Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

Hello Diary Readers, 
My shopping from home expedition in the garden was quite productive. OK, it wasn't the same as visiting a garden centre, popping in the coffee shop, etc, but I did spot some nice self-sown freebies - a chionadoxa, 3 foxgloves, 2 aquilegias, a primrose, two 'tangerine gem' poppies (which seem to flower from about May to November) & a centaurea. Well, I'd just popped the centaurea plant in a shuttle tray & I heard buzzing. I couldn't see where it was coming from, so I lifted the tray to see if a bee had become trapped underneath. No bee. Then realised the buzzing was coming from the soil around the plant I'd just lifted. Carefully trowelled it onto the lawn & crumbled the soil away & out came two beautiful tawny mining bees! We do often get them in our garden but I hadn't spotted any of their usual little telltale signs of piles of earth next to bee-width burrows in the lawn. They are obviously planning to nest around the centaurea roots this year & I clearly dug up two of them when I rescued my self-sown freebie. I love free plants & shall use all of them for filling gaps in my borders, but I was more pleased to see our bees had returned to us. They look like they are made from rusty orange velvet.
And then Mr F brought me a cup of tea so I did have a drink, even though it wasn't in a garden centre cafe. 
I have read/watched the headlines, but am being careful not to be an over-consumer of news at this time. I can absolutely do what is being asked of me (which is a mere fraction of what NHS workers are doing) but I have to find my best way through it & I think I might be starting to get there. Early days, I know.
Take care all, 
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

foxgloves said:

Aww, HHoD, shame you won't be able to have a nice NT visit for your birthday. My birthday is next month, so I'm sure I'll be doing an at home thing too. If the weather is nice, I might do a picnic with a bottle of wine to have in the garden, but I'll defo need a wet/chilly weather option. Enjoy your day as much as you can in this difficult time.
F x

Yes I do feel sad about it 😭 so I'm going to have a second birthday like the Queen when all this madness is over 😁. At least I'm not working on my birthday and it looks as though the sun will be shining .

Onebrokelady

I saw a massive bumble bee while I was out walking B today 😊

PurpleFairy26

We’ve spotted several bees in the last few days. Although no fancy ones like you foxgloves but it’s so lovely to see them none the less. Maybe less pollution is good for their lungs?!

my second hand copy of the book you recommended came yesterday. I fully intend to take some time today to start reading it (hopefully in the garden with a cup of coffee). Looks fabulous. Thanks for the recommendation and thrilled to get a second hand book for less than £4 and give it another life. 

foxgloves

Glad you got it for such a good price, PF. We used it when we dug out our wildlife pond, too. It's just solid sensible advice. I've been gardening since I was 8 or 9, as my Mum was an amazing amateur plantswoman. She grew tomatoes, occasional cucumbers & peppers and I remember strawberries, raspberries & gooseberries when I was very small, but on the whole, veg growing wasn't really Mum's thing, so I was glad of Geoff Hamilton's book for the basics on growing beans, courgettes, aliums, etc. I also like that he divides up the months so you get a better idea of what constitutes 'Early sping', 'late winter' etc, rather than guessing & risking being too early, or too late to get a crop. Shame you don't live nearer to me & that we are on lock down as I will have surplus chillies & tomatoes but at least I can try & squeeze extra tomato plants into outdoor beds.
Anyway, enjoy the book. I hope it's useful. I wish the BBC would show some of GH's old 'Gardener's World' progs because it was down to earth sensible advice & I'd rather have actual gardening programmes than garden makeovers. I always think the former are about growing stuff & the latter about spending money.
Off to mix up some bread dough, 
Take care, 
F x

foxgloves

Hello Sunbeams, 
I'm chatting to you from my garden bench next to the pond. I can hear the nearby A-road which runs up by the side of our village & a family of children playing in their garden, but apart from that the only noise is birdsong & a sparrow fight. It started off as a squabble over what's left of the nuts, escalated into pecking each other & then the whole kick-off decamped to the middle of the hedge. In the meantime, a savvy girl sparrow has taken the opportunity to finish the nuts herself! The tawny mining bees I mentioned are here in good numbers this year. I've found 3 of their little burrows in a big flowerbed & one in the lawn. They do no harm & are very pretty. It's not been a bad day here.... I am only reading the news for the main headlines. It's not that I'm not thinking of all the people affected by this terrible virus because I am. It's more that I need to be positive & productive & not over think, so a limit on news is key in achieving that.
I've made a loaf (well nearly... It's on its final proving), I've had a long chat with my sis & said hi to my b-in-law & nephews on Skype & I've been for a walk with Mr F. No issues with social distancing. We saw very few people. They kept their distance & we kept ours. This afternoon, I've edged the bed around the pear tree & another big flower bed. I saved the best of the grass I sliced off, cut it into turfs & have watered & trodden them in on a very bald strip of lawn behind my greenhouse. Hopefully they will 'take'. I don't want to spend money on turf & only need a small amount. I'll see what it looks like when I've finished the edging & nabbed a bit more.
No more jobs for me today, apart from turning the last of Sunday's leftover beef into a curry. The sun is still out, so I shall sign off & read a chapter of my book before putting my seedlings to bed.
Hope everyone is holding up & staying safe.
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

It sounds like you had a nice day Foxgloves and I'm glad people are keeping their distance.

I'm going to order some bedding plants from the website you recommended so I can plant up some pretty pots for my garden. After all, if I can't go out many places then I want something nice to look at . I've ordered Geraniums and Pansies as our hordes of slugs and snails with voracious appetites seem to spare them! 🏵🌺.

foxgloves

Good idea, HHoD, yes I agree that pesky molluscs usually leave those well alone. I think there'll be a lot of pretty gardens this summer with so many people stuck at home. It makes me wish I could plant up a pretty pot for a local key worker, but I don't know any here in the village. I think I will press ahead with putting some 'Help yourselves' plants at the edge of our drive though.
Ah now, it's planty bedtime, must close greenhouse before it drops too chilly. 
F x

foxgloves

Hi Diary Readers, 
Hope you are all holding up under adversity. I'll check in properly later, but just wanted to report a successful supermarket visit this morning by Mr F. We didn't have a long list as we will hopefully get our fruit & veg from the local market tomorrow, so we chose Waitr*se because I'd heard they have massively improved on social distancing measures since our last potential petrie dish of a visit. It was way better. There was a queue when he arrived with a maximum of people in the shop at a time, so there was a marshall on the door ensuring one in, one out & a 2m distance in the queue. There were also staff inside ensuring safe queuing at tills with no unloading of trolleys allowed on the conveyor belt until the previous customer had paid & gone. He got round swiftly because there wasn't the scrum of the previous week to contend with. The only item on our list he couldn't get was something v specific & not essential so that was OK. They were low on eggs, but he did get some. There was plenty of loo roll &...... there was flour & bread flour..... only white bread flour, but lovely to see some, as I bake almost all our bread myself, something which I wanted to continue doing as it feels like a nice normal activity.
So we felt happy with that..... we usually just use Mr W for a small amount of items we like or can't get elsewhere because it does generally work out more expensive but after the crazy scenes at supermarkets, I felt choosing somewhere with a proper social distancing procedure in place - & monitored - was important.
Anyway, just flagging this up as it can be useful to know what's happening across various stores. 
Will pop back later, 
F x

HairyHandofDartmoor

That sounds like a good visit Foxgloves, well done Mr W .