Awful weather - typical Brits talk

kiss_me_now9

pink_poppy said:

I had the sweet cake for elevenses

Thanks for the quince fruit info, AR. I like my fruit quite tart (no sugar on stewed Bramley apple for instance), but a spoonful of honey in a quince/rhubarb crumble sounds nice.

I've been told that chitted potatoes can be halved and planted separately- two for the price of one. Has anyone ever tried it?? Do they go cut side down or up?? I've got a couple of Roosters from the greengrocers added to my other chitting potatoes - that I'm not watching, nope, I'm not checking them every 5 minutes, honest m'lud...

I've only grown potatoes a couple of times but have always halved (or even quartered for particularly vigorous ones) them if they have more than one shoot. One of mine this year - I only bought 6 seed potatoes, 3 of 2 different varieties - has thrown out about 4 shoots so I've got 4 goes from that one but another has only thrown one two tiny shoots so I'll leave that one whole. 

ArbitraryRandom

I think I remember reading somewhere* that the more shoots a potato has the more but smaller the potatoes you harvest - so cutting down potatoes might give you fewer spuds but larger total volume? (assuming volume is based on the water and nutrients the plant can get from the soil and you're planting the offcuts in separate tubs/containers which get their own feed) 

That makes sense in my brain but I'm not sure if it makes sense to normal humans  


*I think the thing I read also said to make sure each bit had at least two eyes - but I'm guessing that's just to increase the chances it'll actually sprout. 

LessImpecunious

Dustyevsky said:

I wondered what 2p's bird was too but drew a blank. I'm sure she'd recognise a Coal Tit.

Wondering about a Willow Tit ? - we used to have one visit a feeder...

Nice photos by the way -  I took something vaguely similar this morning before it all melted, but it's an arduous process getting from camera to laptop, and you beat me to posting...snow all now washed away by heavy showers...

twopenny

So wet I've seen a young rabbit crossing the road to take grass from a place where it could sit on the path and nibble grass.

I guess it was just fed up with being wet all over

Everything in the garden is looking lush (from inside) and fingers crossed that the amazing amount of blossom on the plum got polinated. I went out with a paint brush in a dry spell but so many flowers I gave in.

Also had the delicious rhubarb my friend supplied. It was very sweet and tender that it was positively likeable.

Anyone know if this is just the amount of water we are getting or maybe the variety.

Stuff I've grown previously was very tart but from an old plant. Now we have varities! Anyone familiar with them for a sweeter taste?

Dustyevsky

LessImpecunious said:

Dustyevsky said:

I wondered what 2p's bird was too but drew a blank. I'm sure she'd recognise a Coal Tit.

Wondering about a Willow Tit ? - we used to have one visit a feeder...

Yes, I wondered about those too. They're rare where we are, though even rarer elsewhere. We've only seen one, and it was surprisingly unfazed by our presence in the garden.

I think they like wet woodland as well as marshes, so 2p might have them. However, she's on Planet Rhubarb at present! https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/willow-tit

ArbitraryRandom

From what I've read, Victoria is actually supposed to be the sweetest/least tart common variety, but I don't think that's normally harvested for another couple of months. 

Generally I'm assuming varieties called something like strawberry or cherry or similar is likely to be on the sweeter side of things, and I've read some suggestions that forcing rhubarb makes it sweeter (or blander, depending on your view) as the acid develops as the stems mature. 

twopenny

Indeed Arbs - but these were just growing in a heap on an allotment, 4 healthy plants with lots of light, short stems buth thickly clumped so had me puzzled.  Obviously I'm going to have to get around my friend to get me a bit of root  

Whether it will come up the same where it will be in shady conditions only time will tell.

Heck it's hard to keep track of who said what

LessImpecunious curious because I was looking up Marsh warblers and similar. I'd already thought through juvinile chaffinch or coal tit and all the marsh ones as we have what's left of the marshs but being built over.

The nearest I can see is the Blackcap. Looks like the male is darker chest which is right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_blackcap

We have a lot of tits around here, in the garden of course and I'm familiar with the garden birds. A coal tit comes regularly.

There's also a new song if you can call it that. Strange 2 note one. I must get the app because not knowing is driving me mad.

If anyone is feeling short of birdsong in this crazy weather I've just been listenening to Attenboroughs Wonder of Song. The photography is superb too of course. Might watch it again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00134jr/attenboroughs-wonder-of-song

There's also Dawn Chorus which is just what it says on the tin..........bird song

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b05ttkx2/dawn-chorus-the-sounds-of-spring

YoungBlueEyes

I'll keep those progs for later 2p, love a bit of bird song. Nobody ever mentions the dusk chorus though, which can be at least as good if not better I gave up looking for a bird song identifier app, the birds don't usually sing long enough for me to get my phone out and app running. I've got a 2 tone one here too - it's one long high note and then half a dozen or so quicker lower note. I don't hear it often and I can't spot it coming out of anybody Is yours like that? 

All this tatty talk reminds me of my second job. I was 15, it was a little local supermarket place (not there anymore) and if when I went in in the morning Mr Underwood said to me "them tatties are looking at me" then I had to go through the big sacks and flick the eyes out with my thumbnail #ThingsWotHappenedWotYoofsWouldNeverBelieve 

While I'm off topic, anybody wanting stamps don't forget they go up on 2nd April. I got a book of 8 first class ones yesterday for the bargain price of £10  

Yesterday wasn't nearly so bad as they made out. Dark and rainy in the morning and a bit showery in the aft but nothing as bad as they made out. Did you suvveners survive it ok? 

Nice morning here, 5' and sunny. The sobers say it'll be a bit cloudy and breezy, the drunkards reckon black clouds and rain will be here in an hour and last most of the day. Tusky is "unable to download data". 

pink_poppy

Thanks for the chitting info, Farway & kiss-me-now - I'm going to be inundated with spuds at this rate   AR, I'll have to re-read your explanation a bit later - it's a bit too early for me to make sense of it at the moment haha.

Ooh, get me with being all Italian, YBE   My morning cake was a huge and sticky French Fancy from a local bakery (much nicer than Mr. Kipling's mass produced version). I don't always eat cake on a morning btw, just a not so wee treat yesterday.

I should have thought about a blackcap, twopenny. We had a male and female (one had a reddish brown cap) pop in occasionally at my last house. I saw a bullfinch in one of the nearby crab apple trees yesterday - it was merrily munching away at the new buds. I took some pics but it just looks like an orangey red blob from a distance - beautiful bird though. I'll have to have a look at those iplayer recommendations.

How's your amaryllis coming along, Farway?? I think there's a flower spike coming up on my newest one (might just be more leaves) and last year's is just growing leaves, as Dusty predicted.

It's looking like a lovely day out there so far   

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Yesterday wasn't nearly so bad as they made out. Dark and rainy in the morning and a bit showery in the aft but nothing as bad as they made out. Did you suvveners survive it ok?

Yes, but mainly because we stayed inside until late afternoon! The strong wind was horribly cold, and there were repeated downpours. We had the wood burner ticking-over all day, which is unusual by this time of year.

While it was a puzzling, tedious day, spent investigating pros and cons of planning strategies for barn conversions, we had some lighter relief when our builder visited to work out some cost-cutting measures with the work we've to do soon. It looks like we can manage the basics within our budget after all, so that's positive.

Today's predicted to be quite pleasant, weather-wise. While everything's soggy, we should still be able to push on with the garden's spring-clean.

Here's the 50p Acer I spoke of a few days ago. Not as pretty as wort's, and unfortunately, I've not captured the vibrancy of the green as well as I'd hoped to.