What are we doing in the garden 2025

Not only am I an exemplary neighbour , @Plantminded, but leaf blowers are a noise too far where I am concern. (Bear in mind I won't step in a shop these days without world-quelling headphones clamped to my ears. Loudness is not something I cope with well.) I think life would be much improved if we could switch off our hearing in the same way we can close our vision down. Oh, and if we evolved to grow a replacement set of teeth in our 40s or 50s.

 

Leaves yet again swept up (no blower). Apples sorted. The russets aren't storing well at all this year even though they are a great size. Then collected some more so Falstaff, Spartan, Fiesta and Blenheim Orange have increased our store.
Watered the seeds in the tunnel.
Looked again at the medlars. We have already given a lot away to neighbours but this year large fruits and loads of them. On Monday we are removing plants from tubs and baskets at our village hall and replacing with bulbs that had to be planted in pots earlier on. So will take some medlars up and maybe some other neighbours would like to have some.

 

Pruning and weeding and taking to compost heap, until it started to rain.

 

Fortunately it's been a very warm (16c) dry and sunny day so I was able to meander up and down the garden to do odd jobs, reducing the height of the autumn raspberries, some roses, dig up two clumps of grasses which were getting crowded and start doing some much needed weeding. Really enjoyed my day.

 

The ones on the outside were quite black but I worked to the centers and
thanks again

 

The roots do sometimes have a black skin when older, looks like you have some new shoots there?

 

I split one of the black ones and the insides were like mush so I didn't save them. I haven't figured out what to do with the keepers.

 

If they are really small, they won't store well, if you have your growing area set up and in use you could pot them up, I've one small seedling that I'm overwintering in the green on the window sill.

 

Hi,

I too have a leaf blower @Plantminded I have Makita power tools on 18v so bought the bare Makita leaf blower already having a battery. It's got three speeds and although not as powerful as the big blowers it cleared the oak leaves and pathways much better and very much quicker than using a brush getting under things and into corners; I've since taken the oak tree down but I still use the blower from time to time; its downright noisy though on high setting but well worth it.

With rain forecast for this afternoon; I headed up the garden to resume couch grass attack at 1 o'clock and spent an hour and half until it started to look like rain; I'd had enough so quit; it didn't rain at all; the number of times I fall for the Met office guessing the weather; ignoring the forecast proved the right thing to do.

I cleared the double row I'd marked out with the spade in the previous picture seen near top left;


Every bit helps. I'm finding heavy patches of rhizomes but other areas are pretty clear; I'm very carefully going over with the hand trowel at least four times turning the soil over and over; where the ryzomes are dense the soil is powdery the ryzomes extracting the moisture; unkown until I get below the surface. Half way down the meadow tapers so will be quicker to clear but I've a long way yet to go; the next two days are forecast lots of rain for a change (NOT). All this trowel work isn't doing my violin bow arm any good. It'll be interesting to see if the weed killer has in fact completely killed the grass shown; I hope so because I don't fancy turning this over too.

Before next springtime I'll browse J Parkers website looking for suitable shrubs and plants which will need to withstand this exposed garden.

Kind regards, Col.

 

@Retired many years ago i bought this book called tree and shrub expert, i wasn't interested in trees because i had a small garden, might be able to still get it.

 

I've got some 6" pots with baked potting soil in them but I really don't want to start the grow area yet. I usually start it when I want to begin my chillies which is rght after Christmas. Maybe I'll find someplace for them up here.

 

We had that book, but the cover got tatty so we got another, but they changed the cover. Got lots of the other Dr Hessayon books too. But the chap died about a year ago I think. I expect you could still get them, but maybe second hand.

 

Raked the front lawn and swept the gravel area of oak leaves. Filled 2 bags. Put non-frost proof pots in the greenhouse. Noticed that the Christmas cacti have plenty of buds so I brought them indoors into an unheated room.

It was a warm and sunny day.

 

I resisted getting a leaf blower for many years @Retired because of the noise and the way council workers use them to blow leaves in front of oncoming traffic . However, I succumbed a couple of years ago and have a small battery powered one which does an excellent job. Today I cleared all the wet leaves in my lower garden from the borders, paving and steps within about 15 minutes, a task which would have taken me a lot longer before. Much better things to do in the garden .

 

Blowers, rotovators, chainsaws, angle grinders, pressure washers are all far too noisy for me; if I can't hear the radio easily it's too noisy.
The exceptions are the lawnmower and shredder, but these are only used when there is no TMS or anything I want to listen to on Radio 4.