Awful weather - typical Brits talk

LessImpecunious

Farway said:

However now I have sweet corn, I can go all Mystic Meg and make spurious claims about growing courgettes in with the sweet corn, like the Druids did near Stonehenge before the Romans invaded & built a bypass. Or something like that.

Suspect Neil Oliver's already beaten you to that one...

OT, practically cloudless blue sky here - need to get back outside quick!

Dustyevsky

After seeing Farway's plums, and looking sideways at his figs, yesterday I thought perhaps I should check mine. My two figs, still sulking since being evicted from the old polytunnel, have two fruits between them that look healthy, but they won't provide a banquet! The plum crop looks reasonable, and I felt good about that, until Mrs Dusty announced I'd be reducing the height of the tree by half in July. That's when she believes the risk of silver leaf disease will be lowest. 

“It's far too tall and spindly. The main stem may snap completely in a gale.”

“But all the plums are in the top half!”

“Exactly. Next year they'll be easier to pick!”

The fruits are usually ready in August.

In yesterday's fine weather, we got on well, despite the arrival of more visitors. Mrs Dusty de-stoned another part of the new driveway's bank, while I attacked the surviving thistles and docks in the field and planted the remainder of the courgettes. Two plants that went in earlier are already producing.

More sunshine and Factor 50 today, though with a north wind keeping temperatures below boiling. Knowing this, the crow, which is still convinced we are holding its baby hostage, paid an early visit, waking me up with its yelling.

Arb, I've found filling outdoor beds with just compost, makes the working of them easy, but doesn't provide much purchase for roots that need to hang on in gales etc. However, my deepest bed seems to have too much soil in it and not enough organic matter, so it develops a bit of a hard pan on top. It's difficult getting the balance right. I'm coming to the conclusion outdoor beds don't want to be too deep. The ones at the posh garden we visited look about right to me.

I'm guessing the sides are about 150mm deep. Mine are 300mm or so. Inside the polytunnel they're 450mm, but the base level there is almost bed rock. Maybe not helpful in the sense you've built your beds now, but you still have the other half of the garden to do, and soil/compost is a movable resource/

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

......burmese sour tomato potted on...

Even in my bleary early morning state, this didn't get past me!

A bit of research....many mentions of curries.... I could be on board!

Next year, of course. There's always next year. 

YoungBlueEyes

Morning all Forecast v warm with a strong sun so I've my garden bits done. Well. some of them. I'll do more this evening. 

Everyone seems so busy with stuff, I'm not sure if I've anything serious to share. Well I'm giving up on veg growing, that's for sure. It's all my own fault, getting giggidy about all the free seeds that come with my mag, and sowing them + potting on etc without any thought of where they'll actually live at the end of it :embarrassed: The only big patches of soil I've got that would do are where the wall's going, so that'll be trampled to bu99ery and no use at all. So I'm concentrating on fruit - well just toms actually - and flowers. I've got a lovely big something in my front window that's ever so happy. It seems to love the sun so it'll not be long now 'til all its flowers are out and I'll get a pic I’ve got another iris out too. It’s a standard purple one, not as pretty as my fried egg lookalikes but they’ll do. 

Sounds like bungalows are like pancakes then Dusty, no-one expects the first one to be right so you get a free do-over. See also - children.

I've no idea about your lovely lilac 2p, but I wouldn't mind if that was growing under a hedge near me - I'd be snipping bits off left and right. It looks like it smells beautiful  

Are you going with taff's naughty step advice  Arb? I wonder if that'll work on my lavender.... it's not actually totally dead yet so it seems wrong to bin it but it's only heading one way so I want to bin it. Complicated stuff, this gardening... 

I'm checking gently for figs every morning when I have my weeding session but nothing yet. It's happy enough though, new leaves and diddy branches so at least it ain't looking northwards Maybe figs next year :fingerscrossed: 

Anti-slug things are welcomed here Farway, I'll watch your link in a min. 

Speaking of books (I'm no quitter!) I found one in a charity shop yesterday and it put me in mind of you taff.  It’s called “Rosemary and Bitter Oranges by Patricia Chen. It’s about her growing up in an Italian kitchen (it's part memoir part recipes) and inside was a bookmark that’s a beautiful silk Persian rug style strip from Kusadasi It's next on my reading pile.

OT there's some real strength to that sun now, so I reckon this might be summer. Still just into single digit temps overnight though, so there's that  

YoungBlueEyes

Seed snail is nothing to do with slugs + snails Looks good though, I might try that next year. 

Farway

The sun has real heat in it this afternoon, and to cap it off, I have my first tomato flower of the year opened. Bloody Butcher from own seed and outside. 

Couldn't get a photo because it's pointing down, and I don't want to fiddle & snap it off or something.

YoungBlueEyes said:

Seed snail is nothing to do with slugs + snails Looks good though, I might try that next year. 

Me too, usually get odd bits of foam strip, of course none will ever come my way again now.

YoungBlueEyes said:

I'm checking gently for figs every morning when I have my weeding session but nothing yet. It's happy enough though, new leaves and diddy branches so at least it ain't looking northwards Maybe figs next year :fingerscrossed: 

Yes, next year for sure. Fig fruiting is magic, and of course anything on YT is normally from some bloke in Texas etc where he gets bucket loads, never one from a geezer in say Suffolk.

I've not sussed it yet & tried all sorts, the only thing I did pick up is the branches need sunshine on them, and how to notch buds to get lower branches, and rooting cuttings.

Apart from that, its fingers crossed.

Dustyevsky said:

-taff said:

......burmese sour tomato potted on...

Even in my bleary early morning state, this didn't get past me!

A bit of research....many mentions of curries.... I could be on board!

Next year, of course. There's always next year. 

Ah ha, sounds like a plan, and heritage, so seeds will come true.

I took advantage of the sun & all my bedding geraniums are now planted.

In my mind, I see this lovely floral display at the top of my steps, flanked by tomato plants dripping with fruit. The sweet corn tassels wave in the warm breeze, and courgettes can be glimpsed through the base of the corn.

Reality may be a bit different, of course.

PS, there were 26 SC plants in the punnet from Morries

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Sounds like bungalows are like pancakes then Dusty, no-one expects the first one to be right so you get a free do-over. See also - children.

You might be close to the mark there. I won't say much, but having sat up half the night looking at criteria for self build garden plots, we could easily meet all the usual requirements, and plan for something eco as well. We'd have to demolish the polytunnel , but a Hartley Botanic or a nice cedar jobbie nearer the house would probably compensate! 

This morning, I put in the aerial supports in the form of 20' scaffold poles to which everything else will be fixed. It was very hot, up there in the roof area of the tunnel, but preferable to building a dry stone wall. Our SiL is doing that. Some base stones are extremely heavy. 

Outside, it's a very comfortable19c.  Now, it's back to topping up the tomato bed.

twopenny

25c in the shade here!

and 32c in the sun so not much going on gardening wise or anything else wise atm.

Books Bluey, mine are not your sort but for future reference you may like:

Driving over Lemons - an optimist in Andulicia. by Chris Stewart

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Driving-Over-Lemons-Andalucia-Anniversary/dp/1908745851

He was one of Genisis band.

and

Red Tape and White Knuckles by Lois Pryce

She drove a motorcycle on her own from London to Cape of Good Hope with adventures.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Tape-White-Knuckles-Motorcycle/dp/0099513595

Both cheerful, unputdownable writing

I've got her most recent (after marriage and kids) when she took her motorcycle across Iran as a woman. Some guts she has. I'm saving it for a special moment

I've also got one about a woman who travelled Europe?spain with a donkey she bought on the spur of the moment

I like eccentrics

-taff

YBE you did make me laugh out loud then. Bungalows and children I bought six lavender plants [ on offer obviosuly] last year, snipped some off for cuttings, planted them out. They all died. the cuttings live. Sometimes plants are just erseholes. I will look that book up , it sounds right up my street, I get through four or five [ or more] a week so something new is always welcome. I did love the Annie Hawes, but only the Italian ones, the others are a bit meh. And I second Driving over Lemons.

Dusty, I'll try and save seed from them, the idea was just to grow one plant, save the seeds and go crazy next year if they're nice. I love black tomatoes but sometimes they can taste a bit fusty so I'm looking for one as tasty to be my go to.  I did laugh at your burgeoning lack of plums too , but if she's right, she's right...is she right? don't answer if it would put you in jeopardy. Beautiful glossy crow. Raised beds..mine are two railway ties high [ nefarious goings on when OH worked for the railways provided me with many pieces of 1m wood] . I dug out the first spit, removed as many bindweed roots as I could and every year I top it up with whatever I have to hand, leaves, hm compost, the mshroom compost, my sisters small coal, spent tomato compost, etc. It has stayed quite workable but strong enough for roots and it beginning to look very very nice, full of worms and easily workable [ it's still a no dig bed though]. I'd recommend doing that to anyone. I also leave the dying plants on the top over winter so it doesn't get smashed to death by the rain, and sometimes just chuck whats supposed to go in the compost on top for fun over the winter. Those greenhouses look gorgeous.

2p, I don't recognise it sorry, but I am to flowers what trump is to being a decent human..but I'm learning, fowers that is, i am already a decent human. hopefully. That book is onmy list too now. And by eck it is boiling isn't it?

Farway, I keep seeing that on fb reels, looks really easy, but first, get your piece of pastic...I think the druids would have short shrifted the courgettes, too phallic...or would they? I'm liking your romantic display aldready even if it is yet to come..and there is a Morries nearby ish, I will investigate. That's where I got my fig from, I had about seven off it last year, I was so chuffed, I rammed them all in my gob and didn't share.

So I bought an osteospermum [ burnt orange colour], some chard, lettuce [ I know I can sow it but I have nothing in the meantime] and another geum from Home Bargains, 4.99, Koi, I will chop it in half later to make two. I'm panicking internally now because the builder has said six ish weeks ot start, now the tidal wave of panic is beginning to crash....

ArbitraryRandom

Too hot for me today - it's only just coming to a reasonable temp now - so I stayed indoors and hid from it. Got lovely pics in messages from mum who HAS to be outside anytime it's above 15. We are related... promise  

Alarm set for the crack of dawn tomorrow to water/put wash out before it gets going.