What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

Pressing my daughter's apples for her. Ripe ones have been falling off for weeks, but loads on the tree still had white pips. Some still do, but to avoid the whole lot falling down and rotting waiting for enough for an apple pressing session, we shook the lot down and pressed them this afternoon. I'll just reduce the percentage addition of cooking apple juice.

The apples could have been rinsed and frozen whole, then defrosted and pressed whole when there was enough for a pressing session, but I don't have a great big chest freezer anymore, just 5 smaller ones, and they're full of our Coronovirus/Brexit stockpile plus loads of blackberries we've been picking at up to 15lbs/day from the local brambles (44lbs 4ozs to date) and local cherries (30lbs).

 

Its not been a bad day better than forecast . Popped out to the GCentre after getting restless I had a Salvia on my mind and need to investigate. I had a good look round and rooted through the sale section see if any plants are worth saving, I picked up a salvia verticillata Endless love I couldn't make my mind up with ELove or purple rain that why I need to see it in person . Wearing a mask is driving me bonkers its to warm inside for them , and I got something stuck in throat trying my best not to cough in case I get beaten with a shovel or a death stare , especially as we have gone back into a more restricted lock down .

Back home I dug up a salvia Mainacht and replanted that in the front garden, it doesnt have the height i am after. I divided the s.endleess love and planted that where maibacht was. I've took some salvia Serenade cutting, I've got other plans for S.Serenade for next year when I re plant another border.

I've picked my first proper cucumber today . I go out and feed the plant s now with a tomato feed

 

@Scrungee are you getting blackberries already? I'm finding they're only just starting to ripen here. And local cherries - do you mean in hedges? Lucky!

 

Today I tried pumpkin flowers, tuna, patti pan, several kinds of basil and wild fennel as a stir fry pasta sauce.
Tuna aside (my pond is still a work in progress) it was basically about grabbing random stuff from the garden and throwing it in the pot..
Reception was affectionate but mixed. However it came after an awesome Pad Thai my wife fixed for lunch, so I was up against fierce competition

 

@CarolineL Here (southern London) we have been picking blackberries since a few weeks and they are most definitely sweet enough.
However, I noticed it can depend on sun exposure too. I keep mine trained high on either the fence or canes, and take some trouble keeping flowers and then berries esposed to the sun with some air circulation. Admittedly, it is not very easy to maintain with that kind of sprawling plants, but I think it does help with early pollination and ripening.
Wild ones grow in big bushes, so perhaps they take a bit longer because of that.

 

An odds and ends day. I grass seeded a small patch of soil at the side of the steps I made in the bank which leads down to the septic tank area. It's a temporary measure to hold sandy loam soil in place until next year when I'll cover the whole bank with ground cover plants.

I then potted up a number of Potentilla cuttings that rooted very easily in water. Scrubbed the bird bath out and then dismantled the bird feeders and cleaned those. It's amazing how long that takes with all the fiddly bits and pieces to clean individually.

 

Not yet but I am patient any time now .

 

Potted on some more wallflowers and picked a few blackberries from the garden but it started raining.

 

Nothing apart from eating our lunch out here and admiring the view .

Off to the GC later.

 

Garden Centre was packed to overflowing!!!. Didn't hang about and browse sadly just grabbed a tub each of Summer and Winter citrus feed...and scarpered quick!!

 

Didn't rain much so picked a lot of plums, the Victoria plum tree has a lot of fruit this year.

 

What citrus do you grow, Upsydaisy?