Feedback please! First year going all out of my garden 💃🌿
Please, feedback welcome! 🌿💃☘️🏡🍃💕🌻🧚♂️
tldr: Primarily looking for on plants!!! First year going all out woot woot!
but any ideas for layout also welcome as trying to maximise smallish space.
Soil is clay very hard to dig but want to use more where I can.
Trying to maximise flowering and fruiting for remainder of summer (northern hemisphere / uk).
Lastly, I have ended up with some injuries from gardening, including a really sore shoulder, a really irritated elbow, and quite bad nerve pain, not just stiffness. I don't know if it's from the drilling, the turning, and the bending, but I'm pretty young for a gardener, sothis is surprising. The whole point was to get gentle exercise, not to make things really chronic and give me issues, so if anyone has any tips to manage that, it would be great.
Please be kind as a self taught novice! Ty and hope you enjoy the fruits (ba dam tish) of labour!
----- Longer details of what I have planted and tried:
I planted tomatoes, which are going absolutely everywhere, and I am shocked at how bananas they are. I am doing all the things Reddit says, including taking off the little bits in the V and taking the extra leaves down the bottom out, but I'm still waiting for them to flower into actual tomatoes.
My strawberries were from other seasons, but I've repotted them and since then they aren't flowering this year and they've gone really dry and needed more care cuz they've been a bit shocked. They haven't gotten as big as usual. They've only fruited once this year earlier in the year and they were really really small. In the original pots where they were way too clumped together, they got snails, so I had to clean all that out and use fresh soil, but in the new soil which is clean, they're not flowering at all. Although I think they're evergreen strawberries, I'm not sure.
For the pea shoot flowers, I planted them a bit late so they're not growing that fast and I'd like them to sprout up as fast as possible so they can flower. The spinach seems to be dry and smaller than other years.
The leeks were from other years and they're doing well, there's one coming back up.
I planted sunflowers, and you can see them doing very well.
The mint was already there and it's sort of taking over the coriander.
I planted nasturtium, but it has aphids, so I've separated the clean plant from the plant with aphids and tried to take Reddit's advice on cleaning off the aphids on the one affected.
I planted cosmos sensation seeds, but they are taking ages to start flowering.
I have cut back my roses; one died completely, but thank you Reddit for the advice on the rose because that has got the one that was nearly dead back up to resprouting. The whole point is to get them to a really, really healthy stage in huge pots and then put them back in the ground, which is clay, next season so they take over my fence, so that's a bit ambitious. My second rose died, and I think the special rose fertilizer I used scalded it. My lavender was woody, so I cut it right back; you can't see it at the moment, but the roots are still there.
At the back, I have a jasmine against a brick wall that has never flowered white or had flowers, which I think might be because the wall is completely in the shade and the soil might not be good. There is an ivy in a bucket on the ground that is irritating me, and I am not sure where to place it. There is a bush with red flowers that I don't know what they are, but they are lovely, pretty, and attract bees, though it is flopping over.
My tree normally has beautiful pink flowers, but this year it isn't flowering at all, which I think is because of the heat.
Intried planting wildflpwer and bee mix in the grass, but I think its been too hot for them to take properly :(
Inside the house, I have orchids in pot plants and I focused on using the right soil type for them, along with other things in the garden. Two of the three are older orchids that I've repotted this year, and previously they flowered, but not at the moment. I'm wondering if I should wait and leave the stems as they are to reflower on the plant or if I should try cutting them off and propagating them.
Across my garden, I mixed new potting soil with horticultural grit and perlite, trying to get the right ratios.
I focused heavily on drainage, going through all the pots and drilling extra drainage holes into the plastic bits as well as the wooden planters. I double-varnished all the wooden things twice for waterproofing, including the new couch and planters.
I self-made a planter from a natural building site bit that is not professional but was cool
I used a water hose for the first time, which was loads of fun.
I have been watering every day and trying different fertilizers, including dry fish, blood, and bone, a watery one that smelled like poo, and the rose fertilizer.
I just put out a home compost today and I am trying things like coffee and spare food bits in it.
