Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Farway i can't remember the details now but I'm sure your grapes look like George's on Beechgrove. I don't know if you can find that episode somewhere online but it was a good one, worth your while looking for it. Maybe this year the blackfly will leave your beans alone and they'll romp away!   Looking forward to fuschia pics, I do like fuschias. 

Bottlebrush, thanks pp. I did think that's what it was but I've only ever seen white ones and they were smaller than that. 

I wasn't going to mention it but there was a little police car there just like yours Dusty, well it was rainbow striped, and the police had matching lycra 'uniforms' on. One of them was deffo wearing his own clothes, unless the budget runs to rainbow Lily Savage type dangly earrings. Say no more! <--- Monty Python voice there. But the postman's legs made up for it. Sorry, I forgot to give context - it was a pet food stall, and not for the sort of people who have foofoo little dogs in jumpers either That's some strawb haul you've got there, what will you MrsD do with them all?

Everybody got off the beach in one piece yesterday, remarkable achievement in itself actually. I don't know how I kept my mouth shut but I did. I only go cos she has an absolute belter of a dog - a spaniel (worker - her OH is the eldest brother so he got the farm) and that dog is a pure delight. If it wasn't for him I'd not bother me erse going at all.... Rebarbative -  I love that, thanks gf  

Parp prp prp prp parp parp parp paaaarrrppp Trumpets for your radish crop. Tasty looking too  

Good hedgehog story 2p, jeez you make me feel like I've never lived! It reminds me of a poster behind a bar that I used to drink in years ago. It said "Drink! Because no good story ever started with a salad." Will you plant more sweetpeas and pray for a useful amount of rain soon...? Hopefully this week won't be scarey and you've seen the back of covid :fingerscrossed: 

If I'm ever in the Swansea area I'll look out for laverbread taff, it sounds like I'd like it You're doing something right with your bay tree then if it's growing all that fast eh. Apples are looking good too  

OT sunny here and has been for a good while. A cool westerly breeze which is lovely and dry so I've a load on the line and another on the go. July is suiting me just fine so far If I can get the Domestic Nonsense over with I'll get out in the garden cos it sure needs some love.

twopenny

Cold and dark. It's drizzled a bit so not going to do much good except to make me stay in and do some house work.

Had to put the lights on to see the dirt it's so dark.

Shops, swim and tabletennis today so no gardening.

Morrisons is selling a decent size box of bonemeal reduced to 3.50 so that's on the list as I've run out of everything and the plants will need feeding if it ever gets wet enough to help them recover.

13 little birds on my feeders this morning, there's only 2 feeders with 6 holes so a bit of a fluster all round. Worth it though as they are getting rid of the bugs too.

Saw this at the car park - he was there for ages but what a haul! Looks kind of desperate though and in need of a rest.

Bluey glad you had the saving grace of the dog on your outing.

Does it run in and out of the sea chasing things - and do you?

I've got a photo of me and my dog playing in the sea. Not a good one but I love it. When I find it I'll post.

Wonder who's posted while I'm at this  

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

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.

Walking friend and I first became friends under a table at a rowdy party, though we were both almost sober. Well, she was only 14.... I'm not telling you any more!

I liked Bluey's 'Postman's legs' too, though I preferred our postlady's. Sadly, she didn't last. Like the wild-eyed ADHD chap, who drove through our front area like a maniac, she was there for a few weeks, then gone. They don't make them like they used to, so now post arrives in the afternoon, sometimes even after the Big River deliveries. Apparently, somebody from the East European mafia, called Kaplinsky, wants to buy our PO shares. He can bloomin' have them. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6537506/royal-mail-stock-holding-what-to-do/p1

Where was I? Oh, rinse and repeat yesterday, weatherwise, I think. Not too hot, not too cold, might be a bit of sun and a small amount of drizzle. Light grey skies, mostly. Think Farrow & Ball's 'Dimpse,'which is a corruption of 'dimpsy,' a word stolen from these parts, meaning twilight or dusk. That's it: Perpetual Dimpse. Not a patch on rebarbative, though! They should keep that for when Barbie pink is on-trend again.

One of our olives produced a single fruit last year, taff. It then threw most of its leaves off and pretended to die, probably in the hope of being placed in the polytunnel over winter. I didn't submit to its blackmail. It's now grown new leaves and looks healthy again.

Show Farway your radishes proudly gf! After all, he's showing his putative grapes. Mine seem to have no intention of doing anything useful this year.

I can't get my second sowing of courgettes to germinate, and I refuse to put the propagator on just for them, so here's something totally inedible that's grown itself.

Farway

Sunshine for today, looking very lush at the moment with me keeping up the watering.

Lovely radishes GF, and I watched recent Beechgrove on YT, their radishes were popping up out the soil. 

I've mentioned before how as a nipper I grew radishes[6d a packet of Bees seeds from Woollies] very easily, now I have sixty odd year's experience I fail to get them to swell, just loads of leaves, sobbing quietly.

twopenny said:

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.

Grapes, I think mine are OK but just not as I remember from my previous house, but different grape, I'll just have to wait & see, at least my pruning was right, I remembered that much, two leaves and snip.

Your blackfly and birds, maybe it’s anecdotal, but they go for the easy option, why struggle for them when the feeder is right there? 

Would you cook some gristle sausages if a cooked meal of steak & chips was alongside the stove?

Lucky you with plums, mine shrivelled & dropped off, oooh err,

I think thinning out will be scissors, I have got to do the same on mine, worth it in the long run.

Love the hedgehog story

Oh, you've just posted again. Now I have to go to Morries tomorrow on Bonemeal search. I was going to leave the visit until later in the week, but a box of reduced bonemeal in the hand is worth two geranium strips in the bush.

YoungBlueEyes said:

Farway i can't remember the details now but I'm sure your grapes look like George's on Beechgrove. I don't know if you can find that episode somewhere online but it was a good one, worth your while looking for it. Maybe this year the blackfly will leave your beans alone and they'll romp away!   Looking forward to fuschia pics, I do like fuschias. 

Your wish is my command

Actually a good one, it's a £1.30 one from Morries earlier this year, loads more to open, with new growth, quite a bargain & still selling them

twopenny

I didn't have a shake of the bonemeal box Farway.

Westmoorlands? Can't remember if that is good or bad.

I bought some cheap stuff years back and the stuff looked almost as unground as the Postmans legs

It's not reduced online but I can't think they'd make yellow stickers for just one store.

Love the fuchsia. I'm not a fan of growing them, probably for years of fighting the common red and purple ones that grew enormous.

But I can appreciate all the lovely new forms.

Even if the feeders are empty they sit on top of the bean teepee and ignore the blackfly.

BTW my winter flowering Quince in a pot has taken to flowering all summer too. The worlds gone weird.

-taff

I bestirred myself this morning, got a mad five minutes on that turned into three hours and all before breakfast which I've just eaten now, bacon sandwich with lettuce from the perpetual stuff, which didn't realise it was going to be perpetual stuff but is far easier to grow like that, hiding in the goth box instead of eaten by snails.

Took some compost out the hotbin, it's not finished but it was good to mix with some gravel from the back, some coir from the last ex srawberry pack, some spent compost and something else, so now I have a wheelbarrow full to mix in parts of the front garden that seen some removals [ choisya, now in a suitable pot with compost that things have died in], some sage removed because it was going crazy and squashing my also going crazy philadelphus, moved two lychnis, white ones [ why didn't I think to mix up the white and pink instead of having two separate lots, looks silly] so everything is now prepped for said compost and some plants..

The builder has said he's starting in two ish weeks so now that means today is the last of the pottering garden, from now on it'll probably have to be greenflylady gardening [ which I'm going to hate] Weather is cooler, bit dull today but that's ok, now I want some rain please [ dance dance etc]

Nice eryngium Dusty, knocks socks off mine. Sorry 2P, I think Farway has the right of it..they're just spolied and lazy birds now

ArbitraryRandom

Hi all. Hope everyone is well. 

Been a bit distracted the last week or so, between the heat/plantgasms and work I've been doing the bare minimum online and in the garden. Had a bit of a shock just now when I figured I should actually look at my plants and found this monster... 



Advice please. It's a courgette plant - I think it can be classified as a marrow and I've been looking at some recipes to treat it as such - but will it taste any good or am I going to ruin anything I make with it? I have unpleasant memories of some larger courgettes at the supermarket tasting like bleach and being told it's because they're too old/large. 

Farway

Arbs, In the past I've treated the large courgettes like big marrows, not stuffed type, just in a pan with chopped toms and some herbs, I probably chucked some runners in when I had them

Sort of ratatouille style

Weather clouded over, time for lily beetle patrol. Need to keep on top because the lily buds are colouring up now & about to pop.

-taff

Cut a bit off it and try it, if it's bitter, chuck it away. If it isn't, either use like a courgette and scrape out the seeds or scrape them out anyway and stuff. My favourite thing to do with courgettes is make breakfast or a quick meal, barely cooked chunks or slices fried, mix beaten eggs, however many you like with some parmesan, throw in with the courgettes and cook like scrambled eggs. Looks a mess, tastes lovely, especially with some fresh crusty bread.

YoungBlueEyes

That's some picture 2p, it looks like he's posing for you Bless him he does look bu99ered though... Yep me and dog were in and out of the sea. I was only up to my knees but he was haring about after the gulls and bringing me draggles of seaweed and random bits of stuff he'd found. He doesn't really play fetch with balls/sticks cos he's a worker so he's got a soft mouth. The water was lovely and warm with it being fairly shallow. Heaven  

Eryngium - is that how we're spelling thistle these days Dusty or is it a different plant...? I quite like that, and look at the striations on the leaves Totally agree about that wosname person buying our post office. Our posty is a lovely fellah, always at least a smile and a howyoudoing on his way past. If he's time he'll ask about our garden work or plants he's seen me lift out of the car or whatever. He even talks to that dam cat ha haa! But recently he's more harried and stressed and definitely unhappier. I hope he doesn't leave cos with not being a yoof he's got a bit of sense about him, which is invaluable I'd say. 

Ta muchly for the fuchsia pic Farway, I'm happy to see that cos I have that one - also morries - but I've not had it long enough to see if flower yet. It wants planting out really but I haven't the space.

If you've too many philadelphuses taff you can send some over here  

Arb I'd try a wee bit, see what it tastes like. If ok I'd chop it into chunks and fry it off with onions garlic toms aubergine peppers herbs etc, You can bag it up and freeze that, it doesn't keep so well in the fridge really. Nice over pasta or rice, or as a side dish for pork chops or salmon. Taff's scrambled egg dish sounds good too  

Well the sobers nailed it here yesterday, they said it would rain and rain it did. The drunkards did try but got the times wrong. And the amount. And how long it would last. But apart from that..... Rained overnight too which is appreciated cos I've forgotten to water my toms - which are coming into flower! - so they'll be happy about that. As for birds I'm not sure I do it right or not really. I restock my feeder in the morning so they can have breakfast to get their feet under them, then after that they're on their own. There's enough bugs and slugs and snails out there to keep them going so they'll not starve. I've pared it back from all day feeding since I had varmints, and they seem to be doing ok on it. Well they've no choice ha haa!  Cool and cloudy and damp air today. Welcome to Julyuary :rolleyes: