Awful weather - typical Brits talk

wort

Dusty stunning horse pic, then the butterfly😍 Farway those cannas are a sight ,no chance up here though.
Pp what a shade of blue on the hydrangea, I can’t get one to stay that colour😩 and topped off with the sweetest Robin. 🥰

twopenny

Wow you're all so productive and talking about finishing off tomatoes! Mine haven't even grown yet.

Everything in the garden is dried out and I'm watering like mad but it's making no impact now.

It's been bright but with a bitter easterly wind. Didn't put the fire on but did snuggle up under a fleecy blanket with a hot water bottle the other day. Tourists are out in shorts with warm coats  

No rain for months now. Poor old plants are just looking so awful and struggling to bloom here and there. The fruit has either rotted or dried up. I have 4 big tubs of cutting back stuff.

I've done a few things for perfuming rooms as well as what's been mentioned. I put lemon oil on cotton wool in a wooden box or a tiny dish of water and put that on radiators.

Tesco do cheap vanilla candles in a glass jar and they go on the radiators.

In summer I have a few bottles of old perfume and I spray that on the heppa filter in the vac. 2 birds, one stone when you're hovering

I like Cedar or Sandlewood oil a few drops on the door mats, even on carpet in winter.

Wonderful photos! This isn't so wonderful but I managed to get a photo of the supermoon the other night. It's been really low on the horizon so didn't come out as a dot. Taken with no tripod or timer, just stood at the door so won't be pin sharp.

Aches and pains going now. Bland diet I've been getting chocolate milk from my local farm hut..........darn the grockles, they are buying up all the eggs and milk and I had to get a rum and raisin milk shake instead. And 5 dozen eggs got taken before lunch!

LessImpecunious

Rum and raisin milk shake sounds good! (but maybe, like many such things, not as good as it sounds?). Sorry to hear about your ongoing drought problems - seems very unlucky given how much rain - even if only intermittent - seems to be falling everywhere else . Love your moon pic🙂

On the topic of tomatoes I finally managed to snap a pic of this afternoon's harvest...

The larger red ones are some rather small Bloody Butcher, the long ones are Purple Ukraine (or at least I hope they will be when fully ripe ), and the small ones are what I now know, thanks to the D Meister I should be calling Ex Sungold - varying in colour, size, taste and shape between the several plants I have - plus speed of ripening - some plum-like ones which set very early have yet to show any hint of colour... bTW I am following advice to pick once some colour is showing, rather than wait until fully "vine-ripened", which is why several are still partially green...

Just thought, I should prob have posted this on the thread I stared last year - no - just looked, over two years ago, asking for advice on growing toms - wlll see if I can cross-post this - having followed lots of advice given there (some of it by regular posters on this thread) this (despite being a poor growing year) is easily my best ever one for toms

Dustyevsky

Best bargain of the year. These 3 plants from Sainsburys for 1p each!  

Not even half dead.

No, not me. DD1 went in to get some smelly mackerel for crayfish baiting and saw them.

The canna is already flowering, the hydrangea has gone over, and the blackberry is allegedly a patio type with no name.

They were having a clear-out.

YoungBlueEyes

Gawd they're beautiful clear pics Dusty, you can see every detail I'm another verbena-less soul here, I might even give up trying soon  
That's the bargain of the year  - 3p ?! :clapping: They all look fine to me  

I think I'll try bush toms next year pp, that will mean buying either more seeds or some little plants. I need to start them earlier so they get further along faster, that was my mistake this year. Well, that and poor grobags. I didn't see the Yorkshire prog last night, himself had had a hard day at work so I rewarded him with the remote We watched a thing on bbc about the crown prince of saudi (quite good), and a thing about Ruth Ellis (total shoite). Imagine holding a 1955 situation up to today's standards of mental health/policing etc and then getting angry about it. But the Mohammed bin Salman one was worth the watch. I'll find the Yorkshire one on catchup  

Ooh I love Historic House's posh garden Farway, that'd do eh. You'd never be in if you had all that! Chuckled at secret church passage, god forbid a pleb should lay their eyes upon them! Are you fully stocked now for delectable morsels, and bankruptcy be damned?  

Bluddy ell, that's a cracking robin + hydrangea pic I'd have that as my desktop screensaver background thing. I guess your new phone is working a treat then?  

That's a very atmospheric moon pic 2p, it has a dream-like quality to it. Lovely I'll have to keep my eye out for lemon oil... Greedy grockles, the farmer should keep a secret stash for locals. We've only had bits of rain here, nothing like they predict. Very annoying when you don't water because they say the rain is coming, and then when it does it's a few dozen drops and they dry out before they hit the ground. Grrrr. 

That's a good variety of toms Less, and I didn't know that about picking them before they're fully ripe. Mine are still a long way off that I like your basket too

Another nice morning here but it's not to last, they say. Tufty little clouds out there and a bit of sun Grey clouds for this aft, plenty breezy and perhaps a drop of rain. Actually it'll rain and be windy at 1130 when I get out of the hairdressers  

YoungBlueEyes

Last night's sunset. Lovely soft peachy clouds to start with - 



...and then this happened - 





It was actually rolling, like a sideways mini tornado in the sky. It was only up there maybe 10 mins 'til it dissipated and was gone.

Dustyevsky

We had one of these at 400' over our house yesterday evening. 

https://www.raf.mod.uk/aircraft/atlas-c1-a400m/

Didn't just scare the cats! Apparently, it went to Lundy, turned, and then droned on to Wales, so maybe Less saw it too. Wales is big though!

I agree, pp's new phone is giving her good shots. That blueness with a hydrangea only comes with acid soil, like we both have.

You have a great skyline Bluey....and I have a horse!

2p's Moon shot shows atmosphere is sometimes greater than clarity. I see it as a spooky book cover.

 Here's another sunset, with next door's Rosa rugosa and some nettles.

I might be going somewhere today, which will be nice but first the watering and hen muck-out......

-taff

PP, lovely clump of crocosmia, I do love the look of them. I had some in the front garden and was worried about dire warning of taking over but they didn't like it and faded away. Dodged a bullet there I think. Nice neighbour has offered me some but I'm trying to say no politely..That robin and hydrangea pic is really nice, and so sharp! bless him, he looks so disgruntled.

Farway, I can see why yu have canna envy, they look really good with the verbena longname. I've managed to keep some of that alive this year, hope it comes back next. I've realised I need a lot more mulchy compost stuff for the front garden, it's like a desert it's so dry.

YB E, how many cups?!! I did laugh at intravenous tea too..Lovely rolling cloud too. I was drivin home form work once and a big bank of cloud was rolling over, it was weird because it looked like it could have been a giant tsunami.

Dusty, beautiful pictures of butterfies and verbena..And yeah, can't have Lords communing with the hoi polloi...And that's an impressive haul for 3p!

Farway, that's a bit naughty to do that to a poor butterfly. Between being pinned and fridged, they don't have a good time of it. And what a fab lush border...I want things spilling out too.

2P, like your moon too, proper atmospheric, I like that the trees and stuff hint at a mysterious landscape. Turn the milkshake into ice cream

Less, who said that? the advice that is...great haul of toms too, say what the ukrainian one is like and maybe save some seeds for a swap?

Nothing much going on here, had to fill a butt with tap water for the tomatoes and watered all the pots, potted up the quince tree into a garden bin because it wasn't in a big enough pot and kept blowing over despite four big blocks holding it down. This means the pot it was in can be used for the medlar which is looking a bit frazzled. A job for later. Means buying some topsoil...and maybe a bit of compost unless is reuse some from elsewhere. I've been watching a lot of Gino in Italy and I have growing envy, especially lemons..If I was up to it, I would definitely move country, even just to have the thrill of growing in Italy for one year to see the difference. I expect it would upset me forever when I'd be back here so maybe it's for the best. Or I could get a polytunnel and live in a caravan [ to afford the land for the polytunnel ]

wort

Forecast here is 20% chance of rain till 10 ,but the suns out😳 so waiting a bit before putting wash on. YBE I went to town expecting the storm tail end that was forecast so had coat and brolly, it was sunny till after tea time then only did 5 mins of rain. So fingers crossed for hair appointment.
Dusty that is the haul of the year 3p for those is an absolute bargain. Plus they likely be better than anything you’ve paid a fortune for.

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

. Or I could get a polytunnel and live in a caravan [ to afford the land for the polytunnel ]

I don't want to give you ideas, but round here some people buy a bit of land or a wood, stick a mobile on it, and then see how things go. It usually takes about 5 years for the council to get them out, occasionally longer, and by then they've lived rent & rates free, and the value of the land's risen too.

I couldn't do it, and I don't agree with it, but it happens more often than people think!