What are we doing in the garden 2025

I've got that malvia /musk mallow, try to sow it in seed trays but won't work but they happily seed themselves anywhere.

 

Once they have seeded themselves, you can move them into pots fairly successfully if you catch them at about 2-3" high ... and then plant them out where you want once they are a bit more established.

 

Picked 4 more figs that the birds hadn't got to. A huge bowl full of reine claude d'oullins gages. The 2nd bowl. Best harvest we have had.
Started sorting out the shallots ready to peel and brine them tomorrow.
Cut the paths in the orchard.

 

Picked some more red and white currants and watered the hanging baskets.

 

We spent yesterday morning in the garden doing jobs and them most of the afternoon chatting and enjoying the sunshine.

OH trimmed our beech hedge (no birds nesting) and the cut the grass and edges so everything is looking a little more loved and tended. Our borders are quite wild so these neat lines help balance the chaos.

I was on chopping duty dealing with the prunings from our apple and medlar, which we did on Saturday. All the small twiggy stuff went onto various brash piles at the back of the borders where it can slowly compost down and improve the soil. The larger twigs and a few large branches were chopped and added to the log piles in our wild area.

We enjoyed watching a lot (for us) of butterflies, mostly small and large cabbage whites. We haven’t seen any dragonflies around our pond this year, usually we have chaser dragonflies regularly visiting from mid May and then the Emperor in July.

 

@Logan My grandfather used to grow white red and blackcurrants they were reserved specially for tart making but mainly black - your bushes are indeed prolific and hopefully very tasty. Finished the Forest Green painting to the exterior garden wood fixtures yesterday , cleaned the brushes in lots of water and one of the flower beds greedily benefitted. Then , as the house sparrows have now definitely vacated our house cavities , i blocked up the entry points so that next year there should be no persistent chirrupping from the wall cavity above the lintel in the kitchen.
Today ; I’m not sure , the sky is leaking some sort of wet substance which seems vaguely familiar and i am going to do a Google search to see what it might be…..

 

Thank you @Robert Bowen i grow blackcurrants as well, I used make some jam out of them but i don't use it anymore, so they all go into the freezer to use as puddings later.

 

@Logan amazing to be picking red currants now. Ours finished weeks or could that be months ago. White currants we did have years ago but the bush just disappeared.

 

On Allotments, dug Anya potatoes. Details on the veg thread.

 

@shiney you have harvested pears already. What variety as ours are no way near ready. And blackberries...still green here.

 

Is anybody harvesting apples yet? I wondered if they would be ready a month earlier this year because of the prolonged hot weather.
Might just have to try one from each tree!

 

@On the Levels one of my white currants did die, sometimes it happens.

@lizzie27 my eating apples aren't ready yet until September or October.

 

We have a pear tree, which has always been pretty useless. But this year it's sagging with the weight of pears. I'm banging my head on them. They usually fall off or get eaten by squirrels or birds. Not ready to pick though. Could be a bumper year.