Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Dustyevsky

That's a goodish haul, Bluey. I somehow thought your tomatoes weren't performing, but you've done OK there, considering the awful outdoor season we've had. Alice has a lot of interesting varieties too.

Farway's Lakemont grape vine is probably a year ahead of mine in terms of age, but the fact that I'm getting pips is the greatest disappointment. Moreover, our second grape, allegedly a black variety, isn't. If I'd bought them in A*da at £6 I wouldn't have minded so much, but these weren't cheapies.

I'm beginning to think night sky photos come out better on posh phones than my camera.

Your new sig, has me puzzled, Bluey. If Darlington's pitch was waterlogged, why did they want to irrigate it? Could it be that AI has helpfully replaced the word 'aerate' for you?

Whizzing along this morning.... We're forecast some dryness soon. It's been a horribly windy past 24 hours, but with little sign of the torrential rain we were promised; just perpetual 'wetness.' Mrs Dusty was right to start her winter hedge tweaking while I was gallivanting on Saturday, but I wish she'd waited until there was someone else at home before setting up the ladders and going for it with the hedgetrimmer!

The tri-arch thingy is coming on a treat. If only we'd planted that last yew 4 years earlier!

-taff

Well it only took just over a week but I have finally caught up! No, not ensconced in builder shenanigans, well, not much, I went to Italy for three weeks for my cousins daughters wedding and all that entailed. Also the car decided to have an adblue problem, I fell and cracked my eye on the conrete so sported a beautiful array of coloured make up for a while [ it's still haging in there but it's mostly gone now], a friend had an exibition, we had to order tiles, basins, showers etc, had to put away all the stuff I brought back [ mostly kitchen stuff and food] and then spent two days washing everything in the kitchen and the saucepans because they were all covered in dust and plaster dust. Mostly caught up now excpet for five loads of washing because I keep missing the dry bits.

On the subject of why the kettle water tastes different to saucepan water it's obvious really..the saucepan water is concentrated

Congrats to your gd Farway, well done her!

Some beautiful ohotos, that moon one all in the trees was fab, very gothy..And I did like PPs car, very nice And it took me so long to catch up that I've now forgotten everything except great tomato hauls, lovely seascapes, thriteen sheep bums, one overhanging bum, a prolific rose parkii, some kind of wooden sculpture with a flower? and annoying tourits crowding out ponies and milk.

No to the glasgow rottery acres from me, not enough garden...which in other news...I have apparently got an allotment now, a choice of two, neither overgrown [ or already strimmed] so I picked the one with a metal shed, a fruit cage, some raspoberries and a big compost heap. I had to buy a printer to get it since I have to fill out forms and sign them, give them some pro rata money and then get my weed fabric out for some of it over the winter. I am now wondering what the hell did I let myself in for and why did I ask for one? Then I remembered when we were in Italy I bought Franchi seeds for one euro fifty and some agricola ones for one euro, seeds are seriously cheap out there so borlotti beans here I come...But it does have an apple tree and a walnut tree at the entrance so plot 43 here I come.

And I've copied and pasted 2P's recipes for further action...

-taff

Oh and is NoFear Mrs Dusty's middle name by any chance?

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

Oh and is NoFear Mrs Dusty's middle name by any chance?

 I caught her out! Came home earlier than expected. New knee and almost recovered hamstring's one thing, but potentially falling off a platform like that with no one else around is in another league. She thought she'd have it all put away before my return.

Still grey out there, but no rain now. We've missed the heavy stuff. At least the logs are all chopped up and under cover now, so when it dries a bit, it's more hedging. No, not the yew, Mrs Dusty won't let me near that. I get the rough stuff!

 Good to see you're still with us, taff.  Now, where's Arb?

twopenny

I think we must have got your rain Dusty so it didn't reach you.

Still strong northerly winds and soaking.  It should stop now as I've hung my swimming cossie on the line thinking the sky water would rinse it.

Wort what a lot of adventures you're having! Awww Italy you lucky thing, falling not so great.

Think you made a good choice of allotment and free trees you don't have to tend  

Farways rose and my sucess (so far) with the Clematis makes me think I should try some roses again. The only one that's ever grown roots was a hot house rose from the supermarket when it was in water - but I didn't look after it enough.

Dustyevsky

In for the evening now. One big shower snook past you and made it here, 2p. It's given me an excuse to clock off early, anyway.  

It sounds like you've had both good and bad luck, taff, but an allotment with mature trees and a heavy metal shed is the important bit! The camaraderie can be very encouraging on allotments. With much of the building now done or decided, you'll be able to romp away with the veg and fruit growing by spring.

Sorry you had our rain, 2p. You're welcome to it, though. We still have septic tank drainage and the insides of field hedges to sort out. I don't know what we shall do if we go all soggy like last year and the tractor churns us up.

It's clearing-up this evening and the wind's dropped. Being from the west now, we won't be so cold at night. The medium term prospect looks OK too. Hurrah!

-taff

I think we have a brief window this week of very little rain [ it just hammered it down the first three days I was back, constant undending hard rain and on and off since then, mostly on] so I can probably do some washing tomorrow, better get on with it or I'll run out of pants. So will the OH...Can't get to the tumble drier because it's in a corner.

I see wort is off to spanish spain and a break from the rain hope it's all it should be at this time of year...

YBE, you've gone for a posh mocha coffee then? Starbucks would charge you the earth for that..and I thought you said you had tomato lack, but that's glut....

I'm going to have to take a leaf out of farways book too, all my apples, and they were big ones, had a moth or spiders inside them apart from three or four, and they were huge oo, very Wicked Queen/Sleeping Beauty ones...I probably won't see a one next year but at least the bay is shooting up next to them.

Dustyevsky

A bright, clear, morning today, with little likelihood of more than a shower. Sounds promising.

Last week we began to be plagued by another bird; this time a robin, which kept attacking the windows and mirror on our car....and cr*pping profusely as it did so! Soon the side nearest the hedge was a complete mess, so we decided to park elsewhere solving the problem.

This week, Robin's back. Now, he's (it has to be a 'he,' doesn't it? ) attacking the office window. It seems to be a reflection thing, with him trying to drive the 'other' robin away from claimed territory. Sadly, he isn't going to succeed!

Not the most flattering photo! Here he is again: a bit fuzzy because captured through a window in dull conditions.

Farway

Rain has stopped, computer says next rain is on Saturday with blue sky at the moment.

Cracking Robin pic Dusty, fuzzy is all the rage now, film like is the word, crisp & sharp is too digital!. A bit like vinyl records, have to have a bit of hiss to be “proper”

What a bummer on your grapes, so disappointing after all the waiting, if only there was a way to get what was on the label, obviously price & source is not a reliable guide

As you say, cheap is sort of expected, like my useless, brick hard red pear from Lidl

Congrats on the allotment Taff, let's hope it all works for you. 

I tried borlotti beans, grew OK but for me, they were no advantage over runners. I suppose on allotment you can grow rows of them & dry for winter.

If you want something a bit different, try flat, yellow, or red climbing French beans

I grew Goldfield this year, easier than my runners, even survived slug attack, phase one and all edible even when larger pods, and stay yellow when cooked

https://www.simplyseed.co.uk/french-bean-seeds/goldfield.html

https://www.vanmeuwen.com/p/climbing-bean-firetongue/286vm

PS, wait for seeds offers of course

twopenny said:

Farways rose and my sucess (so far) with the Clematis makes me think I should try some roses again. The only one that's ever grown roots was a hot house rose from the supermarket when it was in water - but I didn't look after it enough.

Go on, go on, have another bash, if you take enough at least one will grow. 

If you use the soon-to-be pruning as hardwood cuttings just shoved into soil, I bet one will take by next summer.

Now I've spurred myself on, jobs for Autumn, take rose & grape cuttings, plus try apple one

-taff

Great minds think alike farway I bought them before I even knew about the allotment

That's my this years haul,about a third of what i bought last year, looking forward to the pumpkins now too all 1.50 or 1 euro...

I'll be interested to see how you do your grape cuttings too, there's one in Italy that has the most fantastic smell and I'd ove to give growing it a bash, so any tips and tricks gratefully received. Also will do your rose cuttings trick with two of mine [ really the only two] and see what happens