2025 - What I did today

Got a lift to the allotment as I was low on energy, but got some more beds mulched with compost; planted out sweet peas, mangetout, cerinthe, and nasturtium; and did some weeding. Sowed some delphiniums since my old seed did nothing. Much later than I wanted but nevermind. Considered ordering more seed

Only things gardening related was check the tunnel and uncover things for the day. Ordered seeds. Covered everything in the tunnel.

Potted up some more small tomatoes - Red Robin and Balconi. I think that's the last of the little, early ones. in their final position.
Sowed lots of mangetout. Cleared some space in GH3 for the MT modules and covered them with the wire top of a hamster cage to keep the mice away.

Yesterday pricked out more lobelia, planted out some module sown chard now the ground is free. Pricked out onions from seed. Put weed supressing membrane under all the stones around the lower compost bins. Found holes in fruit cage net so repaired them too. Got rained on, but not enough to do the ground any good but enough to drench me and P. Today is out shopping with my pal for lunch.

A bit of a gardening day today. Hand weeded and hoed the bed at the side of the house to give me a idea of sacs to fill. Planted various shriubs and herbaceous perennials. Lots of annual plug plants still to go in but my back was aching so left it for anothe day. I have pots on the decking which I needd to weed and re-plant. A lot easier sitting down in the sunshine and doing this. As with the side bed, still lots to fill with plants but tomorrow is another day.

At least washing has driied well in the sunshine!

Weeded the strawberry shopping trolley and the pansy pots. Declared war on cow parsley which is spreading everywhere. The soil is so wet now that I can pull some of the roots out by hand - very satisfying. I've been loosening the rest with a fork. Almost filled a garden waste bin with cow parsley and I've hardly started. I'll be deadheading any I can remove as it really is taking over. its almost worse than montbretia!

Planted up one of my newly acquired pots. Sown seeds. Fed the tunnel fruit trees.

Went fishing for rainbow trout for a couple of hours. Caught a trout on a tiny spider pattern dry fly that looked like a spawning sockeye salmon with a hooked bottom jaw!  Put it back because I didn't like the look of it!

Went fishing for rainbow trout for a couple of hours. Caught a trout on a tiny spider pattern dry fly that looked like a spawning sockeye salmon with a hooked bottom jaw!  Put it back because I didn't like the look of it!

Did the trout or the fly look like a spawning salmon with a hook in its bottom jaw? Poor trout.

Spent most of today hiding in the garden, keeping out of the way of the central heating engineer who was draining the system in order to replace 3 thermostatic radiator valves. Unfortunately, once he'd left, I found that one of the radiators was cold - so had to wait for another engineer to come over and clear the airlock. All sorted now.
Whilst in the garden, I thought up another cunning plan! To sow flower strips alongside the paths to attract bees and butterflies, which will help in pollinating the fruit bushes, AND make the garden more attractive when I meander around AND as an excuse to give all the old flower seeds a chance of life.
I dug up cow parsley, buttercups, wood avens and cuckoo pint at the edge of one path and I'll sow the vacant ground with flower seeds.