Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Davesnave

Well, we've been alpaca walking. It was great to get out and mix freely with others, all without masks and social distancing etc. We had half the trek in fair weather, as below, but the rest......well, I'll show you later!

Davesnave

Farway said:

 a few years back, 2013, I was asked to source a tree in memory of one of the volunteers.... Had an online plant search and eventually I bought crab apple, "Laura", partly tongue in cheek because she was similar lady & would have also enjoyed the joke

This year it has been magnificent, here it is.

Beautiful! Shows that a bit of Malus aforethought isn't necessarily criminal!

.........OK I'll get me coat!

DD265

Alpaca walking @Davesnave, I'm jealous!

Our Kadai fire bowl arrived on Friday and yesterday we had friends over in the evening so opted to use it as a fire pit. We were away from home in the morning and ended up going to Blue Diamond East Bridgford - same chain as our bigger local one (which is Derby) but much larger. They didn't have any nectarine trees either, but we got some fuel for the fire pit and some inspiration from the garden furniture section, leading to us buying a resin bench with inbuilt storage from B&Q today instead of agonising over the corner sofa idea. The Kadai is fantastic, really enjoyed sitting around it and I can't wait to cook on it.

We've topped up the slate in the front garden today, and reckon we have 100kg-ish left over. Not sure it's worth selling, don't think we need it on the garden, but need to make a decision so we can get shut of the bag. Some of the plants are still seeming very small, so I'm hoping for some glorious sunshine after all this rain to give them a boost. On the bright side I've not had to water anything except the peach and pepper in the greenhouse; I'm keeping that shut when it's raining so the tomatoes don't get waterlogged.

Davesnave

.....And then it rained! We were in the woods, roughly half way through the trek and there was no shelter from this sort of downpour.

Our woolly friends who'd been so cuddly only a few minutes before, became like big, sloppy sponges! Alpacas don't have coats that shed water like sheep. My alpaca, Neville, was only a youngster and not entirely sure what was going on, so not so restful to walk with as I'd expected. DB also got a wilful animal in Barnaby, who just wanted to eat everything green encountered en route. As we plodded back to the farm the well-disciplined convoy became very strung out. I was roughly in the middle when I risked the camera to shoot this photo:

Safely back, the sun came out, so we steamed gently before our cream tea.

Despite everything, it was a smashing little outing. We had a long chat with the owners, who are developing this rural business as a small, family and friends-run enterprise. They have goats, donkeys and rare breed sheep for younger children and non-trekkers to pet and feed. We'll go back with the grandchildren.

phoebe1989seb

Oh, they're so cute, Dave - I love alpacas 😍 There are a pair at a small garden centre not far from us, but sadly the GC isn't terribly good so we don't go there often.

That looks - and sounds - like a great way to spend a few hours, preferably when it's drier though! One of our dogs (spiral fleece mini labradoodle) has a coat very similar - we call him "the sponge" when he gets wet, lol 😂

Hope the weather's better when you return with the grandchildren!

We had quite a prolonged hailstorm here today. Fortunately no real gardening was planned as we were working on the upstairs hallway. Just managed to tie up a rampant rambling rose (American Pillar) before the heavens opened 🙄

twopenny

Well! I've never seen a sodden alpaca before. It still sounds wonderful.

Went just before lunch to look for Gardeners Delight tomato plants and none to be had. But it started hissing down so went under a brolly for a hot pasty and coffee, still raining so explored the newly open shops and on to a food festival as I thought there may be plants there. Well, any excuse. The gin was plant based

https://www.exmoordistillery.co.uk/

I was then directed to another path side bench down a lovely river path but it wasn't there. Then found another roadside stall but no tomatoes.

I can get any amount of weird or standard varieties but not cherry ones.

Spent a finally dry evening getting dandelions out of the lawn as it's good weather for that. And still trying to kill off that random weed thats taken over my lawn. It's tough and determined. I've run out of the second bottle of spray s they need 2 hits. Then I have to stay around the garden till it's dry to deter any birds from landing.

I sprayed the cherry as well as during the wet the black cherry bug was taking hold again. My first cherries are swelling nicely

And it's raining again..........

Davesnave

I think Gardeners' Delight tomatoes are like binary gender, 2p. They've been replaced with something infinitely more exciting, or confusing, depending on your horticultural wokeness quotient. Anyway, the RHS has embraced the new abnormal and withdrawn their AGM, saying that either things are not as pure as they were in the past, or a new enlightenment has arrived in the form of 76 others. Just don't tell the BBC, or they will find some weirdos growing every single one of them and feature them on Newsbeat!

 I rate Sungold above all others.

Farway

Nice photos Dave, that downpour style arrived here later so I can imagine just what it must have been like in the open

I left all the plants out last night, no frost or cold forecast, just wet. It's dry at the moment & if it keeps this way I need to nip the tips out of the cosmos to bush them up

I seem to be having some luck with my opportunistic cuttings by just sticking prunings into the soil and waiting

I have a grape & hibiscus which look like they've taken, the grape is in the same pot as the unexpected tomato, there are roots poking out of the bottom but unsure if grape or tom roots until I have disturb them, no rush at the moment

twopenny said:

I sprayed the cherry as well as during the wet the black cherry bug was taking hold again. My first cherries are swelling nicely

Oh dear, if I can squelch my way down the garden I'll check mine out

greenbee

Torrential rain here just now, so I hope @Farway didn't get caught out by it... 
I was weeding the stream and dealing with the vast amounts of blanket weed when a neighbour stopped to chat. He mentioned that there's a lot of algae in the drains the other side of the road, and has been since a group of houses just beyond him started having issues with their digester last year... so was going to call the EA when he got home as it could be the cause of all the gunk. 
The water parsnip is just about manageable now, there's lots of crowfoot getting going, although somewhat grubby as it gets covered in algae. Water mint, water forget-me-not and marsh marigold look to be happy too. So I need to find more rocks and start moving bits further upstream. Two water voles spotted over the last few days, swimming furiously from one bank to the other, and a rock covered in water vole poo just outside one of the burrows seen this morning. 

phoebe1989seb

Sunny here, although looking at the week's forecast it's not going to last 🙁

I've got a few items to plant - a pair of lavenders (hidcote) that are going into urns and three small rosemarys to replace the huge one that was carried off by the frosts - plus there's a couple of larger things for DH to tackle later (a pot bound standard rose that's going into the ground and a fairly big azalea).

The first of our roses had an open bud this morning but it appears to have been nibbled by something, so not going to photograph that. Instead here's a couple of the rockery lower level which is currently bursting with bluebells and persicaria bistorta. The bluebells are unfortunately mostly not the native kind, but as planted before we bought the place I can't take responsibility, lol! The persicaria has spread like mad since we planted it three years ago.....