Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

Anyone know what these are on my rhubarb plant?? It’s the parent plant of the ones I relocated a while back 🤢

twopenny

So, it's been extreamly hot with a couple of heavy showers and some thunder a few miles away. Nope, still not wetted the soil.

The grass is looking a tad better for the occasional shower and I got round to cleaning the car (to cheer me up), stripping the seal out of 1 and 3/4 windows in the heat. Then decided I'm grubby already, to trim the borders, hack back the overgrowth even though the raspberries were on some then, what the heck I'm dripping in sweat so mowed the lawn and dead headed. Sheesh sweat hurts when it drips into your eyes!

After a shower and getting a through draught it's now gone chilly..........still, got two lots of washing dry. It's that hot!

Looking better, bit like a garden. Shifted a couple of still small broccoli plants and put some more in. All too close because stuff isn't developing as normal.

Thought of Bluey, my tomatoes are just growing without any side shoots, just straight up? I usually just let them bush as I don't need big ones.

The raspberries are not very sweet, not ripening properly and not always properly fertilised.

The strawberry plants are just surviving.

and of course it's the July gap.

So back to the subject of topiary - I got fed up with trimming a front hedge and let loose with the hedge trimmer and turned it into a dragon......I'd post a photo but it doesn't seem to be working. It's my photo but it says 'file format is not allowed'....tried changing but not cooperating - now that's pretty much run of the mill at the mo

twopenny

Black fly Poppy, they've attacked my cherry and devastated my chives during a hot spell last year.

You can try jet hosing them (best from the side) or as it's just the leaves and no bees likely either spray with an insectiside.

I'm not a fan but had to resort when they attacked my runner beans and hosing off wasn't doing it. Did it late evening when insects weren't around and it was dry before morning.

No more blackfly

We aren't getting the amount of ladybirds and bug eating insects because of the way we live. Google says birds eat them but we feed the birds classy, easy stuff so they don't eat the bugs.

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Anyone know what these are on my rhubarb plant?? It’s the parent plant of the ones I relocated a while back 🤢

They look like blackfly, poppy. They're just an aphid, and if not a huge infestation, you can just squash them or blast them off with a hose.

pink_poppy

Thank you twopenny & Dusty. I’m too squeamish (& soft) to squash them and don’t have a hose so will probably just let them be and hope a loveliness of hungry ladybirds 🐞 turn up...

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

Update on DGD, the horticultural one, Chelsea etc, her next stop is Horticultural Training scheme at Douneside House, near Aberdeen. 

Paid while learning the practical stuff. It has been on Beechgrove & is on YouTube, about 4.30 in

Apart from the jolt she is going to get of an Aberdeen winter coming up from Hampshire, it sounds like a great opening for her.

Now I've had time to visit all the links above, I'll say, "Good move and well done!" to DGD.   The MacRobert Trust story is quite something, albeit the beginnings were tragic.

Looking at all the info, it's not the first time I've thought,"Oh, if only I had my time over again!" though I did get my PA1 and 6 when I was nearly 70!

LessImpecunious

Farway said:

MY LG crop, was just on its way to bolting I think

I've found that to be the rule with LG lettuce - finally makes a decent looks-like-in-the-supermarket head, then immediately bolts...not sure that flavour is the best either...

ArbitraryRandom

twopenny said:

So back to the subject of topiary - I got fed up with trimming a front hedge and let loose with the hedge trimmer and turned it into a dragon......I'd post a photo but it doesn't seem to be working. It's my photo but it says 'file format is not allowed'....tried changing but not cooperating - now that's pretty much run of the mill at the mo

That happened to me when I used my work phone for a picture (apple). 

It sent the picture as a 'HEIC' (which is a file format I'd never heard of), but I used a converter online to make it a jpeg and it uploaded fine. 

If yours is the same problem then here's the link I used: https://heictojpg.com/ 

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Nothing exciting happening here, unless you count my DH moving a slab of concrete that the previous owners left. It might be another part of the coal bunker that we had already moved from a different part of the garden - who knows... I expected/hoped to find slugs and worms and all sorts underneath, but there was nothing (apart from a tree root). That’s one thing I’ve noticed about this garden - the distinct lack of worms. I think I’ve dug up one in the three years we’ve been here 😕

Is there a possibility you have NZ flatworms?

https://lovelygreens.com/new-zealand-flatworms/

YoungBlueEyes

Ooh no worms poppy, that's a bit... unnerving! I thought everywhere that there's soil there'd be worms... wrong again  I'd squish the blackfly, but put gloves on first cos the sticky is very tacky and hard to wash off. It's alright, they don't scream or anything Must be the time of year for them - I put my sunflower bush out last night when it started to (very half-heartedly) rain and noticed the stalks were thick with them. The leaves were gone and the buds were really tacky to the touch. So I've binned it. I don't know what all was wrong with it to cure it, and if it's disease I didn't want it spreading. I was sorry to do it though   

Gawd you've cracked on 2p. Do you feel better for getting it done? Also - what's the July gap? Your toms, I'm not the expert, I'm doing to mine what I remember Ziggy's pictures looking like on his phone. He had the main stalk and branches of toms, and nothing else. The main image in the GW link on the tomato thread is just what his looked like. Nothing unnecessary and the gappy stalks leave space for the light and breeze to get through so there's nowhere for bugs and diseases to hide...

I hope your olive tree makes it taff. I'm with you about the gardening - I didn't really know anything and now I'm making an effort I realise how ignorant I am ha haa! I'm the other way with size though, all my plants are gonna stay small  

Bin juice Arb, sounds like it'll work. Will you need a clothes peg for your nose?