Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Dustyevsky

I like the lily, Less, but I'll pretend not to notice the aubergines, having binned mine because of spider mites a couple of months ago. 😕

Yesterday's 'deluges' were very brief, but enough to prevent any gardening when I visited my coastal friend. In one interlude we spotted a Hummingbird moth on the salvias, but it had vanished by the time I'd grabbed the camera and put shoes on. They seem to be around now, that being my 3rd attempt to capture one digitally.😔

So, while I didn't put training wires on the pergola, the £6 Asda Lakemont grape was managing just fine:

Still some way from being ready, though.

As for the lunar eclipse, I made the effort and got up at silly a.m. 🤒 As soon as I went into the conservatory, I knew it was a lost cause. 'Proper' rain was drumming on the roof, and it didn't stop for hours. It's set to continue for most of the day, with the heaviest bursts occurring around the time of our log delivery!😫 I'll leave them in the dumpy bags and place a tarpaulin over them. Tomorrow may be better.

wort

less that’s a fiery red lily, is it only safe in the greenhouse? Dusty I am like you twice I’m putting details on comparison websites is enough for me too.
I watched GW last night and Monty was taking cuttings from pelagoniums, I caught up with a few episodes I don’t think I had watched any this year. I enjoy the photography/cinematography? Of the camera man in the gardens, nice way to sit in the evening.

Thursday I managed a couple of hours in the light rain in the garden. Next door were away so I got my chance to get the ladder and cut the tall stuff along that fence . I don’t like them being in, in case they watch me or think I’m watching them 😳so the escallonia has been cut ,also the Wegiela, gold enonymous , the tops of the Garrya. Green bin full again.

Showered then lunch and haircut, was raining harder then but not as much as it did yesterday, but I was at work so not bothered. Dusty it’s bank hol weekend so expect the rain ☔️I will be in work, but hope you all enjoy it.

Farway

I'm back! And it's proper Bank holiday raining at last.

The wind that came along at same time had blown Paul Robeson tomato sideways, over the path. So first job this morning was prop him back up, just in case the postie needs to get by to deliver the cheque from my long lost Nigerian prince cousin, hopefully he managed to pay the banking admin fee using the money I sent him. 😂

Hope you sorted the car insurance 2P, The vast differences in prices for same product is amazing.

Runners, I used to dig trenches etc but now I'm down to a few plants in large tub. Which normally is enough for me, but I think it was heat problems this year. Same with toms. I'm sure there is a scientific explanation regarding pollen & heat I remember reading somewhere. Just checked, yes heat & pollen do not mix, and with toms heat can prevent pollen forming, so flower but no pollen. Which fits my experience this year.

Talking of toms, I was pooch sitting yesterday, and there was a balcony yellow tom, outside in pot, that I had given them. It was smothered in beautiful large cherry tomatoes, just like the catalogue picture. How annoying, but at least I know my seed smears are OK, it's the growing that is the problem

No moon pics, I was up checking the plumbing, but moon was behind trees / houses so missed it again.

Nice Lily Less, and chillies. I follow Dusty with aubergines, either red spider or whitefly made me abandon them years ago and I never bothered since. TBH not a big fan of them anyway and was only growing to see if I could, and I can't

You friend does well Dusty, dripping with Lakemont grapes. But is this the same canna friend? Probably tempting 2P even more with a grape now. A good buy for £6 even if it was a few years back

While on prices, I have just had mail about ordering bare root fruit trees for this winter delivery, before the prices increase in October. nearly fell off my chair, bare root, two years old, £66 😮. Must be linked to 2P's car insurance company

Wort working away, wearing me out. My Wegiela has shrivelled up in the drought, just crispy leaves and shoots. Being tough I expect there are living roots left to grow again

No gardening, with the rain. May catch GW later

greenbee

I grow aubergines every year and they take up far too much space they take up for a very poor return. I love them, so it's very disappointing not to get a better crop. Then again, they share space with tomatoes and cucumbers, so it isn't an ideal environment for any of them.

Annoyingly I thought my Carmen cucumber was dying, so cut it back, only to discover that the newer parts of the plant were fine. Mind you, the cucumbers are so tangled it's hard to work out which is which. Hopefully the other two will keep producing for a bit.

Dustyevsky

wort: Dusty it’s bank hol weekend so expect the rain ☔️I will be in work, but hope you all enjoy it.

Being BH weekend, I expected a fair amount of traffic yesterday evening, but no, it was relatively quiet, compared with lunchtime, when folk were queuing for fuel at Sainsbury's. Maybe people weren't rushing down here all at the same time, as schools don't go back for a while yet? 🤔 BH weather isn't great down here. Maybe you'll do better when your turn for time off comes. 😉

On Monday, the contractors began digging up a new section of road to replace gas pipes, causing mayhem in Barney Rubble. The town became totally gridlocked. Someone I know took 3 hours to make the journey of just over a mile, from a supermarket to their home! 😲 By Tuesday evening, the project had been put on hold.😃

Farway: You friend does well Dusty, dripping with Lakemont grapes. But is this the same canna friend? Probably tempting 2P even more with a grape now. A good buy for £6 even if it was a few years back

It's the same friend who lives almost at sea level and trounces me with growing stuff, especially now her sticky, alluvial soil has been improved. 😐️ I'm not often near Asda, but I recall about 4 or 5 varieties of grapes being sold there at £6 a few years ago. I wasn't bothered then, because I'd paid more to get mine from a truly reputable source! 😫 The one pictured was planted in about 2020. I failed to strike cuttings earlier this year, but I'll have another go over winter.

Exotic things do well in that garden. Here's a Ginger Lily, now with three flowering spikes. It seems to add one every year. Its parent here has vanished! 😥

LessImpecunious

wort Less that’s a fiery red lily, is it only safe in the greenhouse?

It just looks like it's in greenhouse - actually in a pot next to an outside SW facing wall. Needs to be indoors or very sheltered overwinter, but likes sun in summer, and takes a long time to get big enough to flower… So the aubs and chilli were outside too (have others in a greenhouse) - that aubergine also has spidermite, contracted from another one bought at a plant sale, after which all affected were put outside - some have two fruits on, others none, which is similar to what I found last year, first time growing them (semi) successfully…

Re. the toms, I've now had two good years in a greenhouse, and even minor success outside, I think due to temperatures (especially overnight) at last becoming tomato-friendly in a previously marginal area (cool, 700 ft hill top); guessing you've gone beyond the sweet spot where you live Farway…

Lots (well, compared to recent months) of rain now, very heavy downpour c. lunchtime, followed by sun with another spotting here of Hummingbird Hawkmoth (lots of sightings this year) - and we had hornets too on recent sunny days, hunting rather unsuccessfully compared to the fearsome ones I've seen in previous years… No photos of either though 🙁

Dustyevsky

Rain's plentiful here now, but it will take a while before it percolates through the sub-soil and results in the stream coming to life. The grass will be faster! I have about 200m2 of new grass to sow on an area formerly covered with landscape fabric. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it won't be, but anything's better than an expanse of plastic, left over from the former polytunnel and standing out area sites. 🙂

Apart from failing to photograph the Hummingbird Moth, I've also missed a few hornets, and a couple of Comma butterflies. There's still time. 🙂 Hopefully, now the landscape's not parched, and the tourists become fewer we'll visit a few gardens. Right now, the Autumn Show is looming, and we're wondering what might go in that!

Last week, for a little variety I featured an Indian Bean Tree in a Morries car park. Today, I'm going to feature the darker side of a different Morries. They made a big fuss about cleanliness back in ye Covid days, but since then standards seem to have gone downhill. In our less favoured branch, with its rusty trolleys, the assurances from 2020 are looking very hollow. 😨

Really? 😏

Yesterday we had very gusty winds and bouts of heavy rain, peaking at the exact time of our log delivery.😖Luckily, this supplier delivers in dumpy bags, so with a tarpaulin over them, no harm was done. We couldn't go walkabout in the downpour, but I think there may be a deal to be done over some of our trees that have outgrown my ability to fell them safely. They must go to make room for more attractive/rarer species. 😉

In the afternoon, things quietened down enough to get the logs in the shed, but there was still no sign of our woolly cat, who hadn't been seen since an appearance on hog cam Thursday night. By dusk, I was so worried, I walked the road, although she never crosses that. In the summer she lives in the hedges, but it was so wet and windy, we knew she wouldn't be doing that! Eventually Mrs Dusty worked it out. There she was, curled-up, fast asleep at 22.00 in the old cold frame! 🤣

Farway

Still on & off rain, filled the bird bath up so there must have been lots of it. Supposed to brighten up later, but windier.

The scaffolding canes around Paul Robeson tom have given way, again with the wind & rain. If weather clears enough I'll trot down the garage to see if I have any stronger canes. With my dahlia also on the tilt I think next year's Big Buy will be some stout sticks, canes

The pic of Morries trolley shelter, by coincidence I noticed my ones the other week, much cleaner than Dusty one. I try to park adjacent to a shelter, driver door towards shelter, which ensures room to get out & also no one can block my door. Plus trolleys to hand because I use the trolley as a support while wobbling around the store

Humming bird moths, seen a few but gone by camera time, ditto butterflies. And, the one that got away, yesterday there were six magpies in one tree, perched on the bare branches. I think it's the grown up family because they were not squabbling. Against the dull grey threatening sky, great shot, like something from The Birds film, but no camera.

Apart from propping up PR tom again, no gardening planned. Still not caught up with GW so may get that done.

Just refreshed and Dusty edit. "They must go to make room for more attractive/rarer species." Bean tree? Tell you what, if space and enough years left, trinity of bean tree, handkerchief Tree & Judas tree. what a sight come spring

Here's what AI imagined, could you fit them in Dusty or is it one for Rottery Acres?

twopenny

You had me there for a minute Farway 😄 thought what a difference your place to mine with all the dying trees!

I also beat you on jam debacle. First the strawberries leaked juice overnight and soaked into a 2 kilo jam bag which collapsed over the worktop. Having rescued that I boiled strawberry jam all over the cooker. I'm about to clean it for the 3rd time and stickyness seems to have decended over most things 🙄

The garden is beginning to look nice again, little sparrows hopping about on the 'lawn' and bird bath 🙂

The brassicas are a bit lacey from snail holes but the plants have doubled in size. I got a couple of strawberries to eat. The ones with poor flavour, Pegasus, have produced off and on through all weather so will be kept for that. Still better than supermarket ones.

Now I'm physically able to tidy up the mess rain predicted for the foreseeable 🙄 so using my new found mobility to get the house and garage sorted because where I could do nothing for pain it's all had to be shoved or dumped. Working towards a future I hope. Maybe a holiday next year.😀

Yup our Morrisons looks much the same. They've also put various products shoved in odd places so you can find medical and make-up among the tins of veg. Even the staff despair of the lack of any organisation. Plants are meah and not value for money.

Less seems to have done better with the growing weather.

Wort I think it's best to work public holidays. It's a jungle out there in roads and shops but as said, not as busy as it has been probably because of the weather.

Greenbee what's the cucumber with the strange name? I'll have to look it up. Sounds exciting 🙂

greenbee

I've grown three cucumbers this year - Carmen (full size), Diva (small) and mini munch (name gives it away. All good (but different) flavours.