GARDENING IN WALES

Gold Affiliates Wanted!

                   July: Tasks for Week One.

Lift Tulips, Hyacinths: etc. Including crocuses and anemones. Shake the old soil from the bulbs and remove dead tops; sort them into two sizes for next planting. Not for me this year.

Complete Stopping of Carnations: otherwise you wont have any for Christmas, as the need five months rest.

Lift St. Brigid Anemones : (as for tulips above).

Begin to Summer Prune Cherries and Plums: growing on walls. It is not worth while trying to apply this method of pruning to large bushes and standards, for these are better being allowed to grow rather freely.
Well, that lets me out (for a while) as I have only plum trees in my back garden - three of them :-)

Make an Outdoor Mushroom Bed: Obtain a good quantity of fresh stable manure. Turn and shake this every other day or so, until the 'heat' has gone and it is decaying steadily. Build it up into a flat-topped ridge or against a (north) wall. Tread the layers down, as you build it up. It should be 2½ feet deep and any width (3 feet is good). When the pile's temperature falls to 70°F, insert sterilized mushroom spores at 10 inch intervals about one inch deep. Plug the holes with manure. Then cover the whole bed with a foot-thick layer of straw. After 2-3 weeks, scrape a little manure aside to check on progress. If you see white filaments, all is well and the bed is ready for casing. This is done by covering the bed with a one-inch layer of loam, flattened with the back of a spade. Cover again with straw. Keep moist but not wet.

Even less for me to do this week than normal! At least I can get on with my website.
The grass has started growing in my borders again, so I'll have to weed it this week. The Japanese Orchids I planted in June week two are coming up a treat! They're already 6-7 inches high and my roses are in bloom.
I got up at 4:15am this morning and spotted a large black cat in the garden playing with something white. When he saw me in the window he ran, but shortly afterwards came back to whatever he had left. However, there is a large white pebble on the path, which had found in the lawn while mowing it and the cat went to the pebble instead! He soon realised his mistake and went to his food/plaything. But surely ... he should have been able to see and smell that he was on the wrong track? Maybe he's old and decrepit too, like the white one who still sleeps in my garden. As it got lighter I could see that he was wearing a red collar, so he's probably a pet. I took some photos, but I haven't looked at them yet.

Enjoy your garden!

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 Last Updated: June 23, 2008