Awful weather - typical Brits talk

goldfinches

I managed to get out for a walk this afternoon and nearly got blown into the river while I was eating a treat ice-cream and watching the tourists trying to punt. On my way home I checked on the blackthorns to see how the sloes were coming along as I'm planning to make more sloe gin in a few months. So far so good. 

Farway

Out feeding & watering the pots in the back first thing, and anticipating picking some of my cherries which after a week of warmth should've been ripe. The &&&***$$$+++~~~ing squirells have got under the chicken mesh I added to stop the birds, and scoffed the lot, just tree full of pips, B######!!

Honestly why bother at times? I've had that tree since 2009 and reckon I've only had a handful of cherries off it in all those years depsitre it fruiting every year. Whne I'm reborn with a silver trowel in my mitt I will have a large poly tunnel with dwarfed espalier cherries inside it, maybe with peaches on the other side of the paving

Looking like yet another fruit tree I'll be growing just for blossom

sammyjammy

Farway said:

Out feeding & watering the pots in the back first thing, and anticipating picking some of my cherries which after a week of warmth should've been ripe. The &&&***$$$+++~~~ing squirells have got under the chicken mesh I added to stop the birds, and scoffed the lot, just tree full of pips, B######!!

Honestly why bother at times? I've had that tree since 2009 and reckon I've only had a handful of cherries off it in all those years depsitre it fruiting every year. Whne I'm reborn with a silver trowel in my mitt I will have a large poly tunnel with dwarfed espalier cherries inside it, maybe with peaches on the other side of the paving

Looking like yet another fruit tree I'll be growing just for blossom

Thats such a shame for you but what a wonderful blossom it will be.

I discover that not only had the slugs eaten my newly planted cosmos overnight but the replacement cucumber plants, I give up!

Farway

sammyjammy said:

Farway said:

Out feeding & watering the pots in the back first thing, and anticipating picking some of my cherries which after a week of warmth should've been ripe. The &&&***$$$+++~~~ing squirells have got under the chicken mesh I added to stop the birds, and scoffed the lot, just tree full of pips, B######!!

Honestly why bother at times? I've had that tree since 2009 and reckon I've only had a handful of cherries off it in all those years depsitre it fruiting every year. Whne I'm reborn with a silver trowel in my mitt I will have a large poly tunnel with dwarfed espalier cherries inside it, maybe with peaches on the other side of the paving

Looking like yet another fruit tree I'll be growing just for blossom

Thats such a shame for you but what a wonderful blossom it will be.

I discover that not only had the slugs eaten my newly planted cosmos overnight but the replacement cucumber plants, I give up!

It can be so dis heartening can’t it? Last year I lost all my runner beans to snails but this year, touch wood, the few I planted this year are now climbing and I may even get a meal out of them

Dull with promise of rain later; hope so because if no rain I’m out watering the plants troughs again

Here’s my cherry pips, and the gooseberries, which I’m now a bit worried about because watching Gardeners’ World the other night Monty D said the birds stripped all his gooseberries last year. I may just toddle down & pick them because most are ripe enough to eat without sugar now

Gooseberries, still here

sammyjammy

@Farway thats a great crop of goosegogs you've got there, they remind me of my nan, not sure about eating them withuot sugar and crumble though 

Woolsery

I've been AWOL over the weekend, prepping for second child and husband to live here permanently as from the middle of next month. Hopefully, they'll get a mobile home sited in the garden by Christmas, but I know how things can drag! They intend to  convert/demolish/rebuild our modern barn in due course, so I've been finding funding for the changes we'll have to make, like creating a new access and a small outbuilding.....perhaps a new greenhouse too!

Sad about the cherries, but that's one reason why we cut ours down and now grow the wild ones until they get thinned and become firewood. DB saw a squirrel in the garden about a month ago, but thankfully they don't normally move out of the stream area and mini-wood where they're relatively safe.

One plant we've enjoyed whilst out in the late evening owl spotting is our Evening Primrose (Oenothera odorata). There's  the common bright yellow version, but we like 'Apricot  Delight.' which, grown on its own, comes true from seed....

twopenny

Well it's still a dust bath here. We've had some spasmodic rain but not enough to do more than refresh the plants before the next hot spell.

Looked out the kitchen window the other day and saw a rat under the seed holder! There isn't much there because the pigeons clear it up. I'll tack some netting over the wire leading from the badger run and block neighbours holes in my fence. It might work because there isn't a lot for them in my garden.

Sad to say that the garden is looking very sad and poor it's so dry. Too dry to water the whole lot.

Raspberries have taken on an unhealthy bloom and while I'm getting a crop it's not what it should be.

There are so many lovely photos people have taken you should use them to make a calendar maybe. That rose from yesterday is especially stunning Farway.

sammyjammy

Woolsery said:

I've been AWOL over the weekend, prepping for second child and husband to live here permanently as from the middle of next month. Hopefully, they'll get a mobile home sited in the garden by Christmas, but I know how things can drag! They intend to  convert/demolish/rebuild our modern barn in due course, so I've been finding funding for the changes we'll have to make, like creating a new access and a small outbuilding.....perhaps a new greenhouse too!

Sad about the cherries, but that's one reason why we cut ours down and now grow the wild ones until they get thinned and become firewood. DB saw a squirrel in the garden about a month ago, but thankfully they don't normally move out of the stream area and mini-wood where they're relatively safe.

One plant we've enjoyed whilst out in the late evening owl spotting is our Evening Primrose (Oenothera odorata). There's  the common bright yellow version, but we like 'Apricot  Delight.' which, grown on its own, comes true from seed....

That's stunning and so healthy!  

Farway

Lovely pic of the Evening primrose Woolsery, mine, the common as muck type, seem to have died out this year despite self-seeding year after year, very odd

Your idea of calendar has set me thinking 2P, I keep thinking about one very November by which time it’s too late, I had intended pre covid to take monthly views for a calendar but lockdown & ill health came along to thwart that plan for he time being

Sounds like a busy time ahead Woolsery, and likely to go on a bit by the sounds of it

Today’s photo is my massive strawberry crop; they are accidental ones because I have given up growing them, or at least cultivating them. These were spotted and I picked them, which as it happens was a Good Thing because this morning I spotted two half ripe ones badly chewed on the garden path, the squirrel family again I bet

Must get down & pick the gooseberries, Sammy Jammy, I think it depends on variety, mine are sweet enough to eat off the bush when ripe, they go a bit yellow and are soft when squeezed. That is one plus with gooseberries, they can be used at all stages of ripeness from little green bullets onwards

Woolsery

Thanks for the compliments on the Evening Primrose pic Sammyjammy and Farway. Having a nice camera that does most of the 'thinking' helps and it's nice when the wind dies down too! No chance of that, yesterday or today though!   I saw heavy rain forecast for this afternoon, so I got out early and concreted the posts in surrounding the second deep bed.  As it was then only spitting, I pulled out a load of self seeded Verbena bonariensis and relocated them in the sunny bit of the stream garden, expecting nature to water them in.....Wrong! Here we are, well into what I call 'evening' now and there's still no sign of the downpour promised.   I only removed the 100' hose down to there a few days ago! Grrr!

Farway, your colourful strawberries have reminded me that daughter brought some here in tubs last weekend. I'll take a look... She has some weird tastes in plants, but then so do I. I'm liberating Fleabane and Agrimony in the wild area this year, but I'll keep an eye on them. I haven't forgotten introducing Colt'sfoot on the recommendation of a local herbal afficionado....and the panic when I witnessed it's capacity to s p r e a d !

Still no rain!!!