KonMari 2018 - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Slinky

Sunday I lifted our onions, they were going over last week. For the first time ever I've left them outside to start drying out. Normally they end up going into the garage spread out on the floor as we have nowhere under cover to protect them from rain.


I also got rid of a parlour palm I'd had for years. It didn't recover from the overwatering it got whilst we were away in June - it was pretty ancient. One plant out, another one in the same day - visitor brought us a potted patio sunflower. I've got it in my sunroom, not sure how long it will last, seems to need a vast amount of water. I'm assuming that it'll be shortlived and won't survive beyond it's flowering period.


OH managed to hook up his oldest laptop for me to use to replace my failed desktop, so the desktop will be dismantled, lump hammer taken to the hard drive and be despatched to recycling the next time we go to the tip. I have already thanked it for its hard work. It served me well for 13 years, as a desperation purchase when my laptop died in under a year.


Am working outside this week, am getting up earlier and will try and get work done before it gets too hot. Trying to do inside stuff in the afternoons. I always reckon to lose one working day on my outside week to rain, so I will spread the work over 5 days instead of 4, and hope the forecast thunder storms don't appear at the weekend when OH is around to help me finish off.

[Deleted User]

I`m looking to outside, to my pots that will need watering yet again, this evening. Herbs that are going, 2 x different mints, chives and sage. I have had enough of keeping them alive, they do not spark joy in their droopy fragile condition. Once I have moved or after exchange here, then I am having another cull of pots. I will be able to get 3 lilacs and a japanese acer into the ground, as well as the achilleas. I need to keep them going at least until exchange, they make the garden look pretty but my future plans are going to include drought conditions

GreyQueen

:j I've broken a dinner plate, yippee!

In case you read that and think I've taken leave of my senses, I should explain that this particular dinner plate had an accident about 15 years ago resulting in a ding out of the underside. I still couldn't bear to throw it away but kept it on the top of the pile and used it always in preference to any other plate so it would be sure to be the victim and, yesterday it went into three pieces. Yesss!!!!!!!

I now have four dinnerplates, down from a high of nine (four were donated years ago). More than sufficient for a singleton household with no room for entertaining.

silvasava

Slinky I lifted my onions today too. I'd planted a couple of rows of white onions and a couple of rows of red. The white ones are humongous but the reds are not much bigger than when I planted - don't know what went wrong there
Last of blackberries picked and the canes cut down. New canes tied loosely in place. Did a bit of general tidying in the greenhouse too - that was enough for today

Slinky

silvasava wrote: »

Slinky I lifted my onions today too. I'd planted a couple of rows of white onions and a couple of rows of red. The white ones are humongous but the reds are not much bigger than when I planted - don't know what went wrong there
Last of blackberries picked and the canes cut down. New canes tied loosely in place. Did a bit of general tidying in the greenhouse too - that was enough for today

A couple of years back we bought mixed onion sets, the results were, to say the least, mixed. Some were not much bigger than when they went in.


Last year we planted Centurion and they did well, so we've had the same this year and again they've done really well. These are a brown onion, but they do the job as a base for many recipes we cook.


ETA, I'm concerned looking at the weather forecast for Friday where they say we could get half a month's rain in a day if we get thunderstorms. We are at the lowest point in the street, the ground's baked like a brick (we're on clay), we could be very vulnerable to flash flooding.

silvasava

Slinky - I'm at the bottom of two hills with a stream piped through our garden and on heavy clay I'd love some rain but not a downpour please!

Slinky

silvasava wrote: »

Slinky - I'm at the bottom of two hills with a stream piped through our garden and on heavy clay I'd love some rain but not a downpour please!

I've spent a lot of time this morning looking at domestic flood barriers etc..........


Some nice gentle rain to soften the soil up, is the order here when it comes.

silvasava

Slinky - just some nice soft showers to soften the ground would do nicely - we've had no rain here since the end of May

Siebrie

DD1 left for a week's youth camp today, and her bag contains: old shoes, old pj's, old underwear, old teatowels,...you get the drift. I hope she manages to completely wear out everything and leave it behind

We had some rain last night, but the absence of insects means I have to pollinate the courgette and melon plants by hand. DD2 and I will make an 'insect refreshment station' this afternoon: a deep saucer with pebbles and stones and water, in the shade.

Slinky

silvasava wrote: »

Slinky - just some nice soft showers to soften the ground would do nicely - we've had no rain here since the end of May

We had a small amount of rain last Friday night. Put about 4 inches of water in the butts, no discernable difference to anything else.


Have found a company who think their non-return valve is suitable for our sewer. We had the cover up last weekend as there looked like there was an ants nest down there with the amount of ant traffic going on. We discovered something that looked like old nests, but no occupants strangely. Whilst we had the cover up we cleared them out, was pleased to see everything looks like it was running freely. The last time we had the cover up was when the patio was laid 10 years ago. It reminded me we had intended to source a non-return valve as unfortunately some of our neighbours have their storm water from the gutters connected to the foul sewer from when this wasn't against building regs. We've had a couple of instances in the past where we've had water (and sewage) being forced up out of the drain and down our garden when we've had sudden storms. This wasn't so much of an issue as the garden slopes away from the house, but now we have a downstairs toilet, there's the potential for this water/sewage to be forced up our sewer and out into the house. The last time we had a big storm, we were getting suction noises in our downstairs loo.


Could be £80 well spent for some peace of mind.