Awful weather - typical Brits talk

goldfinches

twopenny said:

Envious. My garden looks terrible.

Baked to within an inch of it's life and no rain at the end of the season and my border looks like a bed of weeds.

No second flowering on the roses

Currently a day of decent rain so we'll see what happens but it honestly looks like October here.

I did buy some pinks and white chrysanths from Morrisons for £1 each and put them in pots so a bit of colour and cheer.

Oh and some solar 'fairies' - I only meant to get a couple for a joke but they were doing 3 for 2 and reduced - now I have fairies at the bottom of my garden

Please, please, take a photo and post it on here, TIA, goldfinches.

[Deleted User]

phoebe1989seb said:

Fabulous plums there, Farway 😂 I definitely have fruit envy (our little orchard is in the very early stages whilst our huge, ancient apple tree has little fruit this year).

I have garrya envy too, Wort - I love a garrya but as yet it's something we haven't planted here. It's on the list, though! We've planted them at a couple of previous houses - including the one where our buyers (philistines 🙄) consequently ripped out all the planting we'd done (including some very expensive shrubs and a gorgeous yellow magnolia!) immediately after purchase back in 2011. Wish we'd dug it up and taken it with us! We did dig up an akebia which has been in a massive planter ever since and is thriving 😃

Dull here for the past couple of days and a very autumnal like chill in the air. At least the rain stopped! The sun is threatening to come out and I've managed to get huge swathes of one bed clear of weeds/silene in readiness for the refugees from the rockery when dismantling proper finally happens 😉


Here's a couple of quick pics of my *artwork* which I appreciate won't be to many people's taste, lol 😉 I copied something I'd seen that I liked, substituting an owl for the raven that was in the original piece.....

I like it, very modern, to my untrained eye  👍

phoebe1989seb

Thank you, Catsacor....it's not my (or DH's, for that matter) usual style at all as we tend to favour art that complements the Arts & Crafts Movement/Art Nouveau furniture etc that we collected for many years, such as stuff in a Pre-Raphaelite vein 🙄

Otoh, we were both a bit gothy in a previous life - and DH is a lifelong Gary Numan fan 😉 - so we do also favour the avant garde and generally speaking the home we are creating here is more eclectic than those we've owned in the past......

Absolutely no gardening done here this week as the weather has been pretty grotty, plus we had a long day away in London midweek which seems to have sucked out all my energy 🙁

Farway

Another dull start to the day, but according to the weather sages hot stuff on the way

My sunflower is now fully open and a photo is being planned, trouble is being tall I can't show it face on, I think I'll have to go for a tall & majestic shot

However while out there looking at the sunflower I became more aware of my dahlias & coleus out the front, so here's a pic, both from seed, the red on left is propped up trailing begonia from £land and now couple of years old

twopenny

Goldfinches why?!!

It's an overgrown mess and I've just started experimenting with cutting out new bits of lawn for extra beds.

I will at least wait until I've mowed the lawns........at least that's a sucess thanks to the forum. It's like velvet to walk on barefoot even if it's hard to cut because of the density of grass. Be careful what you wish for

At least one cheery note, the blackberries I trained in the Badger run have yielded big time. It seems to be a cultivated one as it's early and raw less flavour than a good bramble. Also earlier than the apples so I cooked some (a lot) with some recently introduced tinned apple and served with ice cream for tea. Really delicious and there was so much juice I tipped that into a wine glass. No sugar needed.

Also eating plums, the disease on the tree hasn't affected fruiting - yet.

Just don't know what to do the raspberries keep coming. 3mts now again thanks to the forums but a mixed blessing. I've only a tiny freezer.

goldfinches

2p - sorry for my facetious request, I just had an overwhelming desire to see your fairies that's all.

On the subject of rasps could you make a rumtopf with them?

Farway

2P, must be some sort of early blackberry year, mine are also ripe before the apples & normally they coincide and mingle into crumbles. I may take to freezing the B/berries until the apples catch up, especially as I get a decent crop from the volunteer area where I think I'm the only picker. They're wild ones so mixed taste

Raspberries, I have a few now after I thought they had died out but new canes have grown with only enough to pop into gob when garden mooching. I tried another plum yesterday, still  not sweet & ripe despite being soft, could be lack of warmth I suppose, story of the year isn't it?

Sunny but windy day outside and my nice neighbour has cut my grass for me now I can't really do it despite it being only a patch, just not enough "Puff" in me

And here's the surviving sunflower

twopenny

Ahhh GF, I can't do that as they disappear in daylight

Though it would probably be good to post the sad look. This thread is in danger of becoming like FB with only sucess. I jest.

It may also cheer some readers up that they are doing better.

And the BBer's I always fancied some blackberry brandy but I don't think these have the right flavour. I'm lucky enough that we have a bunch of brambles on the moor and you have to test the berries to find the best bramble flavour. Also plenty of sloes this year thanks to lockdown,

Sunshine + east wind and very autumnal still.

Farway

twopenny said:

Ahhh GF, I can't do that as they disappear in daylight

Though it would probably be good to post the sad look. This thread is in danger of becoming like FB with only sucess. I jest.

It may also cheer some readers up that they are doing better.

And the BBer's I always fancied some blackberry brandy but I don't think these have the right flavour. I'm lucky enough that we have a bunch of brambles on the moor and you have to test the berries to find the best bramble flavour.

I've never really appreciated how very different they can be, but I tried some blackberries this morning at the Volunteer place, and I imagine these must be the mystic Bramble flavour of which you speak. Very different to others on the same patch.I did have plans to pick loads but there weren't loads to pick

Just stuck to watering the large pots & some dead heading,

My tomatoes are coming on but nothing special, the Shirley are OK but quite small, the self sown cherry ones are starting to get some tomato flavour now instead of just mouth puckering sharp

generally I'm a bit disappointed with this year's toms, NO FB success with them or the runners 2p, and don't mention my plums

twopenny

So hot here again. The ground has almost dried out already. Very good for washing and drying but not gardening.


My newly potted chrysanths are droopy and half eaten despite removing slugs and snails 2 days ago. I think it might be woodlice of which I have a surfit. Can't do anything about those. They have damaged my strawberry plants too.

Can't go anywhere without queuez of traffic and bank holiday is going to be impossible to go anywhere so stocked up and (yet again) will be housebound and tackling the garden. Frankly over the last 2yrs I've overdosed on it and my enthusiasm is low.

I did photograph fairies yesterday for faraway. Will try and put them on tonight.