2021 - What I did today

You'll be back on your feet soon, Danny, look on it as enforced R&R.

My raspberries are not the healthiest but as they give me more fruit than I can cope with, I've not bothered to do much with them.  Most of them are unnamed summer fruiting with the odd autumn fruiting (I think) cane, or these could be summer fruiting stragglers.

One cage had 3 rows of rather nondescript plants, some in the shade of a copper beech.  The grand plan was to dig out one row and replace with Joan J.  It's a bit of a risk as I fear the existing ones have a virus.  So Saturday P helped me dig out one row, de-stone and weed, then I had several saved  supposedly autumn canes (I had tied orange binder twine  around  these in anticipation).  So we revised the grand plan and dug out the middle row too.  Today we dug a trench at the middle row site, filled with not quite rotted horse manure, topped with homemade compost and backfilled, then planted the best canes back. Tomorrow we'll dig the other trench in prep for 5 x Joan J ordered from Marshalls with free p&p and 10% discount.  I do realise all this should be done later in the autumn  but couldn't resist free p&p and 10% off :

                   

Do I trim down both summer and autumn canes to 1ft high?

You'll soon be back to the plot, Danny. Meanwhile, sort seeds, then drop them on the floor, and sort them again. That's what I do, often.

.............and soon after writing that ^^^ I went down the garden to collect the drying pea pods for saving. Very carefully, I picked them and put them in a little pot. Then I was side-tracked by some weeds and I put the pot down on a log.
Next moment, there's a rattling sound, I turn and see Ted. pot in mouth, running round the garden leaving a trail of peapods that Spud was picking up and eating! So much for saving enough peas to swap!!

JJB, I can't help with raspberry pruning advice. You know mine - if its brown, cut it down; if its green, leave to be seen.
One question, why is there a garden gnome in your fruit cage?

He's in training for the 'rude gnome' category in the harvest festival. He hasn't yet mastered pulling his trousers down to moon at passers by - thank goodness!

Got home from a weekend away, watered in the tunnel and the outside beds and patio plants. Did a bit of trimming on the tomato plants lots of dead leave and branches. Loads of tomatoes to be harvested tomorrow.

I went to GWL yesterday and came home with a load of plants, and plans to buy loads more.

That prompted me to weed the front garden which has an oddly shaped raised bed, with another raised bed on top. The top one doesn't have any plants in it, just odd metal flowers and various... things left by the previous owner. Couch grass is growing in between a few pansies and very little else. There's some kind of cabbage growing too - I'm guessing that's from the bird seed that has been spread around. I got most of the weeds in the raised bed under control today.

I will remove all the gravel, weed suppressing membrane and, plant a rose in the top, with all my new lovely plants in the base. Pics will follow tomorrow

Next door as you know are elderly, a bit confused and disabled , not that he admits to any of those. He ordered a lucky dip perennial plant mix of 12 plants in 2.5" in pots. The problem being he hasn't got a clear area of border to place them, then is unable to get down to the soil to plant them.

He did his very best to clear the mat of couch grass, nettles, bindweed, dandelions and lily of the valley from the front of what used to be his very neglected flower borders but quite honestly didn't succeed very well with using a prong with one hand and holding on to his walker with the other. I was hesitant to interfere as I didn't was to imply he couldn't do the job. He planted some of the plants from a standing position but they were destined to fail, not being heeled in or watered, poor things, so I bit the bullet and offered P to dig through the patch and de-weed and I would plant out. He accepted reluctantly. He was a bit cross at the plant supplier saying they didn't label the plants so he didn't know what he was planting but it turned out that the labels were on the pots themselves, he just hadn't seen them. So my job today was trying to identify the plants, remove them from the partially cleared patch, dig over, then tomorrow is replanting, with neighbour helping, so he has at least some input.

Weeding the potatoes, pulled up the last of the peas only 4 pods left. Pulled up those horrible gherkins out of the poly tunnel. Picked a bowl of ripe tomatoes

Potted up the last of my winter lettuce, collected all the dried Telephone pea pods.