BS: What are we doing in the garden?

Subject: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 28 May 20 - 04:04 PM

The covid has me half cracked, so I'm taking it out on the garden, being as food-productive as possible in dread of a sere recession.

Got kale, got red kale, got Daubenton's kale, chard, courgettes, tomatoes, parsley Italian Giant, got holy basil and bush basil and Little Gem lettuces, beetroot, kohlrabi, potatoes (charlotte, carlos, pink fir apple), gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberry canes (2, thornless), winter savory, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme…

A few flowers too: Brompton and night-scented stock, Italian violet-scented sweet pea, rose geranium, roses (of kinds whose hips make great jam). Going to start a meconopsys (sp?) and some dame's rocket next.

Hoping for a crab-apple tree and a damson tree come autumn…

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 May 20 - 04:08 PM

Picking up the dog’s shit.
Apart from that, and cutting the grass, nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 May 20 - 04:15 PM

Everything's bone dry at the moment, so we're watering each evening.
Husband was assiduously hosing the front lawn when lots of our neighbours started clapping for the NHS. He's an awful wag, and I watched him bowing and saying, "Thank you! Thank you!" Didn't know where to put my face (we don't clap)
I've sown lots of annuals to fill up spaces in the borders. I found several packets in a drawer and decided to sow them a few weeks ago. Now the seedlings need gentle watering and weeding.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 29 May 20 - 05:29 AM

I’m keeping the grass down.

I wasn’t going to grow anything this year but a neighbour gave us some tomato (3 x Moneymaker, 2 Black Russain and I forget what else in the 11 plants) and 3 pepper (I’m not sure what) plants. These are in our small greenhouses. We’ve got 5 big tubs ready to take something – I believe 2 are destined to have rhubarb but I’m not sure beyond that.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 29 May 20 - 07:45 AM

I've only got a balcony and pots …………. but I've got beetroot, radish, lettuce, red spring onion, white spring onion, carrots, pok-choi, tomatoes, runner beans, French beans, peas, basil, coriander, bell peppers, chilli pepper and I bought 4 mushrooms kits so hopefully I will have button mushrooms, eryngii mushrooms, yellow oyster mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms.

Fingers well and truly crossed.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 29 May 20 - 07:49 AM

I assume there's going to be a hose ban here soon, but at the moment, at dusk, you can hear the sound of sneaky watering as people trickle a bit onto their plants. Mulch is the secret - the big wind blew down most of my old cardoons, and I've been using the leaves to conserve water on the plants.
The front borders have been infested with wild garlic; I'd like to harvest the little triangular bulbs now and use them all winter - any advice on doing this gratefully accepted.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 29 May 20 - 08:12 AM

Incidentally, my dog - a sheepdog from south Dublin - and his littermate, don't poo in the middle of the garden, but find an isolated place around the edge and away from cultivation. My previous and lovely dog didn't have this pleasant habit; she was also of sheepdog stock but with a taste of Labrador thrown in. Maybe the pure sheepdog is closer to the wild and so conceals its spoor.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 29 May 20 - 08:28 AM

Relaid paths, built a pergola, built portable (and one on castors) plant containers from old pallets, fixed broken garden umbrellas, fixed broken umbrella bases, cleaned and repainted summerhouse, cleaned and repainted old horsebox that is a grandkid's den, created wood frames with chicken wire on to keep the cats off the veg beds, rebuilt some stone walls, mown the lawns, laid a flagged base for a greenhouse after excavating an old drain beneath it, repaired greenhouse after storm damage (it is a cheap tent type one), made a cold frame, painted various things including the bird table, made "pannier" containers out of old window boxes to hang each side of a wall, dismantled other old pallets for wood for future projects, attempted to repair a gazebo with missing parts, rushed outside to secure it when the wind came up while typing this, repaired some garden chairs, tried out layering some willow to form a living wall type hedge, started breaking up an old concrete tank, planning out a water feature..... I may have missed some things.

And relax...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 29 May 20 - 09:01 AM

Thompson, I think your sheepdog was just well brought up.

Our house is a suburban number in southern Ontario with way too many trees -- three huge silver maples and one even huger Norway maple, a silver birch, and an overbearing cedar hedge on the property line to the east. In August 2017, when we took possession, it was even boskier, with large scraggly cedars all over the place, a rotting poplar on the west property line that our neighbour never failed to mention, and two enormous yew bushes overhanging the front porch.

Enter Tim the Tree Guy. Last year, he hauled out six (or was it seven?) of the scraggly cedars and an opportunistic Manitoba maple, barely making a dent. This spring, virus or no virus, the poplar had to go before it decided to clobber Judith-next-door's garage roof, and we asked Tim to remove three more scraggly cedars and the yew bushes while he was at it.

So now we have what looks like half an acre of flower bed in front of the house where the yews used to be, and we're thinking we should have kiboshed about four-by-eight feet of over-enthusiastic euonymus along with the yews.

First, we planted a lovely little rose bush (that should grow into a large rose bush) in the sunny spot left vacant by the unlamented poplar. Then we endured a visit to the garden centre to acquire some foxgloves for the back fence, bee balm and primula for the front of the house, and three Lenten roses (aka hellebore) for a small bed on the east side of the house that gets about three minutes of sun first thing in the morning.

Also parsley and chives because, you know, omelette.

Water drainage is a bit of an issue because we have a stratum of rock-hard clay about eight inches down, so we have been improvising with drainpipe extensions in an effort to direct off-fall from the roof away from the foundation and, incidentally, the plants along the foundation. A week ago, we braved Canadian Tire to acquire two rain barrels, one of which we installed right spung on the corner of the front porch like something out of Ma and Pa Kettle, and the other we tucked more discretely in beside the gas meter at the back. Since then, we've had drought, of course.

From now on, gardening chez nous will be mostly about lawn-mowing and desultory weeding. When I get bored, and that happens routinely every couple of hours these days, I can take a bucket and a trowel and go dig up dandelions and creeping Charlie.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: leeneia
Date: 29 May 20 - 03:18 PM

Your new flowers sound beautiful, Charmion. What's the name of your rose? Will it be big or small when it grows up?

I live in Missouri, which is not a cool place, but I have a very beautiful rose from Canada called Morden Blush on the corner of my front porch. It is mature, about six feet high and three across, with lovely white flowers which shade to pale pink in the middle. It is so beautiful that people walking down the street take pictures of it.

This year I am growing my tomatoes in large plastic boxes. I hope to sidestep the weeds and the soil fungi that way, and I hope the boxes are big enough.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 May 20 - 03:51 PM

More watering this evening. Everyone in our village was outside doing the same. All our rainwater barrels are empty, and there's no hope of any rain for about ten days at least. We're on a water meter, so every drop has to be paid for.
A hosepipe ban has been threatened if this drought goes on.

We have lots of beautiful wild foxgloves which have appeared in all our borders - purple, pink and white ones. A free gift from the birds! And our gigantic mullein (Verbascum) is about to flower (Huge yellow spikes and massive blue-green leaves - lovely plant)

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 May 20 - 05:15 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvf32MGLWys lesleysarony.
uncle jo presumably not stalin
i am growing runner beans spuds kale beetroot french beans raspberries, mulching my spuds with lawn clippings

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 May 20 - 05:16 PM

i have also painted the outside of my house

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 29 May 20 - 08:48 PM

You’re lucky, leeneia, to have a Morden Blush rose! Our federal Department of Agriculture produced a wide variety of hardy roses, including the Explorer series (we used to have a John Cabot climber and a Jens Munk that was incredibly bristly). The Morden group were developed at the Agriculture Canada research station in Morden, Manitoba.

Our new rose is of a type the developer calls a “landscape” rose, meaning it’s a bush rose that should not require the TLC demanded by hybrid tea roses. We hope. I don’t remember the cultivar name — shame on me. It has double flowers that are yellow and pink at the heart. I do hope it thrives ...

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 29 May 20 - 08:51 PM

Holy cats, Sandman, you painted your house? You da man!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 May 20 - 09:35 PM

Lettuce and a few herbs -- spearmint, thyme, a couple of basils -- in a 29" high elevated box. Flowers in the yard are doing well.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 May 20 - 05:53 AM

"What are we doing in the garden?"
In my case too ***** much i we have an acre of yough ground on a treeleaa plain with shallow topsoil over a limestone plateau on the West coast o Ireland - any trees wee planted have to be pushed up straight and propped up regularly
Having said that, we haven't done too bad and have anaged to sthree quaters surround the garden (sic) with a windbreak - we're getting there
Our tiny fenced and hedged patio is now a haven for tits of all sorts, robins, chaffinches, collared dove and more recently, a couple of goldfinches, with an unseen stone-chat chattering in the background a wren in the bank, and the occasional crane flying over
Now we have devise a cunning plan to drive away the ****** sparrowhawk
Haven't seen the hedgehogs for a long time but spot an occasional hare and a fox leaves has left a trail across the plot from one side to the other
Must go and strim the drains
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 May 20 - 06:35 AM

My favourite 'garden' saying from Dlan Thomas's 'Under Milk Wood
Polly Garter "Nothing grows in our garden but washing"
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 30 May 20 - 10:01 AM

Lots of rabbits in our garden lately, included the dreaded Genghis Bunny who likes to behead the flowers just as the buds are about ready to open. I'm about ready to call in the coyote on Genghis before he gets started on the rudbeckia that he ate down to the stalk.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 May 20 - 10:32 AM

cutting 2-3 inch thick bamboo stalks and stacking for removal

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 30 May 20 - 03:43 PM

Lady Hillary is going into a mixture of hydroponics nd soil on our 4 x 8 foot porch. She's got a mix of scallions, onions, potatoes, lettuce, peppers, basil and probably a few volunteers. The Thai basil is doing better than the inside basil. We have tomato seedlings indoors at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 31 May 20 - 04:18 PM

I don't know if anyone on here has one of those 'flame-throwers' to kill weeds? If so, please be extremely careful in this drought. One of our neighbours now has her mother-in-law and her partner billeted with them, because the partner bought a flame-thrower this afternoon and foolishly played with it in their garden (another village not far from us)
He managed to set alight his entire garden, the wooden shed and then their oil tank exploded. The fire spread to their house and several neighbours' houses. Theirs is now a smoking ruin. Three fire crews had to attend (20 personnel). Luckily nobody was injured or burned, but oh crumbs!
They have an elderly rottweiler who has now come to stay with our neighbour, and all their fish died in the pond, because the water was so hot!
I don't think flame-throwers and oil tanks are a good combination!!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: JHW
Date: 31 May 20 - 04:47 PM

Watering with watering can. Easier than rigging up the hose. Flowers, grass and weeds all growing well. Never dared try veg. Critters will be waiting for the day...

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 31 May 20 - 06:15 PM

Everyone's doing so much! Black belt - I'm exhausted after reading your work!
One thing I'm doing because of the drought - making compost using the trench method - you dig a 2m x 2/3m x 2/3m (the last is depth) trench, and start throwing your kitchen waste and waste paper and cardboard (nothing cooked, though, and no meat, raw or cooked) into it, covering each load of waste with a spadeful of the earth you've removed.
You fill up the first third of this in about a fortnight, then move to the middle section for another two weeks, then the third section. By the time you've finished the third section, the first is ready to be used.
You need to water it to keep it moist.
Worms come haring in from across the garden to dine on the goodies you're throwing in.
You can cover it with a piece of plywood, though I just have some chickenwire to keep off my friendly local foxes.
The compost made by this method is magic, and really enriches your soil.
I'm going to have to find some source of mulch to keep the moisture into the beds - the only source I have at the moment is some big leaves from a couple of giant plants that got knocked over by the high winds.
And I've learned why you should be patient about sowing your broad beans - by the time the Ice Saints were finished, mine were sprawling adolescents and they're lounching around the soil instead of standing up straight. (I meant lounging, but somehow I like lounching, a combination of slouching and lounging.)

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 31 May 20 - 06:17 PM

Oh, and if you make sourdough bread, the spare levain - the starter that you throw out every couple of days as you're getting it nice and bubbly - has a fantastic effect on the compost, making it form soil faster, and also giving it wonderful microbial life. Normally I wouldn't put flour in compost, but sourdough starter is an exception.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 May 20 - 08:21 PM

"What are we doing in the garden?"

I want to respond, "I know what you're doing and it better not be with my daughter!"

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 04:08 AM

Cutting grass mostly, as we have put all our flower beds to grass. Too old and arthritic to tend them myself, so rather than weep at the weeds, I now cry at the grass.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 04:33 AM

Lots of people here have the same problem John. Three couples in our road have covered their garden with permeable membrane and put slate chips over it all. Then they've put several attractive pots of flowers out, which 'merely' need watering and feeding. Looks quite nice, and very easy to maintain.

I do like our two lawns though. The green sward is refreshing to the eye. (Husband mows them, not so 'refreshing for him though!)

I see that the large fire caused by the flame thrower is now reported online in a local newspaper. There's a photo of the fire crews' tenders and the smoke. (Dereham Times, garden fire at Hockering)
Oil tanks around Norfolk can be so dangerous. (So can flame-throwers!)

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 09:43 AM

We like to sit on our porch and gaze at the lawn, which our teenaged neighbour Georgia mows for $30 a time. I dread the day when she goes away to university -- but she has a little brother, and with luck he will take over her clientele!

I'm not good at crouching since I busted my ankles back in the early '90s, and my knees are not too clever either, so I have to stoop from the waist to pull weeds. Fortunately, Himself still can crouch and kneel as much as he wants but, unfortunately, the only weed he can (or will) identify is the dandelion -- the rest are my job.

Life is so not fair.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 10:04 AM

Heh, Raparee!

People around here are covering their former lawns with gravel or cement, too, which makes me sad for two reasons: it messes up the water table, and it starves out the poor birds.

When I get too old to crouch, should I live that long, I think I'll make raised beds the easy, cheatin' way - using pallets covered with breathable membrane, and topped with pallet collars, and filled with cardboard then weeds then more cardboard then a topping of about a foot deep of good compost. That way I'll be able to garden at my own height.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 10:56 AM

I’ve a fair bit of grass to cut but we don’t really have a lawn. Even the bit we can refer to as the lawn is really part of a farm track and right of way. It’s really nice being round the back there. This is looking out from the bench across to the field (potatoes this year) and looking the other way from our veg beds and tubs to the bench and pigsties.

As for the ability to do things. Mum always was the gardener here but now mid 80s, she needs the help of a wheeled walker to get round the back now. She’s round there at the moment doing a little bit of tidying up round the pigsties but she can’t do much and of what she can do, what she’d have done in 1/2hr a few years back might take all day now.

I’ve got my own limitations too, eg. I can’t bend to weed but at the moment, I can strim and mow without problem. Sometimes we have wondered if we will keep this area going another year (also there is a gardener who does an hour a week) but we’ve managed it so far – with some simplifications, eg. flower beds have gone to grass.

Oh well, I’ll have to see what mum’s doing for tea in another hour or so. Not making it – I’ve got the second day of a veg curry I made for that – but whether she wants her meal in or out doors.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Jun 20 - 02:22 PM

First thing when people started panicking over toilet paper, I was already locked down (age and asthma and a tendency that when I get sick, I get very very sick), and so I panicked over potatoes, and turned half of the front lawn into a lazy bed. Spuds are coming up now, randomly, but I love it, even though it still mainly looks like a large grave in the front garden, and even though potatoes are probably a mad thing to grow.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 05:41 PM

Well, today I planted out the Galway Bay rose I bought in Lidl last summer and that's been sitting there giving me dirty looks ever since, and potted some Italian violet sweet peas into a pot already containing a geranium cutting. A friend called around with a bit of oregano and I gave her a few of the same sweet peas. And since the bush basil isn't looking too happy, I sowed a bit more in a lidded transparent blueberry carton in compost and vermiculite.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:11 PM

Living in Idaho, potatoes are not a worry. In fact, in early May some of the farmers were GIVING AWAY literally tons of spuds because of the collapse of demand from the restaurant industry because of the lockdowns (you had to come get them). Those that weren't taken were turned into compost or animal feed. A shame, but tons were also carted into towns and food banks and given to the needy. Much farm produce here still is being given away. Mind you, I'm talking about Idaho only.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:18 PM

There's potatoes and potatoes, though. I'm growing pink fir apples, Carolus and Charlotte.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:19 PM

Oh, and a couple of years ago I grew some called Inca Gold, or maybe Maya Gold - little yellow-fleshed potatoes, sweet and nutty and melting on the tongue. A breed from Peru, apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 05:30 AM

Didn't all potatoes come from Peru or thereabouts originally?

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 05:49 AM

I'm looking out at the soggy sight and wishing I'd never told my elderly neighbours that I would see to trimming our hedges. :-}

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 08:50 AM

Here come the Mullberries and Blueberries and Raspberries later.
I will Till and prepare the veg garden for next year

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Jun 20 - 09:18 AM

Yes, Jos - in their earliest incarnation in Ireland they were known as An Spáinneach Geal, or The Bright Spaniard, suggesting they came in from Spanish ships returning from South America.
The Peruvians still grow many, many varieties of potato, using the same lazy bed method used in Ireland - I assume that cultivation method came in with the same Spanish sailors.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 05:00 AM

I'm generally pleased with the things I've grown from seed, but heavens, they do fall back when I plant them out!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 05:12 AM

Building fence and roof for my vege garden to keep those bastard possums from eating everything (especially the parsley).

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 05:42 AM

I always grew Maris Piper and Désirée - good multi-purpose spuds, and pretty disease-resistant too.
No need to toil with vegetable-growing now though - the entire village is like a giant market-garden, and people can't wait to give one their surplus fruit, salad stuff and vegetables for free. Perfect!
(We also give away huge quantities of rhubarb and Bramley cooking apples. But we get much of it back in delicious crumbles and pies.)

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 06:40 AM

Looking around my room it occurs to me that five of Ikea's Billy bookshelf doors (if given a little damp-proofing) would make the basis of a pretty nice greenhouse.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 07:03 AM

I usually grow tomatoes (often Ailsa Craig, Ferline, Roma and Tumbling Tom), pepper (Topepo Rosso) and Aubergine (Hansel) from seed but not much else… Little Gem lettuce is another, oh and cucumber...I give my excess plants away.

It’s a long while since we had a main crop potato but we do usually enjoy a small sampling of our own new or salad potato. Charlotte is a good candidate for us.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 07:16 AM

I have a few Pink Fir Apple in a potato growing bag out the back too; another couple of those bags came with it, and I'm going to put carrots and leeks in one, and have another failed attempt at scorzonera.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 07:32 AM

I see they have a watering machine out on the potatoes in the field today. The ground is pretty dry round here (North Norfolk). We’ve mentioned cutting the grass before but the grass is parched and dying in patches here at the moment. A bit of rain forecast for the next few days though.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 07:43 AM

Breckland here, Jon, and like you, we're dry as a bone. Neighbour-across-the-road always gets up at 4am (!!) to do her vegetable-selling rounds of the villages, and she's just told me it was raining a tiny bit then, but not enough to help the land.
Our lawns too are nearly dead, but we're on a water meter, and our rainwater barrels are empty. I just keep the bird baths filled - the poor creatures are so thirsty!
To think we were up to our knees in rain over the winter!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 08:48 AM

We are finally getting a handle on the drainage issues in our little bit of suburban paradise. When it rains during a Perth County summer, often as not it comes down in stair-rods, accompanied by lightning and fierce gusts of wind. It's called the Lake Effect; the storm cells form over the Great Lakes and move east on the prevailing wind, and they can be really intimidating when you hit a series of them on the highway.

But at home a rainstorm means huge quantities of water tumbling off the roof and into the garden, which is about eight inches of tilth on top of hard-pan clay. If your house is in the wrong place, your drainage issues will never let up and you have to get drastic -- one of the houses we saw when house-hunting had two sump pumps and a French drain in the front garden alone!

This place doesn't need a French drain, thank God, but in the three years we have been here, we have installed a full set of eavestroughing and drainpipes, window-wells in all four basement windows, and a patio in the back of the house that takes the flow of off-fall water away from the foundation.

Now we're doing the last phase of the plan, with two rain barrels and rather a lot of soaker hosing. Of course, now the rain barrels are in, it has hardly rained at all.

Himself has almost stopped grumbling about growing vegetables, but it took two full summers of pointing out the sun requirements of even the humblest tomato. We have five huge trees on our property (there used to be a lot more) and a large cedar hedge, so only the front edge of the lawn is in full sun throughout the day. If the world goes completely to pot, we could plough it up for veg, but that doesn't make a lot of sense in this very rural area where every expedition takes us past half a dozen farm gate stands offering all manner of temperate-zone delicacies, professionally grown by people who know how to keep the pests off their crops.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 04 Jun 20 - 12:19 PM

Well, I've just emerged from my afternoon nap and whoopee! It's pouring with rain! I can almost hear the land singing with joy!
Charmion, when I stayed with my aunt and uncle in the sixties in London Ontario, there were several fearful thunderstorms. I'd never seen or heard anything like it and was a bit terrified. But I loved the hot sun and swam in every single Lake during my several weeks' stay!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 10:35 AM

Thunderstorms are a thing in Ontario, Eliza. I grew up in the Ottawa Valley, where the storm cells move southeast down the river to the spot where the valley narrow and the Rideau and Gatineau rivers enter the Ottawa -- not coincidentally, that's where the city is. When an air mass full of wind and rain hits the hot pocket sitting over the city, we all get the Earth-shattering KABOOM! Typically, it happens at about mid- to late afternoon, just as all the civil servants are going home from work, and ends shortly after supper with a glorious rainbow.

When my brothers and I were little, our mother did not want us to grow up with a fear of thunderstorms, so she would get us up to watch and comment on the donner and blitzen. "The angels are moving God's furniture," she would say. "Wow! That must have been the piano falling over!"

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 05 Jun 20 - 11:18 AM

Charmion, a jar of marbles rolling about also featured, as I recall.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Gallus Moll
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 01:10 PM

fighting with the Laurel!!! a losing battle....it takes over the whole place, sneaks underground as well as has berries to re-seed itself...ggggrrrr
Now if someone could just find a way of extracting the leaf oil, then a use for it---- fuel?

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 06 Jun 20 - 02:55 PM

Icy and drizzly here today; my migratory plants are back inside, but those outside are stretching and going "Ahhh!" at the benediction of the lovely rain.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: open mike
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:17 PM

Covedring tomatoes and other tender plants....at 3 in the morning I happened to notice that it was 1 degree below freeaing...31 F... so got busy and brought bed sheets out doors and with flashlight tucked beneath my arm began to tuck the plants in. They seem to have made it...today we have sun, rain, clouds, hail, popcorn hail, snow and wind.... June 7th and it is snowing!! supposed to be even colder tonite!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:28 PM

I bought 4 mushroom kits …………….. yes I know it would be far, far cheaper to buy the actual mushrooms,but not as much fun.

Tomorrow I will "harvest" a small number of Shii Taki mushrooms and later in the week a batch of Yellow Oyster mushrooms.

But I've had my first "crop". I cut some mustard cress yesterday for my Egg & Cress Sandwiches ……………. a thing of beauty I may add!!

Mushroom omelette for me tomorrow I think.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 04:34 PM

Wish this rain would stop now. The garden is soaking wet and it has benefited the plants, but now we need some warmth and sunshine.
Husband is, I think, secretly rather pleased because it's too wet to cut the lawns...

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 07 Jun 20 - 06:26 PM

So today we moved the composter. When we plunked it down beside the steps to the deck, there was nowhere else to put it. The other side of the deck steps were almost over-run by a dogwood bush with a Manitoba maple growing up through it, and anywhere else in the garden would be too far from the kitchen door in winter. But now the dogwood and the Manitoba maple are gone and the deck is gone ... Options! so we moved it eight feet, over next to the air-conditioner. In its nicely manure spot, I planted a lavender bush.

The composter was supposed to be a hell of a job, but it turned out to be a doddle. But we had a whole lot of pent-up determination to burn off, so we dismounted the front rain barrel and counter-sank an old cement paver for it to stand on to ensure that it stays plumb and level.

What a job that was. Lacking any appropriate tools, or indeed so much as a bag of aggregate, we dug a shallow hole a little bigger than the paver, levelled it more or less with the 18-inch carpenter’s level I just happen to keep it in the umbrella stand, dragged the paver into place, and boy howdy, what a relief, it worked.

Cold drinks, mutual back-patting, and quiet reading to follow.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 02:28 AM

Preparing for a drought (unbelievably) here in The West of Ireland and the hosepipe ban that inevitably follows
Unfortnately, that doesn't stop the **** grass from growing
20 years ago Pat pun an acorn we found in Kerry in a pot (our nearest tree from here is in the remains of the Petrified forest on the beach in the next town)
The acorn now stands in the garden - a five ft sapling, still growing but looking a little thirsty
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 10:21 AM

How can England be drenched while Ireland is dry?

European weather is officially weird.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 11:28 AM

My sister in Liverpool told me that her dog was going spare at the sound of rain and hailstones on their conservatory roof as I told her we were in the middle of a drought

We're separated by the Irish sea - I can drive two miles south of here over the shoulder of what aspires to be a mountain, Sliabh Callan out of frefing cold weather, and have to stop the car to take my jacket off in case I pass out with the heat
The weather in this part of the world is weird my late mate summed it up perfectly when as a newly moved Dub, he encountered our '60mph fog' - see mist driven by howling winds

I remember an elderly lady curator of a 'black house' in Shetland telling us how her daughter in London wrote to her, "The weather in London is so BORING"
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 01:09 PM

Just been trying to teach our greyhound to catch in the garden, she wasn't the least bit interested!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 01:14 PM

That's the grass cut, yet again

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 20 - 04:01 PM

In my bit of north Cornwall we've had a lot of hot weather and very little rain for three months. In the whole of May and June so far we've had just over half an inch. May was the sunniest calendar month ever recorded in the UK. The sun has beamed down on Bude non-stop today, though there have been deluges just inland as the sea breezes from north and south coast converged. My garden is bone-dry and there's no grass to cut. I've been watering my spuds, beans tomatoes and raspberries, but they all know it's me and they're humouring me until they get proper rain.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 01:14 AM

Do those of you facing drought have mulcn on your plants? It really helps.

At our house, things are unusual. We are having our home renovated, and the dirt for the new foundation was piled up in a big mound. In time, the mound was spread over the back garden. In the front, construction work killed or covered everything. The result is that we will re-landscape half of property - it's a tabula rasa.

We are trying to make a garden with a mix of native plants and low-maintenance perennials, with consideration given for bad knees.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 02:32 AM

had a drop of rain last night and the slugs have been on the march

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 03:03 AM

"she wasn't the least bit interested!"
You weren't trying to teach her to catch the virus were you - don't blame her for nor being interested
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 06:33 AM

Its national herb and spice day. Pineapple or lemon sage is utstanding.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 10:50 AM

Today we are having a rather large hole dug in the garden, by professionals who will then install a very handsome stone fire-pit. Much thudding is going on at present.

Stratford has bylaws about open fires within town limits, and a close reading indicates that we can get away with it -- especially if we use it for cooking and refrain from anything scary. No Wicker Man re-enactments, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Jun 20 - 02:34 PM

We have a hose ban in Dublin…
Suddenly the rain is pounding down; I feel like going out and dancing in it.
Rain in Ireland - well, it will go straight over the Aran Islands and west Connemara, and spill when it hits the hills. Rain patterns are strange.
One of our courgettes is a little bigger than when I put it out in the ground. The other is a monster twice its size - apparently because the second one gets sun from morning till evening, while the other gets sun only for about four or five hours a day.
I've just got a delivery of aged horse manure (the fresh horse manure is on the compost heap with a load of dry leaves, turning them into lovely black compost), and plan to use at least one bag to mulch the potatoes where our lawn used to be.
The salad stuffs are growing, but the mangetout are just growing up - unlike my friend with the south-facing garden with big granite steps: the plants I gave her are already in beautiful lilac-coloured blossom.
Nowt so queer as plants.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 10:58 AM

With four full-grown maples and an equally large birch in our garden, we just don't have enough sun for veg, and barely enough for most flowers. The most successful of my plantings this year is a group of hellebores, which apparently prefer to be in the dark.

Our neighbours across the street have only one big tree on their lot, overhanging their front windows. So the lucky buggers have what looks like a quarter-acre of raised beds in their back yard positively exploding with tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers and peas and zucchini and three kinds of beans up on poles -- I can just catch sight of the tips of the bean-pole tripods over their six-foot fence. Okay, I know that envy is a mortal sin, so I guess I'll just have to log a few centuries in Purgatory ...

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jos
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 11:51 AM

But Charmion, maybe you could tap your trees and make maple syrup, then you could swap some for some of your neighbour's veg.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 11 Jun 20 - 09:28 PM

Wrong kind of maples, Jos. But good thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 02:34 PM

Or use your maples to site an unusual version of a vertical garden?

A. Maze. Ing the effect of sunlight. Planted two courgettes (zucchini if they migrated to America) and one's double the size of the other - it gets all-day sunshine. I'm now bribing them both with seaweed extract.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 03:24 PM

Everyone's roses are superb this year. Our Iceberg one is huge and thick with white blooms. We had to secure it with thin wire to a tall fence post in several places as it was bending over and we feared the trunk might split.
Have now identified a neighbour's very attractive flowering shrub with bell-shaped flowers. It's Campanula punctata 'Pink Chimes'. I wrote the name down for her, and she stared at it. "Thass sum koind uv forrn language intit?" She was rather surprised that every plant on the planet has a Latin name!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Jun 20 - 04:38 PM

We're burning stuff. My wife cleared Scotch Broom, and I cleared dead manzanita, and we burned it all in a huge bonfire yesterday, the only burn day all week. Today is another no-burn day, so I'm glad we got it all done yesterday.
It was a lovely fire.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 07:22 AM

Ooooh, not allowed do that in Ireland (not that it stops farmers), terrible carbon footprint, burning plants.
It's still soaking here, and the potatoes in the front garden are looking great; in the back, a potato grow bag of Pink Fir Apple has revealed several shy shoots.
I should be patrolling for slugs and snails, but was too shagged last night, having made a batch of sourdough as well as mutton stew. The stew with, cautiously, just one of the salted anchovies. What you do, it seems, is soak them in milk for a couple of hours, fillet them and pop them in. Worked beautifully, though I was too tired after a day of writing and researching to enjoy it very much.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 12:22 PM

Senoufou, I'm so old I don't think of Latin as a foreign language!

Or, perhaps, so Catholic, or over-educated. Pick one.

Our new rose bush was only a bit bigger than a bread box when we bought it a month ago, and it's pumping out stems, leaves and buds for all it's worth. At this rate, it will be about the size of the state landau by the time I kick the bucket.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 12:44 PM

Well I'm really pleased my mushroom kits, which I've never had any success with before, are going great. Shii taki mushrooms I've had one crop, the Yellow Oyster one crop were superb, Eryngii mushrooms are doing fine and the button mushrooms are looking promising. I should get two or three (or more) crops from each kit. I do recommend the Yellow Oyster mushrooms they were first class.

I'm a bit puzzled by your post Thompson though. "Rain in Ireland - well, it will go straight over the Aran Islands and west Connemara, and spill when it hits the hills. Rain patterns are strange."

The mountains in my bit of West Connemara are less than 2 miles inland and it's not been spilling very much of them, we've not had much rain in the past twelve weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Jun 20 - 02:34 PM

Charmion, my Catholic cousin used to take me with her to Mass (pre-Vatican2) from the age of about five. She'd lend me a pretty lace mantilla head-covering. I loved it all, and soon learned "..et cum spirito tuo" etc. Her Missal had Latin on one side and English on the opposite page.
I have Latin O Level (did it in two years!)
I've always adored all languages, and I do like to have to hand the Latin names of plants, because it makes for accuracy at the garden centres. I also have a heavy tome which is the Royal Horticultural Society's book of flowering plants and shrubs etc. Very useful, as it has lots of photos. But now of course, the Internet is equally helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 01:34 AM

its been raining heavily down here in dunmanus bay, the slugs are slim img ans smiling

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 04:06 AM

Blooming slugs! I always pop a small plate of cat food on the back lawn for the pair of blackbirds and a starling that haunt our garden. But this morning there were four huge fat slugs sunning themselves on the dish. They'd obviously been hoovering up the contents. Sadly the blackbirds hadn't eaten the slugs.
My neighbour is growing some lovely runner beans (he always grows them each year, and gives us some too) and he told me that this year the slugs are 'suffen saaavage'!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 05:54 AM

You'll love this Senoufou - our neighbours whose son had his birthday yesterday, hung a king size sheet from upstairs windows and watched "Summer Holiday" in their garden!!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 06:43 AM

Funny enough I haven't had quite so many slugs, but we have many snails.

Yes, the Connemara rain patterns are weird; you can be overlooking Loch na Fuaidh in spilling rain and wreathing mist while in Carna it's blazing sun.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 07:17 AM

We went out to the Park yesterday and watched the Balimore Orioles play

the birds not the team.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 08:01 AM

Haha Bonzo, people are improvising beautifully during lockdown aren't they?
Funnily enough, we have two birthday celebrations going on near us today - one over the road and one next door! Barbecues, music (not too loud) and lots of fun by the sound of it. Both families have come to the door with burgers and hotdogs for Ib and me. Very kind. They invited us to attend, but I'm 'shielding' so we couldn't go.
The Birthday Boy over the road is 75, and the next-door lassie is 22.
I gave the bloke four cans of Old Speckled Hen, and the young lady a bottle of Prosecco.
Those slugs, by the way, were bright orange and HUGE! But I don't put slug pellets out, because the dead, poisoned slugs would be eaten by birds, who then die too.
Loads of dragonflies, damselflies and hoverflies out and about (and frantically bashing against the windows of our conservatory) I'm rescuing them every hour!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 09:24 AM

You need to try the jar of beer for the slugs Senoufou, I'm told they die happy.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 10:44 AM

Organic slug pellets may be the answer,
Today I am hedge trimming.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 12:02 PM

I'd certainly try the beer-trap or organic pellets if we grew vegetables nowadays, but we're a bit too lazy. Actually, I secretly quite like the big fat things. Husband had never seen one before until I called him outside to look. I just wish they'd leave some of the treats for the poor birds.
My sister (who was poleaxed by Covid19 many weeks ago and feared she'd never recover her old strength) told me today she has chopped down a 15ft tall elder tree and sawed it into sections. Her gardener (called 'Abe'!) will be coming tomorrow to haul it all away on his trailer.
I was so joyful that she has obviously got back on top of her health.
Isn't that good news? And proof that gardening is a very therapeutic activity!

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 12:33 PM

I trust your sister knows not to burn the Elder in the house Senoufou.

"Wood burning poem

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year
Chestnut only good they say
If for long it’s laid away
Make a fire of elder tree
Death within your house will be
But ash new or ash old
Is fit for a Queen with a crown of gold

Birch and Fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread
Elmwood burns like churchyard mould
Even the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a Queen with a golden crown

Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winters cold
But ash wet or ash dry
A king shall warm his slippers by.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jun 20 - 12:35 PM

re burning stuff
"Ooooh, not allowed do that in Ireland (not that it stops farmers), terrible carbon footprint, burning plants."
Don't know wheer you are T - here in the West, the reason given is bird nesting seasons - the burning ban lasts from my to September
We're in the midst of a drought hosepipe bans and all
The weather has changed enormously over the last few years on the West Coast
I'm just finishing an article on local songs - one of just annotated described the norm at the beginning of the last century thus (with my note)
Jim


The Bad Year, John Lyons, Newmarket-on-Fergus Recorded 1978
Carroll Mackenzie Collection
It would have been surprising not to find songs commenting on the weather, considering the agricultural nature of West Clare
This song was included in a published collection of Clare songs in 1976, ‘Ballads of the County Clare, edited by Seán Ó Cillin, (now, sadly, unavailable)The songs is credited as anonymous and the tune given in the collection is ‘Mountains of Mourne, though this is not the singer uses here

As I stand on the land and I look at the sky,
And I watched the rain pour, I could lie down and die.
The meadow’s a pool and the turf’s gone to suds,
Sure I hadn’t the heart to go digging the spuds.

The hens got the gapes they gave up laying eggs,
When the pig tried to grunt he got weak in the legs.
The back yard is a pool and the garden’s a bog,
O the poor farmer’s life isn’t fit for a dog.

Well I got wrinkled and old and my hair it turned grey,
While the torrents of rain made manure of my hay.
The cows they went dry ‘twould bring blood from a stone,
To watch the poor creatures go all skin and bone.

The child got the measles, me wife got upset,
Meself got the flu from me clothes getting wet.
Coughs and colds I contacted a crop of chill blains,
While me joints they swelled up with most terrible pains.

Ah but that’s over now for this year is a gift,
I’m a rich man at last by good farming and thrift.
It can rain, it can snow, it can blow a monsoon,
For I’m all for the caper above in Lisdoon.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 08:18 PM

We have plenty of split ash firewood right now, but not for any happy reason. The emerald ash borer has spread across southern Ontario over the last fifteen years, killing off whole forests of ash.

I remember, back almost twenty years ago, driving east from Windsor on the 401, just about Tilbury we would see signs warning motorists not to carry unfinished wood, especially cut logs, beyond that point.

It did not work.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jun 20 - 08:50 PM

I wouldn't worry about the huge six-inchers of the slug world. They'll eat carrion and dogshit and, on the whole, not bother your cabbages and lettuces. It's the little keeled slugs wot are the true menace. The blue ferric phosphate pellets, organically approved, are highly effective.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 03:33 AM

Ash burns very well on log fires. We have 'ash die-back' here, and it's affecting all the ash trees, including the rowans. So sad, as they're very attractive in every season.
Many people in our village have wood burners (the smoke is terrible!) because they have no central heating and huddle round the one fire in their sitting room. We use oil, stored in a large tank in the garden, and a boiler to fire our radiators.
The thing about logs is that they must be seasoned for many months to dry out, then they light easily and don't give off too much smoke.
About those slugs, I reckon the blackbirds do eat the smaller, dark-coloured ones. The big orange chappies wouldn't fit in the beaks of their babies. As we've no vegetables growing, the only nuisance is that the fat slobs eat all the cat food which was meant for the birds.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 04:17 AM

Ash die-back is a fungus, I don't think it has much to do with burning - we live in one of the cleanest places in Europe sere on the West Coast of Ireland and we have been warned that our ash-trees are under threat
Burning oil is very much a part of one of the major problems this planet is facing
The full use of natural power production is, as yet in its infancy and, while power remains a source of profit rather than of energy it will remain the under-developed child and planet killer is has become
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 07:43 AM

Only trouble with the irony slug pellets; I'm not sure if they're safe for frogs. Can't get an answer anywhere on this.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 07:44 AM

Incidentally, I heard a male frog calling hopefully at my pond in May, but don't seem to have any tadpoles, alas.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 09:13 AM

Ash and rowan are unrelated. Their pinnate leaves may look superficially similar but that's as far as it goes. If something is getting at your rowan trees, for sure it isn't ash dieback.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 09:59 AM

The chance of any frogs disappeared with the drought around here
We once stayed in Ewan and Peggy's house in the Scottish Borders and say dozens of them piled onto poor females three at a time
Dirty buggers :-)
Love 'em really
I's still racked with guilt over the one inadvertently I killed with the strimmer
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 10:29 AM

Many homes, certainly out in the west of Ireland, have little choice but burn oil for heating.

There is little or no gas connection, peat although very "romantic" is not very efficient, electricity is very expensive and coal although it can be bought is difficult to get delivered (at least where we are) and expensive.

We are all electric.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jun 20 - 01:08 PM

Ah, thanks for that Steve! I've always assumed that 'ash' and 'mountain ash' are related. We have neither tree in our (small) garden.
We have no gas to our village so we can choose either electricity or oil. The former is expensive so we chose oil. It works quite well.
The reason I don't much like the clouds of smoke that pour from people's wood burners here is that one is obliged to close all the windows or the house would resemble a kipper shed. And rush outside to retrieve all the washing from the line. But living in the sticks, one has to get used to this stuff.
My neighbour has just brought across a sprig of a lovely flowering shrub to identify. It's a Himalayan honeysuckle (also known as Himalayan nutmeg or granny's curls!) Most unusual. I reckon she regards me as a sort of female Alan Titchmarsh. But I secretly look them all up on the RHS website.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 06:03 AM

1 Praying for rain

2 Building a fence around my vegetable patch to keep various livestock out

3 Praying for rain

4 Cutting back the trees that overhang the garden and prevent every other damn thing growing (this is a delightful habit of Australian native trees)

5 Praying for rain

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 06:14 AM

I was going to slap some fence paint of a few bits today but with weather warnings for thunder storms around, I’ll probably do something else, eg. clear (and bonfire) more elder and ivy.

I see the farm are still watering the potato field. They have had the machine going most days since I first mentioned it here. Perhaps that’s an indication as to how dry we really are?

As for my grass, its quite mixed. There are patches that still look dead, patches that have improved since we’ve started to get a bit of rain and patches that have grown quite thickly throuout. The bit by the septic tank is one of those. I sometimes think it leaks out its own bit of liquid fertilizer.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 07:33 AM

Ah Jon, perhaps yew need a visit from the honey caaaaart?

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Jun 20 - 10:14 AM

The thing about logs is that they must be seasoned for many months to dry out, then they light easily and don't give off too much smoke.quote
exeecptions are ash and holly

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 07:50 AM

Back to a round of grass cutting (mowing and strimming) yesterday. The petrol mower broke down part way though. It’s not the first time it’s done this (cutting out, restarting after being left for a minute and then running for 10 seconds) but this time rather than recovering it came to a point where it wouldn’t restart even briefly. Anyway, I’ve tried to make sure the fuel line and tank is clear, have cleaned the carburettor and it ran well for the rest of its job. Fingers crossed that it was the correct diagnosis and lasting fix now.

Veg has gone from the initial doing nothing to having a few more things planted. Late but some Charlotte potatoes, some brassica (I think mum said brocolli), courgettes in three of the tubs and some runner beans have come in the post today.

Subject: RE: BS: What are we doing in the garden?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 08:06 AM

Oh and the watering thing in the field gave a nice display of colour when its jet was in the right direction for a while yesterday evening.