Awful weather - typical Brits talk

twopenny

Aw I bought some Bridal Crown for my porch. They smell gorgeous.
Second year a bit pathetic. Put them in the garden and never been seen since.
So don't get too attached.

Bright and blustery, comes over thick cloud and a few drops just as you think of working outside.
Amazing wave white horses, feet high and lasting for about half a mile by the sea. Can't get a photo, the sand is blowing too and still getting it out of the car from last time.

Tescos has some beautiful healthy mini fruit trees. I had to really get control.

Farway

twopenny said:

Tescos has some beautiful healthy mini fruit trees. I had to really get control.

A will of iron, well done

Thankfully no Tesco near me so avoiding is easy

YoungBlueEyes

Thailand… changed man… thank god I’m on drinking anything or I’d have spat it all over me phone  

The daffs do have a smell beyond your normal daffs, and it’s not unpleasant. As much as I’m a lover of daffs I’m not keen on their smell in general, but if I’m only gonna get a year out of them I’ll put up with it ha haa! 

Buy the fruit trees 2p - bees need all the help they can get! :na:naughty:

Anyway I actually came on to say I was (a bit) wrong about my tulips being mislabelled, one of them has a black erse. Only one mind. 

ArbitraryRandom

Did it again.

With parents visiting, actually nipped over to a place called abakhan (which does fabric, wool etc) and they had a carboot in the car park. Bit of a trek (about 45 mins to an hour depending on traffic), so not a place I'd go to on the regular, but nice for a day out. Bought a celeriac root (to eat - not sure what to do with it mind you!) and some other bits of veg. Only plants were either flowers or lots of strawberries and chillis. I've got lots of strawbs from last year already and I don't think I can grow chilli without a greenhouse? 

Did pop into tesco for some food to cook tonight though - and happened to come away with a courgette 'ambassador' plant (again, only one - just in case the three seeds I sowed now about 6 weeks ago don't actually emerge). £2 IIRC and a decent size/healthy looking. 

twopenny

Farway hope your twinges are better. Nothing worse than a twinge. It's neither here to get something done  nor there where you can't do anything so just have to give into it and hope tomorrows better.
Thanks for the encouragement not to succumb to more plants.

Very much like todays roller coaster ride. It's changed so much so quickly I've got confused and not stuck into any of it. Blank grey skies atm. The odd massive gust and raining.

Everything in the garden is in bud. Amazing how it's come on. The cherry has burst forth again. I'll have to hand pollinate because no self respecting insect is going to be out in this. After 2yrs of bugs as soon as it's set  I'm going to spray with insecticide and cover with fleece.

The bugs appear with the heatwave that follows fruit forming so I'll let you know when to get your suntan lotion out.

My potatoes in the fridge have sprouted massively and they were 'fresh'

Perhaps that's where to keep them?

-taff

Hate to tell you this Arb ut you will have to sow them again. I usually sow mine halfway through this month or towards May, thy need a bit of warmth to wake up, takes about 4 to 7 days for them to pop up normally- I did see someone cutting the very tip of one off to get an easier? faster? germination and i will give that a go this year - they will rot in cold compost. To check, find the seed and squeeze it. If a white gunge comes out, they're rotten...Supermakets and some garden centres do like to sell you things they know will die in frost, it makes them more money...

I did some stuff in the garden today, colllated the pots and his them behind a bed, did a bit of tidying, marvelled over how much blossom here is on my apple twig and had a think about how I can espalier it in the open, put some stuff in plastic pots in terracotta pots and rehomed quite a few snails as well as unintentionally disaptching a few by standing on them...well...if they will hide in the grass....

commiserations to the injured too, it's never fun to make the odd scream when moving....

Dustyevsky

Yesterday's foray into Cornwall was for Mrs Dusty to attend a basic sheep-keeping course, lasting 6 hours. So, what to do for 6 hours in the middle of Cornwall? Hmmm...As it was very windy, and I was wary of paying £5 to park in the best-known woodland nearby, I decided to seek out others in the valley bottoms with more modest facilities and, probably, fewer people. Was this a mistake? Not sure!  I needed to test my knees, which hadn't done any serious walking for a month and seemed in better shape than when the physio saw me.

Anyway, I headed for one hamlet where my old map said there was a Herbary, but that was well out of date!   I couldn't even find the alleged car park until I'd driven through the place, turned around and returned the opposite way. There it was, with the sign neatly hidden by a local's parked van! Pulling in to the almost empty area, I found another vehicle, neatly parked, blocking access to the information board. Highly suspicious!  Did they not want visitors? There was nothing to buy, apart from pottery. I'd have preferred herbs!

The trail there was well-surfaced, but after half a mile I realised it was not going anywhere near the river, or the woods, so it was back to the car. I'd spotted a few notable plants along the way, including this double camellia, not frost-damaged, or ravaged by rain and wind.

Also, a well advanced  'invasive alien.' 

More in due course.

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

Hate to tell you this Arb ut you will have to sow them again. I usually sow mine halfway through this month or towards May, thy need a bit of warmth to wake up, takes about 4 to 7 days for them to pop up normally- I did see someone cutting the very tip of one off to get an easier? faster? germination and i will give that a go this year - they will rot in cold compost..

Even in a heated propagator, courgettes can be miffy. I sowed a second three, all within packet planting date, and got one. I p-rick mine with a sharp blade rather than cut off anything. It can just be soggy compost which makes them fail, as mine are at 20c+, but these were kept very carefully moist, and no more.

Arb, I seem to remember cooked celeriac is nice mixed into mashed potato, but you can just grate it and add to salad.

YoungBlueEyes

taff could you espalier yours like wot I done mine like? With bamboo canes and wee clip things - 



It's not touching the fence, so I suppose it's 'in the open'... would that work for you..? 

I'm about to put a fleece or summat over it to save the blossoms from all this wind. I don't want it to fail now after all the trouble I've been to with it. I'm really looking forward to my first ever homegrown apples  

Arb is celeriac root the same as celeriac? If so I cut mine into bits and boil them and mash them (like tatties), a tiny bit of salt and pepper, only a wee dot of butter cos it's more moist than tatties, then serve it with a nice piece of grilled fish on top. Yummy  

A suntan/bug warning would be great thanks 2p Is your cherry looking photo-worthy...? 

That's a beautiful camellia Dusty, nice wall too. And bridge. And cobbled pavement. Not so keen on that alien though  

Windy out there, mild and sunny. I think if it wasn't for the wind it'd be too warm for me, and it's only April Hopefully this break from the rain lasts cos we've still so much water standing in the fields here... the farmers are fooked. I don't know what they can do now. Rice paddies or bust!

pink_poppy

Your apple tree is looking lovely, YBE.

Dusty, what's the alien plant??

You can make chips with celeriac, AR.

Today is looking dismal - 50+mph winds for the next 3 hours and down to 40+mph for the rest of the day. I'm still thinking of getting out into the garden though (elbow permitting) as I feel like I need to be outside today after being stuck inside at work all week and yesterday spent de-fleaing the house...   

I've moved my chitting potatoes into a different room. I don't know why I didn't think of putting them in there from the beginning because it's a brighter room and a wider windowsill... I was planning on planting them in plastic hessian type bags, but they're white bags and I'm wondering whether they should be in darker bags/containers?? I'm trying to recycle/reuse, otherwise I probably would have bought something.