Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Morning all, on Some Variety of Football Nonsense, Again, Day.

8 courgette plants gb doesn't sound excessive to me if you've a willing dog and lots of freezers. Are you a good cook then? I vote for you to be Rottery Acres chef *nodding *

I was thinking of you last night 2p. I was flicking through the channels looking for something to watch, and there was a very quick snip of a guy slicing a strawberry. It was white and had red seeds, so it was prolly some filthy yanqui carryon cos don't they butcher everything. By the time my brain caught up and told me what I'd seen I flicked back through the channels but it'd gone and I couldn't find it again 🙄 Your op date has come round quick, it'll still be good weather by the time you're up and about again 😎 Lovely Neighbour has a wee solar powered thing in her pond that keeps the water moving, and she never cleans hers out. Also isn't there a plant called that you can put in that'll do the job for you..?

That's awful about your visitor's cat Dusty 🙁 I agree with the others re surgery, do whatever you can to get it as soon as you can. The Oracle had a knee done and her church lot and her son + daughter all chipped in and paid for it for her. The waiting list up here was years she said and best thing she's ever done. Anyway. What's a Bird Cherry? Do you just call it that cos they're only fit for the birds or is it an actual name..?

Fingers crossed your lady courgettes will get with the program now Farway 🤞Woohoo for Manky Toots and Boysenberry! I deffolutely want peas next year, either them or sugar snaps. God I could eat me weight in sugar snaps no bother 😋Are the nights getting any cooler down there? It's a pig when you can't sleep for nights on end, it leaves you that drained.

Nice to see you again middlewife, and with such gorgeous pics too. What's to grow in that bed? Is it beans or peas or toms or summat? Although it almost doesn't matter -any chance the place could be for sale..? Price to include hens and spaniel 😃

Wort I am deeply envious of your garden, jeez isn't that just heaven 😊 I'd never be indoors if I had a garden like that. I don't think DD will have trouble with the insurance co, isn't that what they're for? As long as there's no 'ha haa sucks to be you' clauses in the small print.

OT another lovely morning here now the air's drying up. It was a bit damp and misty when I got up and I don't know what the farmers are spreading but the place smelled like rust. 16' currently and a high of 23 to come, possibly. The sobers have given cloud all day and Auntie reckons the sun will be cracking the flagstones. Neither have given any rain though so if himself ever peels his erse outta bed we're off to the beach 👏

I'll have to get some pics of my 3 acers - one's alright but the other 2 are messing me about. They don't want sun or shade or watering, everything I do makes them worse. If I've bought suicidal ones they're going back cos they weren't cheap. How much can you try to do to help something before you admit defeat and try for your money back? It's longer than 30 days that's for sure but I do have the digital receipt.

Farway

Up at daft o'clock again, another hot sleepless night, but feels a tad cooler now, less humid anyway. Another scorcher sunny day is forecast

My extra time was not wasted, finally got my cucumber tower in position after breakfast and loaded with carp Levington mouldy dust compost. it was bone dry, so watered well & left soaking ready for my Suprina cucs planting after lunch. I've never really had much success with cucs as I grow them outside, but I do dabble so let's see where this one goes. Supposed to be good for pickling as well.I have two plants, from seed.

Managed to squeeze last of the toms [two Gardeners' delight] into a not quite 100% suitable spot, l now need just one more home, for one saved from a tasty Waitrose tom, so not expecting much there, but shame to waste it

I'm hoping to get everything most things planted & in place for 1st June, no real reason, just a target, I don't like plants hanging around & getting leggy, but with the weather until recently there was little choice

OH NO, a new pest has arrive at Farway Towers ! 😫, Another immigrant along with my vine weevils & lily beetles, and 2P's box caterpillar This one is Fig Leaf Skeletoniser. Aptly named, arrived London area in 2014 and now on my, and DD's fig trees. If you've got figs go and look, just in case. I intend doing as I do with lily beetles, pick off and destroy. Luckily is seems the impact on the fig is minimal, unless one nibbles a fruit. Pic to follow once I get it sorted

If not too hot I'm going to sow lobelia & alyssum in some baskets hanging on my steps handrail. Still have daffs in there dying back but I'm going for it anyway. Too hot for something like dangling fuchsia, and I've found the hanging geraniums just snap off when wind blows

Today pic is my poo border, now renamed a pet poo border to cater for the cats who love the troughs 🤢. The border was started last year when an old buddleia was removed. Soil is rubbish, clay & grot

On right is public path and it's a dead end so only people passing are neighbours further up the hill. Out of sight on right is a wall with a big drop so no traffic or deliveries to worry about wanton damage

Left is house wall. Under the shrub at back is a manhole, if that were not there I would have built bed up and raised it

1 troughs with self sown toms, mesh over to stop cats on the freshly sown Californian poppies

2 Morries pansies, with Morries drumstick alliums

3 Morries Eryngium, it's first year

4 Self sown foxglove, which hitched a ride with geranium Rozanne [at it's base]

5 Self sown Honesty

6 Morries poppy

Dustyevsky

2p: Ah Middlewife, so cake is the answer to your recovery 😀

Oh, I hope so…. or pork pies, strong curry, and beer! 😍 However, I think there might be some negative feedback from concomitant weight gain, which may be a contributory factor in my case. 😏

To be up-front, I'm not entirely sold on resolving joint pain via operations, although there are situations, like Mrs Dusty's, where it's appropriate. Alternative therapies exist, but they rely on significant effort, an understanding of the muscles involved, plus consistency in applying exercises. In other words lots of learning and willpower's required. I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge.😬 So, a delay regarding surgery is OK, if it gives me the chance to try alternatives. If I was walking 6 miles or so last year, including some tough paths, it seems logical to think I'm not too far gone! 🙁

Meanwhile, all the best for Monday and your op.☺️ Mrs Dusty is very pleased with her new knee. Despite having me to do stuff, she was out and about in no time, so you may find the 'restrictions' somewhat less than you expect after the first few weeks. 😉

Farway: OH NO, a new pest has arrive at Farway Towers ! 😫, Another immigrant along with my vine weevils & lily beetles, and 2P's box caterpillar This one is Fig Leaf Skeletoniser. Aptly named, arrived London area in 2014 and now on my, and DD's fig trees. If you've got figs go and look, just in case.

Excuse me if I don't look too hard. My fig crop is already reducing daily as the plants decide they can't keep up with the demands of numerous babies. 😥 With each pair, one is withering and dropping off, as in the picture below:

And it's not even June yet!

Cloudless skies now, after a foggy start. It's possibly the last day over 20c for some time, but drunks say no rain until Monday, when I'm hoping to get a bonfire going, just before it arrives. 😏

twopenny

Few weeks 😢

I'll be as good as Farway with numbering pictures by then.

I know I'll sink into it but right now it's panic mode. New phone has mysteriously hidden the text facility, swopped back to old phone and that's playing up. The library site is down till Tuesday so book getting is off.

Must get out to dig up potatoes, probably tip out the salad crop. I picked a couple of leaves but they aren't looking appetising with spots and tough. The plants were slow and gone straight from second pair of leaves to bolting. This new weather is a challenge.

Dusty when you can hear bone scrunching when you try and stand on that leg not many exercises or ointments help.

Still going to dig potatoes though 😉

Farway have you tried the little prickly 🥒 that they invented for outdoors? Not fashionable now but they worked a treat.

Enjoy your day at the beach Bluey. Is a large ice cream on the cards? 😊

middlewife

@2p, you've got this! Message me if you need any sympathy/kick up the backside (not literally, obviously 😂). First week is tough, but I managed to sleep on my side by week 3 with surgeons blessing. Other than the 90 degree rule he was basically cool , " if you can do it and it doesn't hurt, go for it".

The 2 weeks I've been away my son has kept his promise to water and very little has died. My apple tree is looking stressed though, have given it a worm tea feed and ladybirds have arrived to feast on the aphids, I'll post some photos of my little plot later. Remember, slip, slap, slip everyone!!

twopenny

Thanks Middlewife 😀

I may just do that. I got freaked by everything being changed to a later date and more dire warnings from people not to mention the helpful stuff that I thought would be delivered and wasn't. The organisation is falling to bits because stuff that should work hasn't.

Last lot of stuff gone to the tip. The grass cutting from the leaving it bit smelled gorgeous, sweet hay. I'm definitely doing that again next year.

Potatoes dug, not a great yield but free food from a plot that could be used for nothing else.

Plants watered mostly. They weren't too dry. May go out on the moors for a walk to decompress. Start again this evening.

Dustyevsky

2p: Dusty when you can hear bone scrunching when you try and stand on that leg not many exercises or ointments help.

There is a new click, which wasn't there a few months back, which may be significant, but little or no swelling this time. It's terrific tightness and muscular pain. So, I may yet dodge the op. However, there's no harm being on the.radar of the NHS gatekeepers in case matter develop.😉

If it's any consolation, my last sowing of salad material fried, and the old stuff has bolted, so we're on lettuce and purslane currently. The latter tastes inoffensive, but it's glutinous. 🤒 It's packed with nutrients, though. 😁

Colourful and varied Pet Poo border Farway,😇 though if I had people's animals carping on my land, all they'd get would be berberis, rubus cockburnianus, and holly! As it is, I've just had the big river lot dump 3 parcels on top of the Cerinthes I featured recently, before they could even set seed. 🤬 They're for !!!!!! harmless individuals living in a caravan behind outbuildings nearby, who haven't the wit to tell anyone where they are. Still, looking on the bright side; if it had been Evri, they'd probably have put them in our tin bath pond, there being no puddles about currently! 😄

YoungBlueEyes

We did get to the beach, and it was near perfect weather. Maybe 22’, slight breeze, bit cloudy and not many folks about cos it was Robin Hood’s Bay and there’s nowt there 😃 Pig of a drive though. The ice cream was worth it, the van was down on the shore and it was deelish ☺️🍦

Right here’s my acers. They’ve all had the same treatment (practically nothing) and have had the same amount of sun and shade. I had them sat in full sun like wot the label told me to do but the two red leaves ones took umbrage so I moved the lot into morning sun that’s shaded by about 1300ish.
The label tells me that this a Palmatum Atropurpureum -

• and this is a Phoenix -

• and this is a Seiryu -

I’ve left them large in case it shows up a clue. Sup with them..?!

And no, I don’t know where the bullet points came from.

twopenny

What sort of lettuce Dusty?

On the upside of making space for me and trolley I find I have yet another rose 😲 another £2 from the GC to save it from the compost heap.

It did so poorly even with TLC I forgot about it. Found it under foliage. Ditto a clematis given up on trying to grow up the fence has made it round the bench with everything else 😊

Also leaf cutter bees it seems.... They're welcome to some.

middlewife

Here are a few pics of my little patch. Son managed to keep most of it going. The mustard has bolted, suspect the kale will soon. The beans are dwarf purple queen and yin Yang, the toms are cherries, the big pepper I overwintered in the lounge and it has quite a few babies. The leek seedlings have died but I'll start some more.

The apple tree is not happy, suspect it didn't get watered, so it's had a feed and well watered. The ladybirds are chomping the aphids so hope it pulls through, doesn't look like it has set any fruit....