Awful weather - typical Brits talk

greenbee

I take my cat poo to the dog poo bin. Except on rubbish collection day (I’d say ‘black bin’ day as that’s what it is for most people, but bizarrely our rubbish is in a green bin and recycling in black… why can’t bin colours be consistent country-wide, at least for the basics). Garden waste also says no cat litter, so that currently goes in rubbish, but may be composted at some point if I set up separate systems for food and non-food use. 

twopenny

Talking of ice baths my friend has an inflatable plunge pool, supposed to help her arthritis.
I'm staying well away   

My post Bluey, seems to have missed a bit and it sounds a bit harsh. Should never go world wide when not wearing your glasses! 
Truely sympathetic. 

No idea about decent bagged compost at cheap (or expensive) price. I've tried cheap mixed with soil. That doesn't work. The cheap stuff seperates and blows away.
Theres info pages back if you have the patience - or post a new question and get answers by people who aren't on this thread perhaps.

Today was cold with mostly cloud and showers. Should have been dry enough for Dusty to get on with his drive though.
My legs gone from over doing things, silly sausage, so looks like any gardening will be whatever can be done on my knees 

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Aw, Dusty, I'm sorry your neighbour is being so aggressive - you really could do without that. Good thinking about phoning the EA - as taff said, what on earth is he thinking about when he's trying to sell. Honestly, some people...

taff - hope you find your mug of tea (sorry, that did make me laugh about the cat)   

It's definitely a bit cooler today - I think that's our Scottish Summer over  

My phone call to the agent was a shot across the bows. The chap has personality problems, and for some reason he's taken a great dislike to us. Considering we'd never met before, it was quite an introduction!

The mug of tea story is familiar. When left here to look after DD's ferrets, I somehow lost their food bowls between their place of residence and the house. A month later, they've not come to light.

It was very cool here yesterday afternoon; so cool I brought some logs in with me at 18.00 and lit the wood burner!

Dustyevsky

Work here progresses slowly. The quarry lorry was only an hour late. Miles from us, they're spending £££ on upgrading the North Devon Link Road and roadstone's in demand, so there are long queues for it. We eventually received two loads. The driver discovered he lived in the next street to our builder, (30 miles from here!) and as the owner of some old barns, he was on the lookout for someone with traditional renovation skills. A bit of networking went on!

A decent amount of kerbing was laid in the morning, but around 14.00 the small digger broke, so nothing further could be done until it was repaired at around 17.00. :'( At least we shall start today with it working properly.

In other news, the only permanently resident management person for the complex next door came to talk with us. As predicted, she'd had complaints from residents for not preventing the execution of our dastardly plans. The local councillor had been called-in, and an investigation launched, which quickly discovered all our permissions were in place, just as we'd told everyone by letter last November.  While she didn't apologise, it was a start at normalising relations, which will probably deteriorate again, once we submit a planning application for the barn!

Here's a photo from Wednesday. Mrs Dusty is plying the builders with tea. You can see the curve of the splay and the kerbing placed ready for use. That side is now in. The crazy bit on top of the yew hedge in the background is where Mrs Dusty is growing it out to form an arch, and the hump of soil is there to make deeper beds in the future. Forward planning!

ArbitraryRandom

The compost from the local tip is free (which makes up for a lot when it comes to quality) but you're only allowed to take three sacks at a time and I'd need a dozen to even do a thin layer. 

I've bought a fair selection of soil and compost over the last few weeks: the Levington Tomorite bags (£7 per bag) from B&Q were decent quality (no plastic and stones) but very coarse - their GoodHome Beds & borders Manure (£6.50 per 50L) was actually almost identical other than it dries out a little faster...

I then, amongst some other stuff, I bought about 20 bags of Miracle-Gro Premium Moisture Control (£6) and Ambassador Multi-Purpose Compost with John Innes (again £6) from Status Homecare (online - worth paying attention to the delivery and what fits on one pallet @ £65 per tonne). Both decent quality. 

And my mum very kindly just bought me 20 bags of CB Fuels Growmoor (£4.50 per 60L but £85 per pallet delivery), and it's actually excellent quality...

Now the beds are more or less filled/enhanced to be reasonable quality - Locally, for end of season this year there's someone who does wood chips and someone else who does spent mushroom compost, both by the dumpy bag, so I'll likely get one of those and mix with bags of manure to top off my raised beds. 

twopenny

Calling Farway 
What you did with the cut above and below a bud? 
I seem to have missed the start of that and came in at the end but of course there's not a hope of going back and finding it. 
I was going to start a new thread about it- but what's it called please?

Your garden is going on at a rate of knots Arbs! 
Are you pleased with it? Has it turned out as you wished?

Wow Dusty! That's some project! Where are you going to get all these plants?

Grey and cold again here this morning. Even the birds are quiet. It makes you want to cuddle down and hibernate.

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Thank you for the gloves and weed suppressant info, btw. The weed suppressant will have to be fairly tough as we'll be walking on it, once it's covered in whatever cheap gravel I can find. It was supposed to be slate, but I think that's going to be too expensive now that I'm not working.

Still catching-up. If your gravel is part of a walkway, you're probably better off with landscaping fabric, which comes from builders' merchants on rolls 4.5m wide. It is tough enough not to tear easily, and stones don't skate about on it, like they tend to do on the stuff made from woven strands that also frays at the edges. I don't know why landscape fabric is white. It takes on the colour of the soil eventually, though. HTH.

wort

Got home yesterday just before the hailstones!!!! Woke up to frost or white hail on cars this morning.
Sailing from Southampton to the med, hoping for some warmth at least for some of the trip.
YBE hope your relative is ok, I’m sure you will help keep her spirits up. 

Dusty love your response to the madman neighbour. 

twopenny

Oh lucky you Wort!
Can you waft some of the sunshine this way as you travel please?  

Farway

wort said:

Got home yesterday just before the hailstones!!!! Woke up to frost or white hail on cars this morning.
Sailing from Southampton to the med, hoping for some warmth at least for some of the trip.

It's blooming cold down here as well, enjoy your spell away

ArbitraryRandom said:

The compost from the local tip is free (which makes up for a lot when it comes to quality) but you're only allowed to take three sacks at a time and I'd need a dozen to even do a thin layer. 

Lucky you, they charge us for it :'( , double whammy, first it's £120 a year to collect green waste, then it's £3.39 for 30ltrs once composted. 

What makes it even worse is Home Bargains sell Levington £3.50 for 40 ltrs.

Somewhere I smell brown envelopes and eco BS

Building cracking on there Dusty, and still dry from what I hear.

Message from Yodel, my plants are arriving today, currently out for delivery, 24 stops away, and they are waiting until I'm in the loo or back garden, and then they'll leave them on doorstep deliver

As mentioned, it's very cold out, but the sun is trying. Should it succeed I'll have a check on the garden, it tipped down yesterday as I was thinking about garden checking, so postponed.

twopenny said:

Calling Farway 
What you did with the cut above and below a bud? 
I seem to have missed the start of that and came in at the end but of course there's not a hope of going back and finding it. 
I was going to start a new thread about it- but what's it called please?

It's “bud notching” 

Loads of it on YT, from memory two types, above makes a bud grow, below slow it down, but you'd better check first.

I found it easier than it sounds, except when I cut through a stupid branch.

Here's a pic taken this morning, notched above in Feb I think

You can also see some of my tomato forest below the branch