Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

That's really helpful about the landscaping fabric, Dusty, I didn't know there was such a thing. We've got some second hand weed suppressant down at the moment and the fraying is a nightmare. Thank you   

It looks like your project is really coming along and tidy with it - very organised. We also had the fire on last night for the first time in a few days. Laughing at the missing ferret bowls - I wonder if taff's mug of tea turned up   

Happy holidays, wort - fingers crossed for sunny days.

twopenny, any more rat sightings?? I had a wee beastie mouse skitter past me on the back fence when I was out digging the other day - I think it was heading for the bird feeder.

Sunny this morning with light rain forecast for this afternoon - I can't complain because we haven't had any of the wet stuff for a good few days...

sammy_kaye18

Well was doing well until I ventured into the greenhouse and discovered something has been at my planted seeds. 
A whole tub of peas eaten as well as my courgette and cucumbers ones so I am presuming it is some sort of rodent. 

Then to make my day I went outside to hang out washing and found a jackdaw had tangled itself in pea netting so spent nearly 20 minutes trying to catch it from under the decking and untangle it and now I seem to have made a friend who likes to come and sit on the fence and watch me garden

So spent the last few days
- tidying the garden, removing any rubbish,
- putting lids on top of new sowings,
- put some bleach between the pallet slats as apparently they dont like the smell and so far so good. 
- Have resown some peas and beans in the big strawberry bed and used some milk bottles to protect them. 
- Planted up some earlies and second potatoes but need to earth them up a bit as I used the last of my compost to do it and got a few more bags yesterday. 
- put a border in (this plastic border stuff) and put some wild flower seeds into it and gave it a good water. 
- cut what grass I have left from idiot dog zoomies ripping it all up but left a heavy dandelion patch for bees. 
- built a bed with old bricks around my crocosmia 


Today will focus on potting on some chillis and tomatos as a few of them have their second set of leaves coming in. 
Earthing up some spuds. 
Getting some compost in and some things planted in tubs. 
Might put some extra compost in the blueberry bush since its now showing signs of life rather than stick in a bucket. 
Apple tree is showing signs of life too. 

Need to get some flower seeds planted and sure I have some other bits to sow and direct sow too. Havent started any brassicas or carrots yet so maybe them

@wort I am very jealous of your trip away but I hope you get some nice sunshine and enjoy. 

@Farway do we have the same yodel delivery driver? Im sure mine plots to make sure they deliver at the most inappropriate moments. Im curious to what plants you have en route? 

Im not even sure if our local tip sells compost = I will have to look into it. 

I think the sun is trying to make an appearance but at the minute it is mostly cloudy and sitting at a whopping 7 degrees. My sister in in corfu at the minute and I think she will be in for a bit of a shock when she gets home. 

Thankfully though from Tuesday next week we will be in the mid to high teens so Im hoping to get a fair bit done this week so I can enjoy the garden next week! 

Farway

sammy_kaye18 said:

Well was doing well until I ventured into the greenhouse and discovered something has been at my planted seeds. 
A whole tub of peas eaten as well as my courgette and cucumbers ones so I am presuming it is some sort of rodent. 

Then to make my day I went outside to hang out washing and found a jackdaw had tangled itself in pea netting so spent nearly 20 minutes trying to catch it from under the decking and untangle it and now I seem to have made a friend who likes to come and sit on the fence and watch me garden


@Farway do we have the same yodel delivery driver? Im sure mine plots to make sure they deliver at the most inappropriate moments. Im curious to what plants you have en route? 

Im not even sure if our local tip sells compost = I will have to look into it. 

Bet it's mice that have scoffed your peas, they are well known culprits.

Jackdaws, I think they can be tamed & respond to humans, back when I was a nipper someone had one in a garden cage, and it talked, like a parrot does

In next to no time you'll be chatting away to it like an old friend

Council compost, ours is sold as soil conditioner, which means no added nutrients, and thus even worse value than just buying a cheapo bag from a supermarket, good value if it was free or a quid perhaps

Here's my post from 23rd, with list of what I ordered and due today

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6197328/awful-weather-typical-brits-talk/p872

-taff

pp, if you have the type of landscaping fabric that frays [ I do too], get a blow torch or one of those bbq lighters, and just run it up along the edge a few centimeters away, it will melt the plastic and stop it fraying.

I found my mug eventually, on the radiator behind the tea towels..obviously..somewhere I have never put it before and never will again..unless the cat goes missing again...

arb, can't go wrong with oinons, Tropea made a thing out of it, and I don't think there's much I cook savoury wise without them. Sqaure foot gardening might help with ramming them in too

broughton, having recently had a delivery, I'd say look for a bulk bag from a local supplier. I've had to resort to fine sowing compost this year [one bag only though]  for the small seeds as nothing seems to be germinating in the usual except the weeds already in there. I got a bulk bag of spent mushroom compost, there are still lumps in it, but having broken them down by hand it's either straw or mushroom spores, and that stuff is good enough for my raised beds. Definitely a lot of manure in it because I can smell it, and the mushrooms. For bog standard normal pots, I'd just use what you have with extra feeding. One trick I use is to put a pot holder in the bottom of some of the big ones so they hold onto water better, there's always a reservoir, I don't bother with crocks, I've never had a pot bung up on me in twenty years...

sammy, congrats on your new wild pet

It took me seventeen trips with the wheelbarrow to empty the bag with a few handfuls left to throw on the lillies and front garden but all beds are now full of lovely horse muck and straw or whatever it is, and possibly some future mushrooms, I'll always take a freebie. I topped up all of them, so I'm expecting big things. The middle of the bag was already composting down, it was hot and lots of steam whenever i broke into a new bit. My foot is protesting like 2ps legs s gentle sowing today..it's about time I did the courgettes and stuff..

twopenny

Thanks Farway.
Mt trees are not the desired shape because I was too much of a coward to prune them as recommended when I'd just got them as babies and wanted apples. 
I thought this may be a compromise.

Sammy, a brick wall with crocosmia sounds wonderful for colour 

My garden is full of sparrows of various sorts!!
Of course I can't go out there now because a) I want them to stay and b) they are eating all the bugs.
I had to spray the cherry because leaves were decimated in 2 days. I've put netting over so the birds don't get had. But then they never ate the black bugs anyway.

Poppy, I'm guessing that if the birds are out there the rats aren't ?

wort

Bloomin cold out but with sunny spells this morning but now it’s clouded over. The lawn had a dozen starlings on it after the rain the other day obviously stealing all my worms.
Farway is the horti granddaughter due a holiday at yours ? She could do a course of garden pond work in exchange for bed and board 😉
No doubt Britain will get a heatwave whilst I’m on holiday ! So make the most of it 😂
The choisya is in flower now and smells lovely near the door.

sammy_kaye18

Well I decided to brave the 7 degrees in Wales today. 
Ventured outside to check the greenhouse and ended up 

- putting the two peas that had actually germinated on the windowsill into the strawberry bed and setting up canes and a bit of string to encourage those two up them. 
- putting down some compost into a spare patch of garden with some liner underneath and planting some gladioli bulbs I didn't know I had. 
- compost into a small bed with my fuchsia in it and putting in some sparaxis bulbs. 
- planted up some sweetcorn, watermelon and some cosmos seeds. I've left them on the deck for now but Ill move them into the greenhouse later.

I have found some mixed crocosmia bulbs too that I have but trying to decide what to do with them now. Plant more in the back garden - the one I have currently has orange flowers - but this one could have yellow, orange and red. So not sure whether to expand the patch I have or add some more in elsewhere in the garden. 

Now need to try and figure out what I will eventually put where

@Farway I remember seeing your post now. 
I have been talking to the Jackdaw and he has been nicknamed Solo because from what I can tell he doesn't seem to have a mate but seems quite happy with my company so fingers crossed. 

ArbitraryRandom

Sounds like you've been wonderfully productive Sammy. Would be great if you could chuck some of that energy over this way for a minute as I've a lot I really should do this weekend and right now I've just got a headache  

Most seedlings are now potted on and tentatively hardened off. I'm (very slowly) emptying the bags of compost actually onto the beds where they need to be to raise the soil level... if I can get that done today and tomorrow then hopefully Sunday onwards I can start to actually plant things out. I also need to rework my plan as I impulse bought a few things and had somethings germinate better than others. 

It's on the cold side again today (or maybe I'm coming down with something, which would explain the headache) but warm enough in the sun. I'm hoping for some rain in the not too distant future as there's not been anything here for a week or so and the new soil plus the plants could both do with more of a soaking than I can really manage with my watering can. 

greenbee

My mum is here supervising pruning. I'm not sure this is a good idea ... while the holly that needed a haircut has been done (and the prunings are being bagged up in one of the bulk compost bags), she and the gardener have decided to take out a small hornbeam. While it is definitely the right thing to do, we probably should have done it before it had leaves on it. The gardener is also going to dig holes so we can plant shrubs in the rain tomorrow - we need him to do the hard labour while we do the easy stuff! One magnolia is going to go into a pot until we can get the hornbeam roots out (and next door's tree work has been done, as it is currently so small it might well get squashed accidentally).

Lots of cardboard and bits of wood have been emptied out of the garage attic (I didn't know they were there until the pest control guy mentioned it and I've been scrounging wood and cardboard from all over the place!) so I should have enough to do most of the rest of the veg plot. I also have 72 lavender plugs to pot up, and quite a few seedlings, so a weekend in the greenhouse is definitely needed. Mind you, there's a lot to do in the house too!

Farway

My plants from T & M arrived, well-packed and intact. Now unpacked, they seem nice & healthy, now in conservatory while they get used to daylight again. I'll check them over, move outside & water them tomorrow.

wort said:

Farway is the horti granddaughter due a holiday at yours ? She could do a course of garden pond work in exchange for bed and board 😉

Unfortunately, it seems she is more “management” than worker. 

She decided on a pond at her parents [my DD] house, of course her dad finished up digging the hole etc while she did the design & planning stuff. 

It is a charming wildlife pond, but I think mucky hands is not going to be her chosen path.

Supposed to be, maybe, going to Bath uni later this year, some degree course to do with plants, but I think it's more laboratory than potting shed.

Thinking on about my pond, the baby bath idea sounds like a road to investigate. 

Light enough for me to carry, shallow enough to not drown local wildlife, possibly cheap enough from the supermarket if I can't find an old one somewhere.

twopenny said:

Thanks Farway.
Mt trees are not the desired shape because I was too much of a coward to prune them as recommended when I'd just got them as babies and wanted apples. 
I thought this may be a compromise.

Sounds like a plan, after years of faffing with fruit trees I find they are generally responsive to whatever you want, if you have the patience of course

For instance, on YT they do use the notching on some to make the dormant trunk buds break and give branches for espaliering, and some notch along horizontal branches to get fruit spurs to form. 

This takes a few years, which for someone itching for apples may be frustrating.

FWIW my Pinova, planted 2019, is covered in blossom this year, this is the best year yet so high hopes