Does anyone know anything about gardening?

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Sorry, I don't get it. I am not trying to put off the wildlife. Perhaps that suggestion's for BRM?

the problem i see with boards/wire is that they will just move along and dig somewhere else.

For a (mature) neighbour who wanted her new fence to be more wildlife friendly,
I drilled some holes into the concrete gravel board and knocked out a hole,
(and smoothed off the rough concrete edges), between the full width strengthening ridges, giving a hole about 3-4 inches long and about 2 inches tall.
So might let a young hedgehog through, definitely amphibians, and prevent large carnivores.

a few packs of grow wild seeds arrived through the front door today
via kew gardens and the national lottery
a selection of uk wild flowers, good for uk wildlife, none of these forrin butterflies and insects in my garden thanks very much
gonna chuck a packet today as the soil will be nice and moist after the recent rains

betony
knapweed
corn marigold
corn poppy
corncockle
cowslip
musk mallow
ox eye daisy
yarrow
selfheal
and
red campion

roll on the usual wet summer please, so they can thrive

Wyevale are knocking out lobelia seedlings for ONE POUND TWENTY FIVE, it's 99p for a thousand seeds in Wilko. Mark-up joy.

none of these forrin butterflies and insects in my garden

just bought 73 hedgerow plants! big deal for me since i usually just buy random plants from the market stall to carry home.

@ChasnotRobert - got them from Habitat Aid, thanks for the link.

Good stuff! Planted them all yet?!?

I've deadheaded all my hydrangeas now as I don't think we'll be having any more frosts.
I'm heading down to Signature Hydrangeas in deepest darkest Kent in the next few weeks. They've got hundreds of different varieties so happy to pick fine specimens up for anyone that wants anything and can't get there.
My garden makes me happy.

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Almost there and then the wind and rain arrived. Not sure how they'll fare where we've put them, but we'll see.

Have a few left over - hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, alder, guelder rose. Anyone in SE6 area want? They're all smallish whips and in the ground now so no huge rush, but should be planted properly before they really start getting all spring-like again.

So much happening in the garden right now. It is joyful!

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So my raised beds are ready to go, filled with a mixture of soil, organic compost and coir fibre... Is it a good idea to get some worms living in there?

I've been watching YouTube videos of worm farms made out of buckets that are buried in the ground... I thought I might scale that down and cut a drink bottle up and place it in the corner of each bed... Drill holes in the side, cut top and bottom off, bury in soil, shredded paper in the bottom as bedding then worms on top of that, more bedding then some food, more bedding and cardboard then cover with a bit of hessian and fashion a lid out of a ceramic tile or something...

Crazy idea or fun idea that'll improve the quality of my soil?

The idea is that I'll feed the worms in the plastic bottle but they'll be able to roam all around the bed and make castings all over the place...

I'm obvs desperate for a pet... Can you tell? 🥰

First batch! There is about twenty times that on the bushes at the moment.

Truckloads! Proper stoked.

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Also have king qukes, toms and dill if anyone wants seedlings

Man that is nice looking. When did you plant it?

About may?

That looks delicious, could eat that at every meal...

Definitely do anything you can to encourage worms,
they are a gardeners' tireless allies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003cn9

I inadvertantly set up a couple of worm nurseries.
A few years ago we were using a simple cafetiere.
Each day, I would add a little tapwater to the grounds, to make it easier to swill them out,
and set up a short, (8 inch), bit of four inch diameter plastic pipe in the corners of the raised beds, each bit of pipe receiving the swilled grounds on a rotation basis, so as not to waterlog that corner of the raised bed.
That Autumn, digging over, I knocked over one of these pipes that had, say 5 inches of old grounds in it. The whole volume was alive with tiny/young worms!

Nice, I think I'm gonna do it... Maybe a bit of pipe would be a better idea, I think we have some under the house... I'll get it done this weekend and report back... 🙂

it might be the case, at least for the next few weeks

You can always blanche and freeze...

Ted will smash through it...

Didn't bother with the mini worm farms in the end, bought a packet of 500 worms, divided the pack into four and buried them straight into the beds... They should be fine, it's mostly organic compost in there so they're gonna love it... Hoping for lots of worm babies...

Planted a bunch of pretty random seedlings, let's see how we go... It's fun to finally get this going...

Got a lot done today, finally tidied up the front of the house... Got rid of the weeds, put some weed mat down then covered with red cypress mulch... The plants are dearly beloved's department, don't think there gonna stay like that...

Veggie patch feels good, would be nice to get some grub off it... It's autumn here now, just, today was the first cool day we've had, so that gives the plants a bit more of chance... Summer is too hot to grow anything... Gave my worms some coffee grounds this morning... 🙂

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My god that looks a long way from Brixton.

Really brings it home, as it were.

Good work Joe.