Thank god we paid the mortgage off

northwalesd

CAT is closed to 'casual' day visitors, but still open to pre-booked visits and courses, but it is in severe financial difficulties, and there are real fears it could close completely ☹️

ladybird1106

Thanks watty1 it’s took years of practice to be like that as I’m naturally a pessimistic person. I had to retrain my brain and occasionally had to shed or limit my interaction with people who were super dupa negative as I found them draining.
Greenbee last year I tried it just with carrots to see how it helped. Grew fine, didn’t need as much watering and kept the weeds down. I know people worry about it burning their plants. I have large compost bin that I spread it out on. Let it sit and dry out for a couple of days, then spread a thin layer round each plant ie beans or if it’s carrots along the row. You can add more at a later date. A thin layer about hmmm about 1cm should be ok , anything thicker will prevent water getting into the soil. This stops it going slimy. As it breaks down it will feed your plants (nitrogens) and add organic matter to your soil. Hope this helps.
Busy day today, plodded with miss giddychops,been swimming, collected olio requests, now waiting to pick up youngest new insoles from the hospital (youngest still ill) trying to resist buying gluten free liquorice, I need to shop and then drop off cardboard at the allotment. Back home to do housework boooooooo.
love 🐞

greenbee

Thanks ladybird. I'll give it a try. Currently grass clippings are stored in bags while I'm emptying the compost bins as there is FAR too much of it to compost well. I'll have to come up with a system I can get my gardener to understand, which is always the challenge when I want to do something that isn't the way he's always done it…

Cherryfudge

I leave grass clippings on the lawn as they soon shrivel and they don't choke the compost. However, you've led me question this and I found there's quite a lot online. According to this article, while the lawn is growing fast, there may be too thick a layer of clippings for the lawn to cope with. When it's growing more slowly, clippings help feed the soil.

You may gather I'm not at all bothered by the appearance of the lawn soon after mowing! I don't spend a lot of time looking at it, and I doubt anyone else does either. In high summer the clippings are shrivelled away in a very short time and the grass probably gets trimmed more than once a week, so most of the time it's at its best.

Incidentally we have two lawns and one needs treatment because of ground elder, which I don't want in hitherto unaffected areas, and moss, which goes rampant over winter. So the lawns have plenty going on before grass clippings are taken into account. I've been raking out the thatch which has shown up the other issues, but they are to me a first world problem and not top of the list.

I'm just mentioning leaving the clippings in situ in case it's useful to anyone. You could perhaps alternate composting and leaving the clippings while the grass is growing most, which would help the compost bin(s) not to be overwhelmed.

Cherryfudge

Just popping my head round the door and giving a little wave and pretending I just happened to be going past, when really I am hoping you and the family are okay?

ladybird1106

hi cherryfudge, yes I’m ok. Been very busy, last week was the youngest 21st birthday 🎂 which ended up with multiple celebrations with different family members. Mr🐞 then hurt his back at work which meant this week we didn’t go camping ⛺️ as planned with the eldest. So we had a staycation instead. Lots of gentle walks in the local area, visit to the pub for quiz night, ☕️ and cake 🍰 and long lie ins. Spent about £50 of the funpot money. Mr🐞 been to the chiropractor (£40) today and has booked tomorrow as annual leave.
Did manage to get the eldest to help get stuff out the loft to sell. Listed lots of kids toys etc onto V and the bay. Sold 3 items today. Load of doll clothes have gone in the wash and will sell as a bundle. Checked a couple of items worked with new batteries. I’ll be glad when it’s all gone. There is so much clutter still. I did buy 3 CDs from the chazzer where I volunteer with my discount paid £1.50 ( madness, Nat king Cole and Alison moyet). Also got Mr🐞 more turmeric buy 2 get another free (270 tablets) and used £1.50 off voucher -£38ish. Bought birthday cards -10 for £1.00.
Potted on my tomato 🍅 plants, celery, red kale, cabbages and brussel sprout plants. Sowed future meals- courgettes, 🥒 cucumbers and 3 types of squash/pumpkins. All clearly labelled using my recycled cut up butter tubs and a sharpie. Nothing worse than trying to figure out what the random plant is or even worse which variety of a certain plant it is. Window sills and the massive bench in the garage are full, so tomorrow I will take the sweetcorn/leek seedlings up to the allotment and put in the potting shed to make room.
I ended up buying some nail clippers as miss giddychops nails where starting to impact on her walking. Last time I took her to the groomers, I was gobsmacked at the cost as I’ve never took her before. We’ve always walked loads, so naturally kept her nails short. Anyway she was ok me doing them, cost £10 and the time to look up on Utube on how to do it.
Tomorrow or should I say today is already looking at being really busy. 🏊‍♀️ and then smear appointment (oh joy), tidy up the parts of the house the plumber will need access to ( shower has stopped working and we have a few jobs we want her to give us a price to fix), trip to the allotment and walk miss giddychops.
Suppose I should try and get some sleep 😴.
love 🐞

Cherryfudge

Belated happy birthday to your youngest and get well wishes for Mr 🐞!

I used to clip nails for various of our pets - not a problem if the creature is relaxed and has light-coloured nails, but I erred on the side of caution with black animals as it's so hard to tell how far you can cut the nail. I even clipped teeth for some pets! It did occur to me that I would probably have a steady income nowadays if I trained as a dog groomer.

I hope your shower is soon fixed.

ladybird1106

A friend told me about the dark/light nails thing cherryfudge, luckily miss giddychops is light nails. Plumber came yesterday to chat about the jobs we want her to do. She’s going to see if she can fix the shower first, tomorrow and then arrange to come over a couple of weekends to do the other small jobs.
Yesterday we had a mammoth house cleaning session. We had just been surface cleaning, so did a bit more in depth. I was shocked how grubby the house and garden is looking in general. Need a plan of how to tackle this without getting overwhelmed by the huge task. Will hopefully breakdown each room into smaller tasks.
Sold another item on V, so posted that this morning whilst walking miss giddychops.
Currently enjoying the sun up at the allotment after hoeing everywhere.

Love 🐞

ladybird1106

Yesterday I sowed basil into the grape house. Love the smell of grape flowers. Peas are hardening off, hopefully get these in next week. Mr🐞continued getting the leek bed ready. Looking very dry up there already. We finally have apricots 🥳. Tree is about 8 years old. Took another 2 trays of leeks up there to grow on in the potting shed. Will take celery plants up tomorrow.

We got into the garden for a couple of hours in the evening. Mainly getting rid of debris from winter. Cleaned the bird feeders after reading the following rspb article https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/how-to-help-garden-birds

Cut a fat block into 3rds. This was gone before 7pm. We have a blackbird family nest in the ivy and a blue tit family nesting in a bird box. The freeze dried calic worms we bought are been snubbed constantly, waste of money . So going to take them down to the local pond to feed to the 🦆.
Finally got our room cleaned and sorted. Listed several more items onto V and the bay. Sold 1 item, which I will parcel up tomorrow. Cleaned up the youngest special needs pram. Was suprised how much these are going for on the bay. Will list later in the week though as it will need to be collected in person as not sure if it will be too heavy to send via courier. So will time for the weekend. Cleaned up a toy garage which we’ve decided to keep and checked the batteries hadn’t leaked. New batteries and it works fine. Will store in the attic- fond memories.
Tea was pumpkin and sage risotto. Sage was fresh and pumpkin was frozen both from the plot.
Booked next years holiday to wales. We’ve decided to go for the 2 weeks round my birthday. We didn’t do anything special for my 50th, so it will be a delayed celebration. Mum and I are going to share the cost. It’s a house we’ve stayed in before, so ideal for the youngest as they can visit the town centre on their own. Very flat, so very accessible. Deposit paid on the cc (£909). I think it will be the last long distance holiday we will do with mum as she has decided to pack in driving the next time she has to apply for her license. Hence this holiday, it’s a place she loves to visit.
Right hopefully I will get back to sleep 😴

Love 🐞

ladybird1106

Plumber came, but needed to order a part for the shower - £60 call out fee paid. They will let us know when it’s arrived and will come back out again.
Spent most of the morning listing kids toys on V and the bay. Sold 6 job lots of stuff. 4 went to one person, which went into one parcel. 2 parcels sent off, just got 2 ( 1 from yesterday and 1 from today) to send hopefully tomorrow. Counted 🐞pot £74.49. Funpot is down to £170 as we spent £60 on our staycation last week.
This pm in between showers we took up 24 celery plants to harden off in the potting shed. Harvested a spring cabbage for tea.
Decided as there was nothing pressing a nap was in order.
Other than a bit of housework not a lot else done.
love🐞