Awful weather - typical Brits talk

cardtexpert

When will it get better? Not a great few months for someone who manufactures and supplies timber fence panels and outdoor stuff like sheds. Lets hope spring come quick and dry!

Dustyevsky

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81924920#Comment_81924920

Hi and welcome. 😀 None of us knows when it will get better. After all, the Beatles said it was getting better in the late 1960s. I believed them then, but that was before the 3 day week and trying to write important essays by candlelight and paraffin heater, or a bit later, riding 15 miles to work in heavy frost on a Honda 50. 😰

So, while it might have been a bit miserable in the last few months, looked at in the slightly longer term, I'd imagine storms Bram, Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra must have knocked down hundreds of fences and rung the death knell for many a rickety shed. I predict a whole new season of demand for your services is just around the corner.😊 Indeed, in my area, 16c is allegedly coming our way as soon as tomorrow. Yay! 😁

Farway

Welcome CardT

Dull, after overnight rain, but sunshine is on the way later today and then it's Spring sun for a few days

One bright note, reply from my council about my not emptied garden waste wheelie, Bin men reported as not left out 😡.

Honestly there must bin men walking about with noses a foot long by now 🤥 Because I do not always have garden waste, the bin is not always out, and my house front / bin is not visible from a drive by bin lorry, bin men have to get out and actually walk to look, and I think we can guess the rest.

Anyway, I've been "given" another "free month" of collections due to missed period, along with a polite "reminder" to leave my bin out in time. I sent a suitably polite but vaguely pointed response, so I guess honour is satisfied all round and my bin will be collected in future, maybe.

I have roots just poking through bottom of one tomato pot, getting there slowly, the actual plants are pale still, lack of real proper light I guess, but I'm keeping in mind the poor quality of the compost and will feed soon.

The other pots of broad beans are not quite large enough to go out, would be ideal weather over the next few days, but no point rushing if the plants are too small

If sun arrives this afternoon I may get hoe out and tackle Dog Poo border, get the few small weeds just showing. I have some old dry compost in dried out pots, and may sprinkle that on ready for my seed sprinkling come Easter

twopenny

Wonderful weather 😀

Sunshine and warm, wild wind this morning but eventually dropped. Seedlings went out in the sun but they steadfastly remain barely there. I've never fed barely germinated pots before but something isn't right. Wish they were like Farway s.

Washing and cooking so everything is right when my op date comes and I have to wait to do the garden until I get a good day.

Oddly having to water pots 🙄 the tulips were drooping!

Spot on Dusty 😉

Dustyevsky

Farway said: I have roots just poking through bottom of one tomato pot, getting there slowly, the actual plants are pale still, lack of real proper light I guess, but I'm keeping in mind the poor quality of the compost and will feed soon.

My toms have been the least troublesome seedlings at present. The nasturtiums even needed a second sowing! 🙁 We're lucky in having a really bright conservatory which stays well above zero, and a heated propagator from MIL. Some seeds, like greens, I just leave to germinate naturally in the polytunnel, though.

It sounds as if our weather was similar yesterday, 2p. 🙂 After planting more seeds in the morning, I headed down to the streamside to begin the job of planting the new hornbeam hedge. I'd got 24 saplings in by 17.30, when I'd had enough bending! 😟There's around 15 more to go.

Up at the house, we've noticed plenty of bird activity on the feeders, and the arrival of Siskins. They don't seem to visit all the time the feeders are out, but maybe their natural food becomes scarcer at this time.

They're tiny birds, probably smaller than Goldfinches.

On the edge of the mini-wood, I spotted a Sparrowhawk landing in the orchard. As it did, two small birds gave the alarm and headed towards cover in the garden. A few moments later the hawk took off in the same direction, clearing the boundary hedge and disappearing into the field next door. The hawk was out of luck that time. 😛

More fine weather predicted for today. Two colder nights on Thursday and Friday, but we're forecast a good weekend too. 😍 We've already cut our oil consumption by at least half, so shouldn't need any until the summer if the weather is 'normal.' With prices per litre at well over double the normal rate, I'm relieved, because it's likely none of the £53m promised to the 1.7 million using oil will come our way. Mrs Dusty gets her pension next month, so we will then be too 'well-off!' 🤑

Farway

Sun's out and warming up nicely, all set for a good few days of sunshine, it may even trigger the blossom which has been lurking but sensibly keeping closed while the cold wind was blowing.

2P said Seedlings went out in the sun but they steadfastly remain barely there. I've never fed barely germinated pots before but something isn't right. Wish they were like Farway s.

I never had either, but last year my seedlings, with a set of proper leaves, just sat & sat, and I think someone else's did the same, Taff maybe? Conclusion was carp peat free compost, all nutrients having vanished. Hence this year I'm not going to wait around to see if they improve, chances are they won't. It will only be a very weak and diluted feed

Nice siskins Dusty, care to swap with some Gulls? Loads turned up yesterday for unknown reason, too early & cold for Flying Ant day

Managed to hoe / stab about in Poo Border, it's just poor, yellow clay in parts, could make bricks with some of it, but at least I've uprooted some weeds. No sign yet of Roseanne who was in there last year, but the Sea holly (Eryngium) from Morries last year is growing. If it does live it will be my first one to survive, they normally head North once planted

The posh perennial poppy is coming on in same border, that seems to have settled in at least

Hopefully i will get out this afternoon and weed some of the pots ready for the Mange Toots, at least I seem to have a few days of sun ahead, so can take it steadily & not back cracking

While tending Poo border the sun and daffs on my handrail steps looked just as I had hoped when I potted them up in October last year, a plan that worked 😊

twopenny

Oh that's pretty Farway 🙂 they look exactly the same as the ignored ones in the community hall behind me. Some get trapped in my table tennis bag as I go home. They are crammed together due to lack of any attention and really need thinning out 😈

I'm letting Dusty do my share of gardening as the sun has shown the dust and dirt from winter beyond what can be ignored and I won't be able to do it for some weeks after the op - whenever that is - and they'll be visitors.

Lovely day again. Don't know where to begin enjoying it 😀

middlewife

Somebody tell me not to try shovelling soil back into my veg beds on legs! Want to direct sow chantenay carrots, not sure I could do it hanging onto one crutch ;)

twopenny

Don't do it 🤨

Can't you ring a handyman to do it as a one off? Once it's done the world is your oyster - remember what you went through and it would be worse the second time.

Have you seen growing veg in containers? And you shouldn't fill till they are in place!

https://www.nagshallgardener.co.uk/2023/04/23/crops-in-containers/

-taff

Less, so have I, been a bit absent that is…lovely daffs..I'm not a fan usually but a spring herald they do their job well..

ybe, happy job hunting. It's never the same after your eyes have been opened to the bad bit. OH is about to start too I think, he's getting peeved at his place due to lack of people [ sickness, retirement et, etc, they've gone from 8 people to 4. ] Can I borrow Cissie every now and again? I need a no nonsense wise bird in my life. Good luck with all the teeth shenanigans.

Dusty, your friend has bitten off a lot with that garden, but then, do you get to play on a digger? Buckingham nurseries might be a goer then. I need a new mock orange, mine had some grass growing right in the middle of it, so I took it apart to remove it, repotted, bloody stuff started again so it's now at the lotment. Shame, I really liked that one. It's friend which smelled of bubblegum, yuk, also joined it. Is the stream the demarcation point between you? Cute siskins, I can confidently say I have never seen them in real life…

Farway, are your tom doing ok?have they popped up yet? I like your take on the seed snail too, definitely no one needs that kind of stress in their life. I also read your cheapie tm seeds post and ordered some more, not that I need any but hope springs eternal. Yean, the rubbih compost last year was wet at the bottom, dry on the top, the roots were big but the top growth non exostent. So I have gone back to some 'traditional' stuff instead. Same with the sea holly, I shoved it in a bed and usually it gets eaten by slugs and nails but it is impressively putting on a bit of leaf now. I was in shock. Again lovely daffs.

wort, fingers crossed for clematis going south not north.

2p, fancy your neighbour being neoighbourly :) fingers crossed the son doesn't want to help too…and well done being the doyenne of the medical world ? :)

Hi card…and middlewife…I am lax in greetings. PS middlewife, stop it…

I have been absent but the sun is glorious today, so I've finished making my raised beds in the greenhouse. The evaporation from the trays last year was so bad that I decided more volume = less water wasted, so they're filled and covered now, ready to have seedlings [ there's that hope again] put on top when I sow them later on..Filled with spent tomato compost, kitchen waste, my compost from the hotbin [looked really good] and sme lotment compost..I've made them so I can slot another level in if I want to next year. All six by one and spare bits lying arund, and some bought. Painted black, of course.

riddling of stones continues but now there are bigger gaps and I've given a home to a rose and some divided calla lillies

the bark is slowly detaching from the logs, I pull it off slightly to encourage the woodlice to find different homes.

And the wild garlic is up!