Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Awww RIP little hedgehog At least it was natural causes though and you don't have it on your conscience Dusty. Isn't your dahlia a beautiful colour, does it actually become a deeper colour toward the bottom or is that a trick of the light. Very attractive either way. 

2p I want that story about tickling hedgehog's chin Hope you had a nice day at the reservoir..? Beechgrove the other night was a proper gardening one, possibly not new news to yous on here but I got some good tips. It wasn't a roundabout of new presenters and members of the public at least

Your volunteer spot collection of flowers sounds good Farway, looking forward to that pic Fingers crossed for your fuschias... 

pp You can swop my weather for yours if you like? I'll take cold and dry over bladdy hot maftedness any day of the week! Re freesias - my theory why you don't see them very often now is cos they started messing about with them like they did jersey royals. I used to see them last year and they were cheaper than anything I've ever paid for them, but they were small and had little/no fragrance. So (hopefully) folks have voted with their feet purses...?

How's your V pillow working out wort? Giving you a bit of relief is it?

Ixias does ring a bell, thanks folks. I started buying queer named things when I ran out of 'queer leafed things' to buy. I reckon that's what it is. I can recommend it heartily, very pretty and a pleasant and unusual fragrance  

I'm hoping once July rolls round that'll solve my June Drop issue. Out of dozens and dozens and dozens of flowers on my apple tree that produced about maybe 50 ish diddy wee apples I am down to 6 apples now. They're all well spaced so I'm hoping it decides to keep them. The Cox Orange that I beheaded a while ago is still diseased - the joints where the branch meets the trunk are a bruised brown colour and it's spreading. So that's a goner and I'll snip it into bits and bin it when I've room in there. It didn't even try really *sigh* Mind I didn't actually have any space to plant it in but that's not the point! 

Posh Town Day Out was a bust. Well we went and Armed Forces Day is next weekend grrr and the place had been taken over by a Pride Festival, which is not the same thing at all. Off to the beach today with himself's 'orrible sister and her hateful children Forecast is cool and cloudy and a northerly breeze though, so there's that  

YoungBlueEyes

Pics from yesterday.

A something in someone’s garden - 

This was on a market stall - 

Good that eh  

Farway

Dull but on a promise for sun later

Just in case, I watered the pots at the front first thing.

A bit of a sleepless night in the warm weather, which gave me opportunity to get a moon shot photo. But this morning it seems to have gone blurry overnight in the camera , so won't be posting that.

My broad beans have grown more stems, which is good, despite being a last minute decision I'm looking forward to broad beans later. Of course, I have the blackfly problem yet to appear, but I'm not averse to a quick squirt of noxious chemicals at critical times if it means I get to eat something.

Pulled up my radish tops, as usual, no round roots, just leafy tops . Only sowed them as a catch crop while the toms grew a bit, just one radish would have done me, encouragement, but it's not to be, again.

twopenny said:

Did you know if you tickle hedgehogs under the chin they gently grunt?

How I found out is quite a story.

That sounds like some sort of mucky euphemism

Probably more a reflection upon me but I'm sure I’ve heard something similar which was a mucky, funny and forgotten, joke

My grapes, seem to have flowers, sort of, there are pollen bits anyway, not like flowers at all, but like I say, being seedless perhaps that's what happens?

I'll try for a photo later, there are a couple of fuchsias opened as well.

pink_poppy

I think that's a bottlebrush plant, YBE. Callistemon, according to the RHS. I saw one for the first time a few years ago and loved it, although I thought it looked like a loo brush   

We had the fire on last night - absolutely ridiculous at this time of year - it was lovely though.

Shame about the moon pic, Farway.

twopenny, I'm looking forward to the hedgehog story

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Awww RIP little hedgehog At least it was natural causes though and you don't have it on your conscience Dusty. Isn't your dahlia a beautiful colour, does it actually become a deeper colour toward the bottom or is that a trick of the light. Very attractive either way. 

Posh Town Day Out was a bust. Well we went and Armed Forces Day is next weekend grrr and the place had been taken over by a Pride Festival, which is not the same thing at all.  so there's that  

It's hard to capture the exact colour of that dahlia. It's very striking, and the foliage is interestingly intricate too, but if I'd bred it, I might not have kept it due to the lax habit and downward droop of the flowers. We put it on a tall, chimney pot to see it better.

Not the same thing?   Same but different, eh?

pink_poppy said:

I think that's a bottlebrush plant, YBE. Callistemon, according to the RHS.
Shame about the moon pic, Farway.
twopenny, I'm looking forward to the hedgehog story

Our bottlebrush plants haven't opened yet. Shows how much warmer towns are, even 'Oop norf'

Moon pictures are like that. You can keep the camera still, but the Earth won't cooperate.

The mind boggles on the hedgehog story. Personally, I'm wary about touching them, due to the number of 'passengers' they usually carry!

Not much to report other than a slow start this morning, and a return of the cool NW wind. Here's our latest haul:

Farway

Ooh, lovely strawberries Dusty, the only time I had a haul like that it was from a PYOR farm, my strawberries are like my cherries, all in the mind

However, hopes are high, could this be Grape year?

Here's photos taken today, with the pollen? bits.

twopenny

Farway there was a thing about grapes on Beechgrove. I watched my way though gardening this morning as feeling poorly, probably tail end of Covid + scarey week last week.

First time I've watched it for ages and there was one red headed woman who spoke about detail at top speed. I had to mute it.

Door open, good jelly telly, lay on the sofa. Lovely and warm to opressive then cold. Tonight turned really cold suddenly. It says 17c but it feels like 12

I've been cutting back, dead heading, weeding and feeding the little tomatoes in the hope it spurs them upwards.

Found my missing SweetPeas - scattered all round the runner beans. A bird or two must have scratched them out of the pot and being too hard left them.

Why don't the birds eat Blackfly? My first beans in shadeish are covered and right by the feeders.

The second late lot, in the sun, not a smidgen of blackfly.

Hedgehog story was, college party, white wine, 80% proof rum and beer, more white wine, I was literally under the table where the room didn't spin.

A fella took me out for a walk. A hedgehog was passing and he showed me how to tickle it. I loved the sound and it sort of went into bliss state........

That was followed by sliding down hay stacks where the zip on my dress broke, I had to go back to the party and sit under the table again holding my dress together.

No photos today. The garden is looking so sad because the ground is now so dry that I can dig into it like sand.

Apples, lots of little ones, too many. No June drop and gave a couple of really small ones a tweek but they are stuck hard.

Think I'll have to use sissors to thin them out?

Plums the same. Too many and they aren't swelling and developing a rash all due to lack of water.

Think it was Some time in May when we last had rain.

I'm feeling a bit envious of all the lovely fruit and veg you're getting.

It's just keeping things alive here.

goldfinches

Trumpet fanfare please, my first crop! 



I also thinned some lettuces and ate the thinnings this evening so I think that counts too. However I couldn't water anything because no matter how I twisted and turned the tap nothing came out of the other end of the hose so I had to resort to emptying my water bottle over a flat leaf parsley I carelessly uprooted while weeding, oops.

2p I'm in awe of your life you seem to have had a rip roaring good time. Can't think why the birds have no interest in blackfly, they look quite juicy and nourishing to me. Sorry to hear about your sweet peas, I've just started a second lot of seeds off in a propagator because my first lot of plants are only just beginning to get going up their poles so thought why not.
Ybe sorry you had to suffer ghastly sis-in-law and her rebarbative offspring, hope you're recovering nicely.
Farway fingers crossed for your grape harvest and sorry to hear about your radishes. The ones above are Scarlet Globe and seem to like being very close together if that's any help.
Dusty I love the police car but is that a good use of their budget?  Fabulous strawbs, if you're after a good recipe see Yotam Ottolenghi's Strawberries and Cream Cake in the Guardian, delectable.

Grovelling apologies to anyone I've missed out, I can never keep up with this thread or keep my replies to other's comments in my short term memory long enough to include them in my posts.

twopenny

Lovely radishes! We used to bite and dip in salt. Yummy

Don't know about a rip roaring life!! I think it's dull but I do try to do things rather than polish and dust and it has been commented on before 'it could only happen to you'........... and a forum fo travel users we shared events on flights. Two of us seemed to have permenant disasters adventures and we couldn't decide if we should fly together and keep all the happenings in one place or never travel together   

Blooming freezing here. Been sat in the sun in shorts today but it's woolies tonight.

I've got some radish seeds somewhere. If we ever get rain I'll try and plant them. I love a radish.

Forgot the car! I love it but wonder how much we paid for it rather than a police officer.

-taff

I turned away for two minutes and there were four pages of posts can't complain I make a fair few myself on occasion...

Farway, our good  F&C shop has just shut, so the search begins anew for a another one. Beautiful dragonfly. And thanks for the ident alice Good to see your efforts are appreciated by some media too

2P, good to see you're making the most of sitooteries. They're a couple of clever solutions for gates too. Constable would have liked that sunset too.And soud I see a hegehog, I'll get my tickling finger ready! There used ot be one or two that came along, they can really scoot when they want to, but now we have foxes instead along with one babby one who comes to the back door looking for food, I am not in the market for another pet thanks. At least there are no rats. And your story wins today

Arb, maybe next years cherries will be more abundant.

YBE, lavrbread is a bit weird, I think they still sell it in Swansea somewhere...I like your optimistic app too Shame about your posh day out. But your postmans legs were worth it, I showed my OH, I had to explain what they were, then he laughed.

wort, I love the smell of them too, choisya that is, but I've discovered one has gone to the fjords and the other appears ot be a dwarf one which is due hoiking out to a better place [no, not that kind of better place] I could never get behind hydrangeas until I saw the white climber but that has to wait.

Lovely strawberries Dusty, and I woulnd't mind my car looking like that. I've only just found some decals bought years ago at a comic con, so deadpool and the rebel alliance wil adorn my car before long.

GF, nice radishes and 'rebarbative'? That's a new one for my vocab and I will use it, lovely.

And so it turns out my apples are still the same colour they were as babies

and the bay tree has sent up a shoot that is very fast growing indeed, two foot in the last few weeks so I'm kind of training it along the dead trunk a bit to wind it though.

Also, one of the olive trees is either having a last gasp or teasing me with olives. It sis this last year and they all fell off though

Weather has been mostly hot and sunny except Sunday which was cooler but still dry.  I have one full out of four waterbutts so now I'm praying for rain. I have acquired so many plants that there's going to be some kind of plantsplosion to the fjords unless I can get them in the ground quick. I also got myself some Japanese anemones, I know they're a spreader but I have a place for them at the side because they are so blousily pretty. They'll replace the dead choisya. Can't remember which ones, wil check tomorrow. I'm also going to Jekkas Herb farm next Friday with the epress intention of buying a Szechaun pepper since the bloody snails found t yet again, erseholes. I've put it in the hospital bed but I'm not hopeful.