http://www.durgan.org/ShortURL/?GAHCL 29 September 2008 Fall Garden Preparations
Various yard work was completed today preparing the garden area for the Winter sleep. The ground cherry vines were pull, and shredded, time one hour. A load of wood chips were picked up at a city park and stored for Spring use, time two hours. The last of the tomato vines were pulled and shredded, time one hour.

It was a scorcher yesterday and I was out watering at the crack of dawn. Thank goodness I mulched the other day. It was only the vegetables that needed it and some of the annuals I transplanted into pots around the climbing roses the other day. Washed dust off rose foliage while I was at it.

Put fresh mushroom foliage around all the geraniums and roses in pots - an experiment. The rest of the pots were mulched with dry horse manure.

Thought about planting some lettuce/tomato seedlings but decided against it. Really want to put them into pots so they're in full shade for the summer. I did clean the pots but still haven't organized a mix for them.

Maybe this afternoon if it isn't too hot and the pups are occupied elsewhere LOL I'm running out of lettuce.

And you can't see the horse manure or mushroom mulch if foliage covers it LOL

Today - finally got round to digging out 2 gardeninas and a host of hellebores, some hydrangeas, the last 2 undug Just Joey roses, and sundry other stuff. That end of the garden is about to go under the bob cat (well in a couple of weeks), so this afternoon I'm replanting stuff. I'm also running the soaker hoses on my iris beds at Springmount (from the bore) as it has been such a dry september. 1 soak will be enough to carry them through the bloom season.
I still have to move 4 clematis, and some hostas, and have left these very late. I'm hoping the builders can work around my snowball tree, and my camelia. Hybby suggested I cut them back by 1/2, tie them up tightly and put 2 or 3 steel posts around them for protection.
The builder, before he went on his 6 week holiday, said - no need to move anything, we can work around them. Yeah! pull the other one!

Only one major garden bed to weed and mulch now, and one smaller one, and a bit more mulching to do elsewhere, then watch stuff bloom. Well maybe not sit - probably get stuck into the veg beds then, and start watering from the tanks.

cheers, Jan

early this morning I planted some sweet corn seeds...and round gourmet carrot seedlings (which I picked up yesterday reduced to 50 cents...so heres hoping )..did some watering....the rest of the day I have been otherwise engaged...hopefully I shall put some more seeds in tomorrow and start on the dozen or so plants (ornamentals) that desperately need to go into the garden (it is just a matter of figuring out where)

oh and mulch..never seem to complete that....maybe because I have to weed first

Do you do what I do Tilly? Do the weeding then sit back and feel satisfied, and decide to leave the mulching until tomorrow? I then have the problem that the weeds regrow before I finish mulching that bed. I have been much more strict about it this year, because I can see the difference in how easy it is to weed the beds that were mulched this time last year, and have barely been touched in the meantime.
My biggest problem is remembering to take photos. I rely too much on my memory.
Having said that, I am off now to take some photos of the dear sweet little dwarf bearded irises that are opening with this warm weather.
cheers, Jan

I can honestly say I get hardly a weed in my flower beds - they are mulched to the hilt with horse manure and sugar cane mulch. Used hay not sugarcane in my old garden and just pulled out the occasional sorghum weed, whatever.

I do have weeds though - mostly grass - coming up on a bank that I can't get to and needs heavy mulching.

I got my plants in. read the labels and they were 2 camellias, not gardenias. I ended up planting them and the hellebores and hydrangeas in front of the new wall. The garden bed was made, and the pinebark mulch spread on top, and I was intending to put in some grasses to complement the wall with their softness, but it's done now and looks quite effective except for the poor wilted hellebors. Will get a photo once they pick up a bit.
Tomorrow - putting mulch down between my iris beds. Have almost finished weeding them now, and the soak I gave them today is timely before I put down the mulch. I only mulch the paths, because the iris don't like to have mulch near the rhizomes, but there aren't many weeds growing now, as this is the third season of hand weeding. Just knee high weeds along the fenceline, so I'm taking the mattock tomorrow and have a good go at them.
What day job? I caught up with the filing yesterday, so will put all the stuff together for the accountant this week and get it out of the way.
cheers, Jan

Having the day off tomoz, will make a post then

My helper and I got 1/2 way through the big iris bed, and will finish the job next week. I'm hitting the accounts this afternoon, before I get into serious trouble with my accountant.