2026 - What I did today.

Because of the decent weather I've finally got round to planting a potted Forsythia and a Cornus I purchased a while ago.The biggest problem was trying to envisage what they would look like when mature in the positions I planted them!

More tidying in the tunnel. All the detritus is now put away in its correct locations, the last 2 chilli plants had dried out enough for me to sieve the compost. Pulled up all the dead samphire sieved a bit of the compost and put it back. Covered the samphire fishbox . That’s definitely getting treated as an annual in future. That’s 2 years running it’s not survived the winter. The fishbox is now covered with a compost bag because not growing that this year. It’s been used as a shelf this year. Also dug out half the older compost from the bath bed (a fishbox full, being kept for bottom of outside raised beds when I have them ) and replaced with 3 barrow loads of manure. Then covered over with sheep’s fleece.

Not a lot gardening, it rained o and off all day. Resowed Lucid Gem tomato and put it in the airing cupboard in the warm.

A bit more tidying up around the decapitated bay tree.
Mixed up some sieved hotbin compost with old compost, molehill soil and coir ready for potting on some tomato seedlings and sowing something else - not sure what yet!

Bob has done a bit of digging. I’ve raked it over, softened the edges and pulled up any clamps that had been missed.

Went to a seedswap. Came home and attacked some brambles.

Built a blowaway in the back garden and organized a few seed trays in there. Moved the pots with the possibly rotten dahlias inside. Sowed some peas and whatever edible alliums had fallen to the bottom of my allotment bag and escaped planting out in the lay couple months.

Washed down the inside glass of gh1. In order to access said glass needed quite a bit of rearranging, relocation and tidying up. Started on the inside of gh2. I'm debating whether I need to scrub the metalwork with disinfectant.

Rain stopped play, so I took a leaf out of Veggie's book and sorted my tomato seeds, there are 93 different varieties some as old as Methusalah.
I did wonder why I bought any new ones this year. I'm tempted to retry some old seed but I've already chosen my seeds for this year and probably won't have space indoors. I might take a flyer and try outside but then there is the threat of blight, and outdoor ones dont normal produce that we'll.

Finished digging out the last few bits from the wildflower area. Collected the biggest of the stones. Started stamping down some of the digger track ruts. Made a small rock pile & small log pile at the far end of the wildflower area. Ordered some more wildflower seeds. Mostly hummingbird hawk moth caterpillar food plants. Pleased I got that much done as weather hasn’t played very nicely today.