Awful weather - typical Brits talk

wort

Taff need photos of Deadpool on your car 😉 Make sure the bay tree are bay not suckers from the rootstock,I can’t tell from your pic. lucky you having sun , we have had rain and cold since last Thursday. It’s the wet misty rain in the main so you think you will go out because it looks ok from the window then as soon as you step out you’re soaked.

2p if I’d drunk so much as I had the spinnies I’d be at home or being sick.

Dusty cracking haul of strawberries just need extra thick cream on them .
Goldfinches well done on the radishes ,I’ve not had them since I was a teen, and I tricked someone into thinking they were sweets 😗

twopenny

Wort, I was young

Bluey hope your postie stays, too few cheery people around these days. It's all more about things than people.

Abs, rather than bake a whole one like a marrow I used to slice them thickly, cut out the middle and stuff with savoury mince (or whatever) a little grated cheese on that and bake gently with a little stock and bay leaf.

Home made smashed tomato and basil sauce over at the end.

Then eat one and freeze the others.

I had a quick version last year which I posted. I'll see if I can find it.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6464765/quick-and-easy-veg-storage-or-recipies/p1

Left the feeders empty last night as they'd got through a whole one. So one a day perhaps.

While tending that I see the pond is only half full and green so that's todays job. I'll tip it out and leave to dry till late afternoon and see what's what. Not sure it's all worth it. The fountain only works randomly in this crazy summer, the frogs don't like the noise and the water is green - and yes , I've tried all sorts for that.

Garden is still looking gloomy, parched grass and dropping petals.

The lavender is doing fine though out front. Short on bees this year. Barely a bee around.

wort

2p love the bird pic, I keep catching sight of the blackbird scooting off with a mouthful of my worms.
Dusty I’d love that silver ghost my Eryngium flowered last year and my plan was to move it over winter as it was too close to the front of the border and had another plant running through it. But never moved it as I couldn’t decide where to put it. Anyway this year there’s no sign of it! It’s 3rd one I’ve bought as it was in my wedding bouquet, and hubby had it as his button hole.
I bought Veronica for the same reason and it took over a whole bed, and I had to remove it.

Farway I got bonemeal from home bargains , no Morrison here anymore. Can’t recall the price though. Lovely colour of fushia, I remember popping the buds on my neighbours fushia bush when I was  small.

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

 Nice eryngium Dusty, knocks socks off mine.

As I said, they grow themselves. The two fancy ones we put into the garden a month ago have been well-slugged.

wort said:

Taff need photos of Deadpool on your car 😉
Dusty cracking haul of strawberries just need extra thick cream on them .

There can be disadvantages in making a car easily identifiable. I go for the bland, muddy, 'not worth much' look. What's more, the latter quality is always true! (As I type, Mrs Dusty is shouting out of the kitchen window at the crow, which has returned this morning to do battle with her windscreen. )

No cream for me, sadly. Weight loss has stalled again. No sugar either. Sacrifices must be made, especially if they allow me a bacon & egg sarnie, like I've just had!

YoungBlueEyes said: If I'm ever in the Swansea area I'll look out for laverbread  taff, it sounds like I'd like it

Laver needs a dash of vinegar and some pepper too. Great on toast with bacon, provided you can cope with glutinous!

On the PO shares, small investors don't have much choice. I look upon £3.60 as a reasonable deal, with all the bonuses paid over the years, but with a functional crystal ball, I'd have baled-out at £6!

I'm not enjoying attempting to quote between pages, so I'll return with a photo in a minute....

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

Wort, I was young

Bluey hope your postie stays, too few cheery people around these days. It's all more about things than people.

Garden is still looking gloomy, parched grass and dropping petals.

The lavender is doing fine though out front. Short on bees this year. Barely a bee around.

I'm still quite young, but my body isn't.   You also sound like another twentysomething, trapped in the 'wrong' body!  Annoying, isn't it?  Maybe the transhumanists have a point?  Oh-oh, better not go there....

As for gloomy people, perhaps they're more worried than naturally miserable? The constant stream of negativity supplied by the so-called news media would make anyone depressed, to say nothing of the pressures caused by inflation. And there's the weather....

There were lots of insects around in the spring here, but I agree, they've not been so noticeable lately. I spotted this moth yesterday, so took a  hurried snap. It was only when I came to process it, I found another insect photobombing!

If anyone is able to ID the moth, I'd be grateful.

EDIT: Nearly forgot the weather....As dear Larry Grayson was always remarking: "What? Another grey day?"

-taff

Sorry 2P, missed your knackered blackbird cute though, 101 parenting for birds and I'd forgotten about that thread, so now it's pocketed for further use

wort,  the bay tree originally came from a friend as a straggly three pronged bush where it had sat in a pot for twenty years, so I doubt it had a rootstock. When the tree bit was alive it did take a deal of pruning every year to rein it in a bit, so whatever it is, it's very vigorous. I will cut the bits left off at some point but for now the jasmine is climbing up some, and the lights are strung round, so when I get over my pollyanna phase, it'll go to leave the new bit doing it's thing. And deadpool is just a round circle with two eyes, all in red, as is the rebel alliance, both circular ish...

ybe, I see your postie and raise you my old one, always cheery, smiling and happy to chat briefly and didn't mind sticking the packets somewhere for me instead of making me go to the depot to pick them up. Start a petition to save your postie I think. Keep the seaweed for next years potatoes I found a packet of bladderwrack when I was moving the food yesterday, so that's going in the waterbutts when they're full [I don't know why I bought it either]

Dusty, that's a pretty moth. Maybe alice knows this one too ...fingers crossed someone does...

Gosh this thread takes a deal of refreshing before posting first thing in the morning

No garden for me today [ ok maybe a litte bit] I have kitchen stuff to move out the lean to and an incredibly messy kitchen to clean [look out, casual man bashing here] it's as if one of my old exes was cooking using every pan there is. Something that'll never happen with the current OH, as he can't cook, or more likely, doesn't want to learn. OK by me, i like it and don't want him messing up my kitchen system...

I think I'm going to have to recognise that my style of gardening is fill it up to the max , not nice open spaces to look at. Well, it is until we get lottery acres anyway...

Dustyevsky

wort said:

Dusty I’d love that silver ghost my Eryngium flowered last year and my plan was to move it over winter as it was too close to the front of the border and had another plant running through it. But never moved it as I couldn’t decide where to put it. Anyway this year there’s no sign of it! It’s 3rd one I’ve bought as it was in my wedding bouquet, and hubby had it as his button hole.

Farway  Lovely colour of fushia, I remember popping the buds on my neighbours fushia bush when I was  small.

That 'Silver Ghost' eryngium (not a thistle Bluey!) is biennial, so it will be off to the Norwegian coast soon. I won't disturb it until the seeds have dropped. Next year, the babies will emerge, and as they're easy to spot, they could be moved to other locations when small, keeping a plug of soil with them. (They hate moving.)

If buying eryngium seed, it needs to be fresh, sown on or just below the surface and left out to be frosted over winter. Special Plants, is the source I'd use for fresh seed. Once you have a plant, they do the hard work for you.

Bit of a prickly buttonhole? Wouldn't droop though!

Farway

Started with sun, now dull and a bit chilly

But I made an early start in sunshine, up watering the volunteer pots, and I think I managed a reasonable photo of the weeds wildflowers, still in the camera, yet another job.

Nicely timed my watering, finished just as Morries GC bit opened at 9, it was looking like the tide went out near the Norwegian coast, littered with dead plants at both ends of the spectrum, drought or drowned. 

The large dead bamboos are still there from a week ago

But somehow I found two plants in my trolley another fuchsia, headed to volunteer pot, plus a Loganberry. For which I blame you lot on here, a thread about berries. That may go in DD garden, she has a fence that could do with a bit of tough green on it.

And I found the reduced bonemeal [ta 2P], not marked reduced, in fact, in typical Morries style, not priced at all (Same size packs of BFB & Growmore were £5. Trotted off to till, where it rang up at a fiver, got sales lady over to delete it from my hoard, then it came up with a discount as her magic fingers flashed away.

Westland bone meal 1.5kg for £3.50 [£5.50 in Buy & Queue]

Anyone taking up the offer, make sure you take a packed lunch

-taff said:

I think I'm going to have to recognise that my style of gardening is fill it up to the max , not nice open spaces to look at. Well, it is until we get lottery acres anyway...

That is the same style as mine, I call it lush, not overgrown.

All the bird talk reminds me to top up the bird bath later, and water the newly sown carrots.

Today's pic, one of the self sown trailing sacrificial nasturtiums. 

They are just starting to flower and hopefully will attract bees to and blackflies away from my beans

LessImpecunious

Dustyevsky said:

If anyone is able to ID the moth, I'd be grateful.

It's not a moth but a butterfly disguised as one - a Skipper - I think a Large Skipper, but not sure

twopenny

It's probably a large Skipper - male.

The males hold their wings like that.

I love moths and when I used to be a ceramic artist I loved painting them.

Magnolia paint and the doors and windows open at night with a side light on and they come and sit on the wall for you to admire the lovely shapes and markings. Lace wings are stunning.

But nowhere near as good as the boat on the Amazon which at dusk had the whole upper deck literally covered in more varieties than you can imagine. Wish I'd had a digital camera then!

So emptied the green bit of water left in the pond and tipped out a frog too, poor thing. He's gone off in a huff.

Turned out the bung had been knocked out, probably with me fiddling with the pump.

Watered the veg and some struggling plants too. It's easy now with the soil like dry sand it just soaks in around the roots.