Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

Sun again. 

Which is good because I hope to go and, following advice from YBE above, give a Death Stare to my grape. 

I will also prune the brute, removing shoots past the bits that should be bunches of grapes if it got it's finger tendrils out.

Today is the turn of first toms to set, Bloody Butcher, own seed and outside

Mrs Dusty has already pruned our grapes. That's good, 'cos I don't have a clue. Not saying she does either, but I'm absolved if the 'harvest' is like last year!

No time to label my Veranda Reds like your pic, but I snapped one yesterday, so when I get it onto this 'puter we'll contrast & compare!

-taff said:

 And you didn't know what the shield bugs were doing? Right, well then, we need a serious talk....

They didn't look like they were enjoying it much, though, did they? More a case of, "I'll look this way, you look that way, and we'll get it over with ASAP!"

twopenny

Dense white low cloud and cool. The weather has been going downhill daily but still not enough rain to wet the ground.

Perfect weather to get on with something today I spose - like chopping back massive rose briars and blackberries, oh joy, as everything is in a muddle next week so I'm awol for the first 3 days as far as gardening goes.

Have plans, that path was interesting Dusty. I'm sure I could source enough stone from my little garden for that   

Not sure when I'll have the time but I saw this in the gardens and thought it a great idea

I've just dismantled a couple of big speakers that I'd turned into cupboards and now dumped but the frame from the front is smaller and lightweight so a few bits of wood and paint , plastic pots and it should be light enough for a fence.

Goodness knows where I'm going to find the time

Farway, lean the axe against the vine. Just give it a hint. Worked for my old plum tree   

YoungBlueEyes

Ahh lily beetles Farway  Maybe the universe is evening you out cos look at your toms! Mine are considering flowering, a bit, sometime in the future. Perhaps. I’m fancying growing some peas next year. I do love good fresh peas, pods an’ all if they’re small enough  

Self important erse - that’s exactly it taff. It’s the being forced to participate/acknowledge/accept part that gets me. It’s literally none of my business. I just wanted someone capable to give me my money back for the thing I bought, it was no odds to me if it was man woman or beast behind the till that day. Just be good at your job and keep your personal stuff to yourself thankyouplease. I’d be better off asking for the moon on a stick 🙄 Totally agree with you about “mate” too. I can’t remember if I’ve said this on here before… When delightful and not heathens etc neighbours got robbed the police knocked on our door, and the first words out of his mouth were “alright mate”. So I channelled my inner Daddy, tilted my head to one side and flatly said “shall we start that again?” #ThingsThatGetMyBackUpAndI’mNotStickingAnyMore…. a long list is that so I’ll shurrup now  

Such lovely pics Dusty I really like the gate and hedge, but I really like the stone path If it was blue slate I’d have fishes as the middle shapes… 5 day farming week <giggle>

Woohoo for the gardener Arb! Hopefully he’ll put you on his round and that’ll be you sorted  

Himself is going great guns with the trench digging, but I’m no nearer uncovering a Roman villa/coin horde/those chariot wosnames they found a few years ago. He’s just gone to SkewFix for more work trousers cos he’s burst outta the ones he was wearing 😱 Again. I need to start practising my umm …trump supporter chanting… for when Bob gets here  

Refreshed before I hit post, and look at your shutter 2p Gawd that’s good, I fancy one of them. To go next to the ‘open window’ I fancy. I wonder how strong the back fence is… 

LessImpecunious

Dustyevsky said:

Outside, I could see the lych gate and the yew hedge were relatively 'new,' but what's the plant growing through the yew? It's not bindweed! Yes, I shoulda taken a close-up!

Pretty sure that's Tamus communis or black bryony - a member of the yam family! (but don't try eating it!)

Farway

Sun's gone and now dull.

I gave the grape a hard stare and pruned it, I will refer to it as They/them. Don't want to upset them  

They've sat there sulking for umpteen years waiting for a ticket to the fiords, and now they've suddenly decided they want to romp everywhere.

There are bunches of what would be grapes, but I've never had grapes off this one, it's seedless, so maybe it is different and doesn't flower? Pansexual even?

Tried another of my cherries, juicy but not quite 100% lush ripe. There are some that the birds have got in somehow, just stones on the end of a stalk , amazing how the birds do that.

Dustyevsky said:

No time to label my Veranda Reds like your pic, but I snapped one yesterday, so when I get it onto this 'puter we'll contrast & compare!

How coincidental, there I was admiring my Veranda Reds at the same time, no fruit yet, but they're really sturdy & nice looking plants. If they taste good, then I'll certainly grow them again.

Sounds like a impressive walk, and some good pictures as well. I sometimes wonder just how rich some are / were, to have their own church on the estate. A posh garden near here has one, with The Family interred in posh plots of course, but no pockets in shrouds as they say.

YoungBlueEyes said:

Ahh lily beetles Farway  Maybe the universe is evening you out cos look at your toms! Mine are considering flowering, a bit, sometime in the future. Perhaps. I’m fancying growing some peas next year. I do love good fresh peas, pods an’ all if they’re small enough  

If you do, I recommend Hurst Green Shaft, old but tried & tested. And probably good for some innuendo as you go about your travels.

Keep an eye open 'cos just last week T & M had offer, 50p with free P & P, be good at that price

Now for some pawn, found more lily beetles at it, they are now in lily beetle paradise

You can whisper Je t'aime in your best Jane Birkin mode while looking

Dustyevsky

LessImpecunious said:

Dustyevsky said:

Outside, I could see the lych gate and the yew hedge were relatively 'new,' but what's the plant growing through the yew? It's not bindweed! Yes, I shoulda taken a close-up!

Pretty sure that's Tamus communis or black bryony - a member of the yam family! (but don't try eating it!)

Thank you!  I'm pretty sure you're right, but we probably won't be returning to see the berries in the autumn. Reasons will be clear in part 2 tomorrow!

Farway said:

Sun's gone and now dull.

Sounds like a impressive walk, and some good pictures as well. I sometimes wonder just how rich some are / were, to have their own church on the estate. A posh garden near here has one, with The Family interred in posh plots of course, but no pockets in shrouds as they say.

The sun never really made it here today, but it's better weather for working. The Big House on the estate burned down in 1795 and the present one is an impostor, planted on a different site in 1937 'in the style of.' It confused me. As with many houses of the posh, there's little info and even fewer photos. As for the church, Pevsner dismisses it with, "not his best work,” so we were thinking along the right lines. I don't think the gardens are notable either, so here's photo of  Dog Rose seen in the hedge nearby:Simple, elegant, and free! (Note solitary insect looking for lurve )

twopenny

Bluey, that garden with the shutters had an outside 'convenience' in the wall.

Double wooden seat

You just never know what people have in their gardens.

Leg went into spasm but I persevered and watered pots, did the multitude of cuttings that I'd collected and pruned roses, cleaned labels etc all day.

It's close dense cloud and was unpleasant to deal with the sweaty heat so all in all not a day you could make the best of. It doesn't even look better because it's bone dry and everything is drooping - much like I was.

No rain forcast for the forseeable either. I think it really is a case of different plants now.

Off to hospital for probably a 20 min talk and it's a 60mile round trip in dense traffic with people who;ve spent the weekend boozing so an early start to be there by lunchtime. Aparantly a phone call has to be a special arrangement sigh.........no time to do anything before as it's too unreliable to get back to the hospital from town and after, well most of the stores have closed.

Fed up - Moi!

-taff

Dusty, that path is lovely. And between you and Farway I have grape envy, although a friend did say they'd give me a cutting from theirs. I'm on the fence about it a bit still though, i have nowhere to grow it just yet. Pretty rose...

2P, I like that shutter idea but I would be forever straightening the pot out..Having an outside convenience is very convenient though I often think I'd like to have a chat while sitting [ I don't...] I did laugh at axe intimidation, I use the tip to frighten electrical appliances..be careful with your leg, fingers crossed hospital visit does something.

YBE, I think just generally people get my back up all the time. At the do yesterday quite a few of us said, yeah, we just don't like people, but I do like people, I like my friends, i like some strangers, i like internet people [some of them] , i like you lot, so I don't know how to drill down exactly what people i don't like, they're just annoying...

Discovered the redcurrant was also going to the fjords, so hoiked it out and dumped it in some water [ along with the blackcurrant in case it's still kicking somehwere]. I think they were just too hot, they need a bit of shade but there's nowhere really to move them to just yet. back in pots now anyway for a bit. Everything needed watering, most of it with the can, but some with the nifty hose I attached to the water butt tap which can be moved along as necessary. haven't turned oover the front yet, a job for tomorrow in the shade. I did pick up an old fashioned kitchen cupboard thing, the one where the flap comes down, so i will probably be seeing to that tomorrow as well. And my front garden waterbutt is not collecting water properly so that has ot be investigated too. It was quite hot today, rlentlessly sunny, which I am not complaining about, the tomatoes are shooting up and the beans are now poking out [ thanks Farway] and the bought ones are still alive.

ArbitraryRandom

Morning all. Too hot to sleep overnight here so I figured I'd get my watering done early given the forecast dry and sunny yet again and I'm trying to avoid my onions bolting. I really need to do some work over the next winter to improve this soil as it really doesn't hold moisture at all - which is the exact opposite problem I was expecting from reading about raised beds.

As mentioned yesterday, I picked some peas. Going to be a little bit of trial and error to learn which are actually really ready for picking. I only picked a few and all the ones I picked looked full (there's lots at different sizes and still a lot of flowers), but some that looked round had only tiny baby peas in a big shell. After shelling (and eating a few to quality control ) not much of a harvest, maybe half what I'd call a small portion so I put them directly in the freezer and will add to them over the next few weeks until my new potatoes should be ready.

I think that's my biggest challenge this year (and having tried to grow too much all at once so everything is overcrowded). As I've not grown most of these things before I don't know what they look like at each stage. Yet again, research can't replace experience and I'm making notes of things I want to do differently next year  

Tomatoes have flowers but no fruits that I can see as yet. Cherry has two fruits, one red that doesn't look quite ripe yet. Apples have pleasingly kept a lot of their fruit so far. Strawberries are producing a couple of ripe fruits each day (if I can get to them before the slugs) which are a delightful reward for actually getting out and watering/checking for bind weed. 

Right well I'm actually going to see if I can get another couple of hours sleep before my alarm goes off for work Hope everyone has a good day! 

Dustyevsky

ArbitraryRandom said:

Morning all. Too hot to sleep overnight here so I figured I'd get my watering done early given the forecast dry and sunny yet again

Hmmm.... thy're telling us it was 15c overnight here, but I'm not buying it.   Dank and foggy when I went to let the hens out at 06.00. There's been a little rain as well. Although we may hit 20c, the drunks are saying we can forget sunshine today. It's good working weather, I suppose.

Arb, your peas look about the size of the broad beans we found on Saturday's walk; a whole big field of them (left in picture). This puzzled us for a moment, as we don't 'do' that kind of crop around here. However, one look at the rocky soil told us these were going to be ploughed-in as green manure. They'll probably plant corn there next. The beans were very prolific, but only pea sized. We still scoffed a few!

Next to the bean field was a row of National pattern bee hives, though not like the ones we used when we did beekeeping at school. These were mostly made of dense insulating material, like Hotbins, with some older wooden sections, all held together with luggage straps! They looked untidy, but no doubt they do the job, and so do the bees.

The river turned out to be further than I thought. I'd quickly calculated the whole trip as 3 miles, but  it was 3 miles each way. However, the return wasn't difficult, apart from an incident involving The Lord of this Manor, who appeared in another 'Gator, climbed out, and began feeding horses. He left two Springer Spaniels in the machine, which leapt out and came for us, one nipping my friend on the leg. Voicing our displeasure, Lord Thing said, “Oh, sorry, they don't normally do that!”  I should have replied, “We don't normally leave gates open, either.” but I never think of these smart answers in time.  We'd been on public footpaths/bridleways throughout, but there were no signs to indicate which these were. At least none of the gates was wired shut or padlocked.We sometimes get that, but we can climb. We had to do a Teresa May through a corn field planted over the RoW, but we were good and didn't run!

The bite only caused a small bruise, so my friend won't sue.  That's two run-ins with the landed gentry in a month. Good job it's not shooting season!