A view of my garden

[Westi]

Hi Richard!
Your messy places look just fine! Maybe my signature sign off should inspire you!

We judge against the unobtainable at times but when you can stop & view the beauty nature gives, it makes it seem less serious! I've got buttercup all through my strawberry bed & have been digging it up when I have the opportunity, but it was the buttercups that enticed me to the bed to find my first strawberry of the season All white strawberry flowers highlighted by the yellow buttercups! They don't seem to be competing but will still keep it under control - rather them than slugs or woodlice though!

[Ricard with an H]

Well......................yes......................but the grass would grow and grow with all the invasive species eventually pushing out all the more fragile plants. My neighbour regularly comments that my grasses are green whilst her grasses are brown tufts. It's because I cut it regularly and knock out the stuff I don't want to grow.

I do allow areas to show their natural beauty, in fact I work at avoiding creating a suburban garden even though many of my successful plants are not locals.

Thanks for the counciling though Westi, have a gentleman type hug. Mo regularly says I shouldn't let the garden become a burden, she wouldn't like to come home to a place that looks abandoned.

The other problem is that the longer you avoid the tidying and tending it tends to become more work rather than less.

I got told off for buying those hedging plants and creating work, now they are showing green sprouts the memory of the work to plant them has faded and I now look forward to showing you photos of a hedge that hides those dreadful wooden posts half of which are rotten.

Last year and this year I'm using chemical fertiliser on my grasses rather than the chicken poo I always used, Beti likes to eat chicken poos but it makes her poo a lot and at even harm her but the grasses always look better using natural fertilise. I do use a mulching mower though at times I have pick up or the grass cuttings get into the barn.

I still have yet to dig the weeds and last years produce out of three raised beds that could be growing stuff for this year though because I sowed carrots very late they shot up and I was still harvesting carrots a month ago.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Your messy areas look very neat to me Richard. It's difficult to keep a large area in some sort of order, and I try, but usually fail, to get top hand of it all at least once a year. Then it all gets away and does its own thing with a concentrated attack on individual bits so one or two areas look ok.

Talking about carrots, I thought mine weren't germinating until I caught a few grazing slugs the other night. This week most of the seedlings have appeared.

[Ricard with an H]

Thank you PP, I do have to learn to relax about how things are. When I have the energy my mornings are frantic catching up with more than one job at a time and none get completed. By early afternoon I'm pooped and am forced to rest, Mo used to call me "Duracell Bunny".

Here is a photo of the latest Aquilegia that has re-seeded this year by using the same method of scattering the seed and treading it in. And a photo of my pots being tidied up.

[Westi]

Thanks for the man hug Richard!

Thanks for the lovely pics - you are winning, but sometimes you have to submit to the advise of PP & Mo & pick your target in the garden that will disguise the not so good bits by the super wow good bits! Then you'll have some time for bread making as well!

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks Westi, something unusual happened yesterday, surreal and as if I'm being guided by a higher being though I have to say I don't believe in such things.

I'm at the doctors surgery and preparing for the usual wait by selecting a gardening magazine, I never open magazines at the front or back. I just opened the magazine onto a two page illustration of what not to do when your garden gets top-side of you, the advise given was all the things others have said and particularly the point you just made about picking an area that I can handle then ignoring the remaining.

I once didn't cut the grass for ages, it started at about this time in the paddock growing cycle, the dandelions had died off then up came a fabulous carpet of buttercup so I felt a party-pooper to cut then down. Then I left it again, when it was foot high it no longer looked pretty. Pretty awful brown rather than green and no colour at all.

Then when I did cut it getting rid of the cuttings was a huge problem so I had an acre of rotting grasses that covered and killed the growth underneath. The cuttings from an acre paddock would be useful to someone if it's turned regularly to dry then collected but no one wants the work and buy their hay from a source that dries and bales it.

So, as soon as the buttercup display recedes I'll cut it high then cut it lower and lower. It's ok if the weather is hot but even hot and humid can give me damp and rotting piles of rubbish I can't use because I haven't got the work in me.

[Geoff]

My calendar of silly sayings today:

"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up".

[Ricard with an H]

And, I'm going 'Walkabout" next week, Thursday until the following Wednesday. I'm trying very hard not to get stressed. I'll come back too dead plants because my neighbours didn't water for me until the Wednesday morning (Cynic) And grasses a foot high somewhere if I don't catch up. If I do catch up before I go the grasses will all need catching up with again.

[Westi]

But on the positive - you get to play with all your machinery!

[Ricard with an H]

Oh-nooooo. Westi ?

Not the "Boys toys"" thing. (Smile) I think I may have told you, at a nearby hardwear/utilities store they refer to me as "Lawnmower man".

I managed to cut three out of the four grass areas that I regard as domestic, then sat down in the sunshine to enjoy some 'tidy' with a glass of wine. (Maybe more than one)

[tigerburnie]

Basking in the sun.jpg (1.17 MiB) Viewed 4370 times

We have a problem with my dwarf French beans, they ain't very dwarf, indeed they are going for the sky

[PLUMPUDDING]

Thats odd Tiger, mine are doing the same. They are usually nice little bushy ones but are reaching skyward instead this year. I wondered whether to pinch the top off.

[tigerburnie]

They are definitely mixed up seeds, the "climbers " I planted outside look more "runtish", I haven't mixed the seeds up. No problem, it'll just be a bit more crowded in there for a while.

[robo]

It could be because they are in the greenhouse , I had one seed last year that I dropped when sowing in the pollytunnel before I realised what it was it had intertwined with the cucumber so I left it ,I got more beans of that one than I did with a row of thirty ish outside

[Ricard with an H]

Is all your greenhouse gardening in containers ?

When I recently sourced the greenhouse we can't afford but would be the only suitable option, I started planning, then I realised I don't have any soil underneath, then I realised that most of seem to grow in containers.