Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Back to normal after yesterday's jolly. 

Was expecting snow & ice, but it's odd out there, grey leaden sky with sunshine, and a Yellow Snow warning, cue old jokes 

It was bitter yesterday when out, the wind cut right through me, seems quite today, but I'm not venturing out

All happening down your way Dusty, but at least you have more trees and no evil gaze, that's a nice pic of the gate & secret garden, kind of beckoning to enter

And 2P tomatoes into the New Year, the ones I was thinking could keep over, in the conservatory, seem to have been frosted & have collapsed in a limp heap  

twopenny said:

Hmm that challenged the Chinese/American spell checker...

My spell checker has flounced out in a huff and no longer werks [ ] It kept flipping to a US one, despite my dragging it back to UK and stuffing it with S not Z

Now it has stopped entirely, bummer

Not checked my P Bonds, maybe we can all get packed up for Rottery Acres this year?

No gardening again, I may join 2P mince pie & cuppa party later today

After I posted yesterday about no red dawn, lo, here's what appeared later, a twofer, sun & moon

twopenny

Therell be no gardening today. It's wet, grey and glimmer of light and staggered from 0 - 1c with the chill sweeping over you if you so much as stick your head out.

So it's aqua physio and swimming to try and mitigate those mince pies and a sauna for me then time in a warm library.
Bit of shopping.
That's as exciting as it gets.

But I do have plans to find some shelves to go in the glass porch to start off tomatoes early and see if I can extend the season.
I mean, £3 for some grown in water and tasteless is not on.
Of course I'll probably get nothing this year and have to eat my words. 😄

I saw some seeds in pretty packets in the garden centre and thought, oh nice new year present for a friend but they were common weeds/wildflowers labelled pollinators and £4!

I think I've been in too long over the holidays and getting grumpy. Or perhaps stood back and see common sense.

Ps. The clematis has turned into fluffy seed bells now they're dried from the torrents. Must try and get a photo. Cute.

Farway

twopenny said:

But I do have plans to find some shelves to go in the glass porch to start off tomatoes early and see if I can extend the season.
I mean, £3 for some grown in water and tasteless is not on.
Of course I'll probably get nothing this year and have to eat my words. 😄

I saw some seeds in pretty packets in the garden centre and thought, oh nice new year present for a friend but they were common weeds/wildflowers labelled pollinators and £4!

If you have any life left in the outdoor /indoor toms, a bit of stalk maybe? You could try & root tom cuttings in water for early start, trouble is with early start is lack of light and getting leggy plants, ask how I know

I have thought about buying young plants, but choice of variety is what prevents me doing so, and going down the Gro lights trail is just more expense for not much gain with limited space, maybe if Dusty style polyy tunnel could be worth it

Those pollinator / wildflower type seeds are a right con IMO, like you say, weeds generally. 

The Butterfly or annual  mixes are not too bad, but trying to find out just what is in there before buying is not easy, the pictures are just fibs

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

All happening down your way Dusty, but at least you have more trees and no evil gaze,

Yes, two improvements ( I never complained about the dogs, but they were a bl**dy imposition  ) so I hoped for a third..... 

And lo! This morning, two very polite men with interesting equipment  called, saying they were looking for the almost mythical water main leak, their predecessors had failed to locate. Could they go into our field? 

Well, we walked the field, with me leading them along the route I believe the main takes. The man with the GPS was impressed, saying, "Yep, we're over it!"  Actually, it's easy, 'cos I know where it begins, and the exact spot where it exits the field.   

No leaks on our property, so I crossed my fingers, but further investigation didn't lead to her next-door's unlawful stable extension, built over the main!   Instead, the guys tried their luck over the road, soon finding what they sought in the field opposite. The farmer lives over a mile away, but I dobbed him in.  That leak's gone on for ages, it's been investigated at least 3 times, and we're paying dearly for the waste.  He must've known, given there are no springs at the summit of the hill here!

So, a result, of sorts. Now watch them cut us off while they fix it! 

Tried for a moon shot to rival Farway's pink and purple dawn this evening, but nothing doing in the way of silhouetting a bird in a tree against it. It's so cold, the birds were all hunkered down in the hedges, not sporting themselves on lofty boughs! So, I drained-down the outdoor taps, covered less hardy stuff in the polytunnel with layers of fleece and said 3 Hail Marys. That should keep everything safe for the next 3 days, all now with yellow alerts.

Since there are no moon pics, here is a bird one. It's just the clean-up gang under the front bird feeder, and their boss, the wagtail, who has a go at them every so often. The frost and rather grainy quality is courtesy of the shadow of the house.

Long grass courtesy of broken mower! 

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

twopenny said:

But I do have plans to find some shelves to go in the glass porch to start off tomatoes early and see if I can extend the season.
I mean, £3 for some grown in water and tasteless is not on.
Of course I'll probably get nothing this year and have to eat my words. 😄

I saw some seeds in pretty packets in the garden centre and thought, oh nice new year present for a friend but they were common weeds/wildflowers labelled pollinators and £4!

If you have any life left in the outdoor /indoor toms, a bit of stalk maybe? You could try & root tom cuttings in water for early start, trouble is with early start is lack of light and getting leggy plants, ask how I know

I have thought about buying young plants, but choice of variety is what prevents me doing so, and going down the Gro lights trail is just more expense for not much gain with limited space, maybe if Dusty style polyy tunnel could be worth it

Those pollinator / wildflower type seeds are a right con IMO, like you say, weeds generally. 

The Butterfly or annual  mixes are not too bad, but trying to find out just what is in there before buying is not easy, the pictures are just fibs

The polytunnel's no good. :'(  Early sowing in there can be hit with frost. Toms hate low temps. I don't start mine until March, in a propagator, in the boiler room. Soon as they're pirked-out, they go into the conservatory, which always picks up enough night heat from the living room.

I may start a few chillies in February. Same procedure, but with toms they go leggy started then, as you say.

Agree about wildflower mixes. A large proportion will probably not like wherever they germinate, assuming they do! 

twopenny

Farway someone rooted some shoots of Roma for me when mine failed. They didn't do well or fruit so I avoid that.

You both say the toms will go leggy but you know I'll have to find that out for myself 😄

Dusty that photo is gorgeous! 
I remember my grandmother telling me how they would let the chickens run in the wheat fields after harvest.
It went harvest, the poor people then the chickens. Now that's MSE! 😊
Good news on the water leak.

Sunny but sooo bitterly cold with the wind.
By the 5pm the wind had stopped and it felt quite mild. Still no predictions of the wind changing direction though.

LessImpecunious

Not attempting to quote or comment much due to vanilla slowdown (but enjoying pics, etc)...

But,yes, dormouse nesting tube... my first (surprised) guess when I spotted them, confirmed by gargling...

They were all firmly attached to low-down hazel branches, with the open end slanted down and adjacent to the trunk. The bushes are all rather small, and I was a bit sceptical that the area would be good dormouse territory, and the bushes provide much in the way of food, but guess they must eat things other than nuts for much of the year ...

However, according to local wildlife trust several were occupied during the past year (and it was an excellent nut year here...) Boxes are all in an area we hadn't visited since Storm Darragh brought down masses of trees blocking access to the area, longtime readers/lurkers may remember pics posted... . Dormouse will apparently be hibernating in leaf piles, etc now; boxes are used during spring-autumn...

Sunny but cold, with that wind, and a few snow flurries for added excitement, remaining unmelted in shadow, and giving a light covering this evening... I have to harvest leeks for tea tomorrow, hopefully will be able to lever out from ground...

-taff

Love the transition zone you have there Dusty, between the rough species rich grassland and the more formally structured main borders...It seems a marvellous place to put some big shrubs as a windbreak...

Lovely sky Farway, good catch..

With you on the sudden influx of weed seeds masquerading as wildflowers. I saw some fox and cubs the other day, I was thinking to myself, come to my garden, you can get them for free...not only them though, quite a few common ones were being touted. I did find it interesting that dandelions were the flavour in Singapore I think or somewhere geographically I don't know where and seeds were being exchanged for lots of money...

Well done to the water board for finally getting rears in gear...your gang is cute, is it the jets and the other ones? 

Made a start yesterday, laid down some weed fabric, started moving stones which involved riddling for the dirt at the bottom, ended up with three festival trolleys moved, and a nice bucket of sandy gritty dirt which partly went to repotting three heucheras after I washed off bugs in what little root remained. They're going in the ground if they live. Moved two chunks of verbena longname, annoyed the cats as it was moved into their pooing area, And let the garden makeover commence! None today though, too cold...and other stuff planned...

Farway

Very hard frost this morning, but it has meant blue sky & sunshine

Moon News, supposed to be super duper moon tonight, you can gargle [Copyright Less] the reasons but should be worth a look upwards

twopenny said:

Farway someone rooted some shoots of Roma for me when mine failed. They didn't do well or fruit so I avoid that.

You both say the toms will go leggy but you know I'll have to find that out for myself 😄

Oh, never tried Roma so can't comment really. I think the cutting method is more for early stuff, I know whenever I tried it it was late in season so although they grew they never really were same as spring sown

Leggy tom trials, spoken as true gardener  , I think you need to be over 70 before you acknowledge some things told to you by other gardeners may have hint of truth in them, only some things mind, will continue trying azaleas on chalk, sowing LIAM etc

Hope you levered leeks Less, and also prised parsnips, if you had any 

-taff said:

With you on the sudden influx of weed seeds masquerading as wildflowers. I saw some fox and cubs the other day, I was thinking to myself, come to my garden, you can get them for free...not only them though, quite a few common ones were being touted. I did find it interesting that dandelions were the flavour in Singapore I think or somewhere geographically I don't know where and seeds were being exchanged for lots of money...

The ones being touted I see are Teasel, £3 a packet. I can see why they would be attractive, insects & architectural reasons. I have some that self-sow, and I sprinkle seeds around as I meander the byways 

I think it was James Wong, when growing up in Malaysia? who wanted to grow dandelions when young, for the same reason we want to grow orchids, bananas, rubber plants etc

No gardening today, again, frozen solid and too cold

But, ta ra, my amaryllis has got a flower spike on the way!

With guest appearance of the hyacinths in the background

twopenny

Happy Easter everyone!
The eggs are in the shops just waiting for you 😀

Another 1c start with a North wind and enough sunshine to make me think I should clean the windows 😕
At least that might change the weather.
The sea was all small breaking waves making it look like it had been iced like a wedding cake. Poor birds were struggling to fly or feed.
No photos, I was shivering so much they are all out of focus.

Not fiddling with the garden and having a good clean indoors, finishing all the jobs I've piled up 'to be done ' I hope and clear the decks for the time to come which I hope will include some fun.

Dusty I always feel a little jealous of your lovely garden and all it's nooks and cranies. It's beautiful 😍 
But I can admire from afar as I'm no longer up to such things.

Farway, lovely sunset. There's something so optimistic about the good ones although it's nightfall. It's like a promise that it will be back.

Less, I did wonder about doormice but they seem a bit low down. I used to belong to a group who went round the woods cleaning out nesting boxes of all sorts. Carrying a full size wooden ladder with us up roads and woods. 
And I used to be able to tell a nut nibbled by a doormouse or if it was a squirrel. I should learn again now I'm going slow.

So I'd better get up and at 'em again with the house before I loose interest 😉