Yes I feel the same Lizzie27. I was ok doing it this year and might be for the next year or so but I'm pretty certain that I really shouldn't be doing it at my advanced age. That's a shame about your agapanthus, fingers crossed for next year.
Everything comes to those who wait Lizzie. I deadheaded my agapanthus, nothing seems to be lasting very long this year. I have several clumps of varying shades of blue and a white one but my most favourite is a white one tinged with the merest hint of blue which makes it look a silver grey. Delicious. I think it might be called Winsor Grey, after the Windsor Grey horses? It rained lovely soft, warm steady rain most of the morning, just what we want. I cut back the lavender and an alpine geranium. Fed and watered the greenhouse. Went to top up the pond but it didn't need it, we must have had quite a bit more rain in the nights than I realized. Uncovered and tidied swamped aubretia. Pulled some late sown mixed salad for a lunchtime sandwich and did more general dead heading. I might need a hammer and chisel to cut my tomatoes the skins are so tough! I dug out the packet of seed for the, as I thought, bush tomatoes to discover they are supposed to be a cordon variety. I have already started stopping the multitude of side shoots so it is going to have a thorough thinning now. The colour of the fruit is half black, and half purple when ripe so quite difficult to decide when it is actually ripe. It is a Thompson and Morgan seed called Indigo Cherry Drops, full of anthocyanine, for what it is worth.
With my Sunchocola it's very much the same @Joyce Goldenlily darker green neck than body, then turns a dark chocolate brown with purple hints, and gets darker the more it's left. The only way I know is to give them a gentle squeeze, if they give then pick, if I wait till they turn black yes the skin can get tough.
I picked my unripe apples, pips still white, gave half of them to my neighbour for the children, kept half for myself and peeled, cored and sliced the ones damaged by wasps and put them in the freezer.
Spent the day in the garden. Cut back the crocosmia lucifer, as it was paper dry to the ground. Weeded. Transplanted rose cuttings from last year, plus a miniature rose into a bigger pot. Last feed of the tomatoes/cucumbers I think 🤔 Picked 7lb of plums ( they are now prepared and in the freezer) Pulled a handful of Carrots and 8 good sized Beetroots. And picked these
I potted on two tiny Euronymus cuttings and four strawberry runners. Then I started cutting back gone over perennials in my main front border. Like Joyce, I picked up some fallen apples and prepared them for the freezer.
Seed-collecting today. Collected a load of erygeron karvanskianus seed and sowed it straight onto seed trays. Also collected some Nigella seed and stored it for spring. Then dug up and potted up half a dozen verbena bonariensis that had self-seeded.
Cut all the dead lower leaves (fronds?) off my 3 cordylines. I think this is the last year that I'll be able to do this with my stepladder. Need to buy a taller one for next year...
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That's a shame about your agapanthus, fingers crossed for next year.
It rained lovely soft, warm steady rain most of the morning, just what we want.
I cut back the lavender and an alpine geranium. Fed and watered the greenhouse. Went to top up the pond but it didn't need it, we must have had quite a bit more rain in the nights than I realized. Uncovered and tidied swamped aubretia. Pulled some late sown mixed salad for a lunchtime sandwich and did more general dead heading.
I might need a hammer and chisel to cut my tomatoes the skins are so tough! I dug out the packet of seed for the, as I thought, bush tomatoes to discover they are supposed to be a cordon variety. I have already started stopping the multitude of side shoots so it is going to have a thorough thinning now. The colour of the fruit is half black, and half purple when ripe so quite difficult to decide when it is actually ripe. It is a Thompson and Morgan seed called Indigo Cherry Drops, full of anthocyanine, for what it is worth.
Picked 7lb of plums ( they are now prepared and in the freezer)
Pulled a handful of Carrots and 8 good sized Beetroots.
And picked these
Cut all the dead lower leaves (fronds?) off my 3 cordylines. I think this is the last year that I'll be able to do this with my stepladder. Need to buy a taller one for next year...