Spring Bits and Bobs.

[oldherbaceous]

Well we are here at this stage of the year already, so let’s hope we all have a really good growing year…..and hopefully pick up and keep, a few new members!

[retropants]

Hopefully the warmers days will motivate me to get some garden chores done!

[Westi]

Beautiful few days, just perfect for my back to go!

No idea what triggered it as I am pretty careful with the chores I do & always take a day off between visits. It is improving slowly though & hopefully I will be able to nip down on Saturday to do some watering & light stand up jobs at least. Mind it feels more my hip than back at the moment but that's probably my altered walking gait due to the pain, but should settle now I am almost on top of the actual back pain.

Fingers crossed it continues to improve, I'm really in the zone now things are actually growing.

[oldherbaceous]

Sorry to read you are suffering Westi, sounds much the same as mine, job to know if it is the back, or hip at times…..makes everything seem twice as hard to do.

[Westi]

Back has improved a lot. I sent Mr down to the little chemist near the quay to get some Brufen gel who apparently asked quite a few questions & then gave him the highest strength gel. I never even knew it came in different strengths only available from a chemist as I only pick up a tube at the £ shop. Might be worth enquiring OH so you have some in the car 'just in case', it certainly works quicker & last longer. Back still a bit dodgy which is the norm but the hip pain has all but gone.

I will pop down the plot tomorrow for a check & to water the stuff in the tunnel. I won't be doing anything that requires bending or shovelling, maybe just a little hoe of the grass I had to resort to spraying on the fence line. The chicken wire is already turned up out of the way so no bending required.

[oldherbaceous]

When mine gets bad, nothing seems to touch the pain, Westi…but thank you for thinking of me!

[Clive.]

A few spots of rain overnight, quite mucky rain on the car.

It dried quickly and I was able to hand weed the tiny weeds that were appearing in my new flower/shrub border at home here and I had a light cultivate though it. Pleased to find that the Telekia that I planted but hadn't yet appeared was lurking all ok just under the surface. I knew it would be really as it's quite hardy but pleased to see it all the same.
I then had a go at removing some errant bluebells that had become a little too much at the western end, some phygelius too... Going to fork though this again in the next few days and then it is to be home to a philadelphus that I purchased a while back
At the house end of the back garden the crown imperial lily ,that I put in, are busting through the ground....not through enough to scent the air yet, with an odour that some think smells akin to something else..........

A few more spits and spots of rain this evening, hopefully just enough to refresh a few things without hampering progress.

C.

[Westi]

Survived the visit to the plot without any problems but didn't do too much. The black plastic had blown free on the front beds; quite weird really as no significant wind, but it made it easy to fold it up & put it against the fence out of the way. Beautiful soil underneath that only took a twizzle & rake to look good. Winter leeks going in this space, but also got the main crop spud bed behind done as well. Hoed the fence grass I sprayed, gave the beds in the area a quick hoe as some naughty weeds showing but not many & watered the tunnel crops.

Won't risk too many jobs for a bit but will just continue down this side hoeing & sowing more watercress, & will weed the asparagus beds. This time 3yrs ago I had asparagus up, but I have given the asparagus a pretty big compost top up as it is 20yrs old, but by far the best asparagus both for taste & volume of the lot I have in these beds.

[retropants]

I’ll be sowing seeds today and also pruning container blackberries and raspberries. I need to do a lot more, but my hayfever is horrendous right now. I’ll spend the afternoon putting all the clean laundry away!

[Clive.]

Hunt the bluebell continued this morning with a few more little ones found..
Then, with it hopefully sufficiently cleansed, I planted the Philadelphus Belle Etoille, 3x Origanum Herrenhausen and a Lithodora...so that completes the planting of my border rework that commenced following the removal, last year, of the alarmingly large getting Japanese cedar.

Next was to rough dig over another strip of semi lost kitchen garden..more soft foggy grass buried deeply..and just now I have knocked it down with a Wolf cultivator, before it dried too hard in the keen NE wind. It went down lovely, ready for another broad bean row to be pushed in, maybe tomorrow..

C.

[Colin2016]

Got a rose bush in back garden that I want to move to front garden.... ok this time of year?

[Clive.]

Hello Colin,
At the edge of the time for bare root moves now..November to March. Rose nurseries are emailing, pushing for last bare root orders. I had some that were healed in in a cool shady spot after delivery and only got them moved two weeks back but would have preferred a few weeks earlier but the location wasn't available and ready...the risk in my case was if they had started to white root out in the healed in location, thinking they were already in their new home and thus suffering a second lifting shock and then not being able to draw sustenance quick enough relative to loss from the top in the recent drying winds and warmth.

Depends how valuable the rose is to you, if it doesn't take off again, its age and how established it is in its previous location. Healthy roses put down really deep roots.
If only a couple of years old it may move ok but then really old roses can sometimes be rejuvenated by a dismantle and rescue from old rotting wood within them during a dig up and then planted back clean again.
Cut back well and low to aid recovery after a move..and save some good stems as cuttings.
Over the years have done all sorts with old roses including seeing a colleague bow sawing some Mrs Oakley Fisher roses in half from a lifted bush that had stems going in opposing direction but the cut would leave some root on both new sections..hey presto two roses...maybe not in the books these days but it worked.. We were changing the spacing of some roses within a bed right outside the big house kitchen window.!

It really is the very edge of bare root move time though...and roses with which I am acquainted locally are really well into leaf..

C.

[Clive.]

It's a proper Spring day here...indeed Skoda has received two new rear coil springs this morning and is back underway again.. Local garage on the industrial estate, so I had a walk down the farm lane where I used to ride my push bike as a little lad but which, despite being only just up the road, I hadn't been down for some years. It's no longer a farm lane though, just access road to the back gate of the cemetery and then bollarded off into a footpath next to a huge, farming allied, factory.

I got the broad bean row pushed in this morning, lovely fibrous grass root soil, then I had just 4 Maris Peer left over from my 8/3 planting so put them in and then the shallots, that I wasn't going to grow but bought them on a trip out. Hermine and Meloine..

Front lawn mown with Rover mower..which to my amazement started straight up on the dreg of last years fuel that was still in the tank...As I pushed the primer plunger I was thinking to myself,..you idiot...put some fresh in first...but somehow I had to try it...and off it went

Ginsters pasty next, I reckon

C.

[Westi]

Pleasant morning in the tunnel planting on the brassica's into bigger pots. Got a bit carried away & decided to move the staging to the other side of the path first so I could dig & feed the current location opposite which was compacted as I was stepping & sitting on the chair in there all winter. I'm going to have an overload of Brassica's counting out the successes I've potted on. Unfortunately the Savoys were no shows so re-sowed them. Tunnel is 100% ready now & looking good just waiting for their summer guests when ready.

Had some time left before the bus so managed to hoe a couple of beds so ready for a quick dig when down next. I was pleased the drowned bed was dry, but only hoed where I will put the spinach & celery as apparently they will be OK if they get wet. (Obvs with back ups elsewhere). It probs won't be a quick dig either as the soil this end is cracked & rock hard as limited rain. It's fine by me if it stays this way, as I can improve the soil but can do nought about the flooding.

[Clive.]

I should add to my list today that after lunch I chanced a row of Early Onward peas. It feels a little early but the Winter dug ground worked down so well with just two pulls through with the biggest Wolf Garten 3 tine cultivator and then raked out lovely. The drill for a three wide row pulled out with the wide swan neck draw hoe and just enough peas from last years saving added to by some left from 2022 made up a row almost right across the south side area. Just stopped short of the south side fence as it stays in the shade there.
Then put some growmore around the raspberry rows and lightly scratched it in with the small Wolf cultivator.

I need to repeat the exercise in the other garden...and there the ground works well too but is always heavier...

C.