Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

Sunshine at last, large hint to the insects to get busy on my pear blossom, loads open now with my two pears joined by next door’s Concorde in a Pear Blossom Triangle

Other than that no gardening today, off over my daughters later so I can use the opportunity to see the granddaughter’s wildlife pond

The window sill seedlings are coming along well, the coleus have very small true leaves showing with colours, and if I really squint I can convince myself a flower is just starting on one of the cape primrose [streptocarpus] I recently bought

In My Wellies, love the idea of planting rampant blackberries near arrogant neighbour’s woodland. Cruel but fair I think

Woolsery

Farway said:

In My Wellies, love the idea of planting rampant blackberries near arrogant neighbour’s woodland. Cruel but fair I think

Some neighbours need containment. Our neighbour from Hell has stock fence topped by slightly slack, impossible to climb barbed wire, backed by a double row of laurel. Not very edible, but easy-care.

Did some real gardening yestrday, filling gaps in the borders. There are always casualties; Salvia 'Hot Lips' and Knautia macedonica being two labels without plants. Echinaceas don't like it here either, so I don't bother with them any more.

Another frost to go with yesterday's this morning, but it looks like warming-up again soon and the outlook for a big family 'do' next weekend looks favourable. It'll probably turn out to be Storm Gladys.....No, I'm not making that up, she's the next in line!

 

Farway

Sort of sunny but a half-hearted effort IMO, could do belter

Woolsery, it was family gathering yesterday for my birthday, and having dropped broad hints I now have tree & regale lily bulbs / corms?, plus packet of Burpless cuc seeds, all of which will get sorted in the next day or so, hence needing sun to get going and me to be warmed up, first thing is dead head the daffs before I can see the spaces to get the lilies in

I must move on a blackberry rooted tip before it gets too crowded in the little pot I rooted it in

Here’s my other pear blossom, the unknown wrongly labelled variety large red one that fails to ripen but I wish it would, maybe this year?

Woolsery

Lovely photo Farway. I wish our Chanticlear looked as good, but I think the frost got it. We also have a huge red pears of unknown provenance in the orchard, or we do when the small tree decides to produce. Other than being huge, they seem to have no other positive attributes, raw or cooked.

We shall be celebrating 41 years of marriage and a belated 60th birthday. I thought I'd done my last speech at daughter's wedding last year, but apparently not.

Tried to garden yesterday, but was overtaken by a sudden demand for grouting. Then, when I escaped to chain-saw out a big shrub that had fallen over during Eunice, our former builder arrived hot foot from Oz where he re-located, leaving us with a conservatory floor just too high to tile... Dearly Beloved unwisely left him in there while looking for me, but if he noticed the floor was now solid concrete, not suspended, he didn't say anything. With wood being so expensive now, we may actually have the last laugh there with the reclaimed stuff.

Builder built a house over in Oz and managed to dodge the worst of the fires and floods, if not the spiders, snakes and kangaroos. He was very pleased to tell us it's entirely off-grid with its own water, power, 8kW battery etc. Don''t think we'll try that here just yet, but every little helps.

Warmer this morning and might we see swallows by next weekend?

Farway

Sunshine again, bit breezy but looking good for rest of the week they say

Sowed some of the Burpless cucumbers yesterday, and started the annual Lily Beetle roundup, must’ve squished half a dozen yesterday, going off last year it will be daily job for next few months now, worth it though, especially because I now have more lilies as birthday presents, hoping to plant them into pots later today, once the sun moves round & warms the front up

I’ll also dead head the daffs & add some Blood, fish & B to the pots while I’m out there, and I’m going to start putting the cosmos seedlings out daily to harden up a bit now they are getting true  leaves

This week may see the first of my apple blossom open with the sunshine, here’s Pinova just about ready to go, it's in a pot on M27 stock, planted Feb 2019 so this is it's first "proper" settled year after suffering my careful pruning and so far looking good with plenty of fruity promise

twopenny

Ooops. looking at your photo Farway I may have just pruned off the flowering tips on my young Cox!

Ah well, it wasn't doing that well at fruiting and it needs shape. I'll keep picking up the miscelaneous freebees that are left roadside in autumn. Gardeners are generous.

The cherry has burst into bloom! For something 3ft high it's a real doer. I've looked for the label but feeling rough still so I'll look again when I'm more chipper.

A real surprise is the Red Currant, stick from Poundland.It's gone mad upwards on the fence to 6ft. I was dithering about pruning it when I see it's smothered in flowers. Who'd have thought a currant would do well as long singular stems.

Wonder if you could turn one into a tree?

The weathers bright but still really windy and not warm.

Todays 'gardening' was buying a cane/withy small arm chair from a charity shop to use in the tiny shady part of the garden. It's light enough to move around and so comfortable. It needs stablising so a good excuse to offer my friend who makes withy sculptures etc a cup of coffee and advice.

I was going to buy a hand made wooden bench from a local maker. They are gorgeous and comfortable but so heavy and I have to remember that it would be tough to move.

Farway

Light rain this morning, good oh because I did manage to get the lilies in yesterday and added Fish, Blood & B so all are getting watered in for me this morning. The Regale lily bulbs / corms whatever are a very good size, the tree lilies are Ok but have a long way to go to decent size I think, at least it’ll be a nicely scented show this year

2P, Cox is not a tip bearer so you should be OK if you’ve just taken tips off, and your £land currant, go for it, grow it as a column and let it “lollipop” bush at the top, it may need support like a stout stick / cane. Should also be easier to anti bird net.

My gooseberry is growing as a column and seems to work well as well as space saving. I don’t have space now but with hindsight I would grow them up like a row of Brussels sprouts

Here’s one of my gooseberry last year, hopefully showing in part how I’ve trained it. The black bit is a curly steelsupport and horizontal is top drooping over laden with berries. I do thin out the berries ealier in the year to give decent sized ones

Woolsery

Not often I post a BBC link these days, but this one I was glad to read:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61061736

Some of us thought the charging policy was madness when it came in, but no doubt it's taken many experts and a few costly studies to arrive at the same conclusion.

Certainly there was no inspection or questioning when we visited the recycling place this morning, even with a 3.5 tonne van, though navigating it through their new convoluted entrance was taxing. I'd guess that's to prevent unacceptably large vehicles getting in.

Then it was off to buy plywood to make loft shelving, so today's gardening still hangs in the balance.....

Farway

Back to dull & damp, not sure where this so called heat wave is

Pear blossom is still there on all three trees so high hopes for better crop this year, and the apple blossom is opening, not yet enough to warrant pictures though

Checking my window sill plants, all doing well and I think I will need to pot on the tomatoes soon, maybe at the weekend when it’s supposed to be warm & pleasant, make a nice job in the sunshine

Apart from that no gardening today, big excitement is shopping delivery which has a pot of flat leaf parsley in which I intend growing on this summer, sorry state of affairs when it’s cheaper to buy a culinary growing pot of parsley 65P than a packet of parsley seeds, not complaining but someone must be pricing things wrong, or is just MSE gardening to do what I’m doing?

Woolsery, agree about the tipping, I thought it was just me that had spotted the obvious and the Experts knew better, I wonder if that includes part used tins of paint? Last time I looked there were so many rules about disposing of paint that lobbing the tin in a hedge was the wise choice

Woolsery

SiL made the loft shelving, so I escaped to plant more stuff by the stream yesterday. He put up a great deal in a few hours, but his design  required 3x the materials my original one used, so I feel better about my pedestrian pace in carpentry. OTOH everything SiL sourced and brought here was repurposed from an exhibition and therefore free.

Seems calm out there this morning and moderately warm, if dull. There's potential for squally rain this afternoon, which I won't mind a bit with all that grass seed sown. Still no sign of sheep.