What are we doing in the garden 2025

Why badger speak? It could be Womble.

 

The thread referred to badgers yesterday but from what you said about the poles being made near you , have you got Wombles in Paignton?

 

They come here on holiday every year during the tennis.
You'd never know from the litter, but they are on holiday.
I grew up in Boston Lincs, GNR railway never came to Paignton and was subsumed into LNER in 1923.

 

Old style creosote was nasty stuff, its poisonous by absorption through skin, inhalation and ingestion. I would not be poring it on my soil even in a rough uncultivated area. Properly treated timber is another matter.

 

Tell me about it, I was decidedly under the weather after spending a sunny Saturday creosoting the garden shed inside and out aged about 14.
I don't think anybody has suggested pouring it on the soil, it's too expensive to waste these days.
Note the Hall Hills sleeper works is heavily contaminated.

 

I was under the impression most railway sleepers were concrete these days.

 

They are on most of the track, but I believe that non concrete ones are used where more flexibility is required, so at points, bridges etc. Network rail no longer use creosoted sleepers they switched to using composite sleepers that can be recycled.

 

Moving on....harvested some more dwarf french beans. However after having them being stringy on the last few crops decided to take out any seeds and use them for cooking. Harvested a load of them. These have been added to some late broad beans and peas that I missed.
Then set up 2 demijons for choke berry wines. Lovely colour.
Used the other choke berries for bottling and have 6 jars in syrup and hope they also keep the colour.
Clouded over so we are watering in the tunnel as so many plants are suffering.

 

Hope you get better soon @Logan

I've been sowing seeds for next year which always seems a bit odd at this time of year mainly pansies - bellies - wallflowers but also some other bits like digitalis gigantea verbascum - heuchera mix looking forward to these see what colours the foliage I get . Planning for next year but I haven't even planted out my summer plants yet . Had a little potter around outside in the rain , yes since it started it been raining on and off all of July .

 

The previous owner of our house bought some land from a farmer in early 1990’s, they made a bridge out of four sleepers to cross the farmers ditch to their new bit of land. When we moved here we put the sleepers around an area where we were planning on sitting by the fire pit. Didn’t think it through and was surprised when the sleepers started oozing creosote as they got warm!!

 

Potted up some plants from a friend. He and I go to Farmyard Nurseries, buy loads each, and then, when possible, divide the plants to share. He is a sucker for hedychium, so I now have 3 more!

 

Nothing today it's been raining.

 

Just wish we had some rain. Water butts empty and the hose does not do the job of rain.

 

I finished the nasty digging portion of making adjustments to the mains driven sprinkler system. I had to dig down through clay to add a riser from tge main line up yo a rotator head. That's done and I've only got some of the older sprayer heads to replace. No digging needed for these. Then I added a trunk line to the low flow system for my new addition to lengthen a flower bed. The low flow services the flower beds but when things get very dry I turn on the mains system that soaks everything including the lawns.

I moved a couple of a plants that I had placed incorrectly.

And planted two new clematis (bought marked down) after taking two weeks to figure out where they were best situated.

Now I realize I have a leftover brick so I may extend the garden 1 more foot...

And when pounding in a stake I landed a solid blow on a nail. Unfortunately it was my thumb nail.

Now I'm just thinking about gardening as I sip some pain numbing libations.

Cheers