Magazine style - all inclusive

[alp]

I'm very worried for the safety of the democracy crusaders in Hong Kong. Really admired their tenacity and bravery. Once China get hold of these protesters and extradite them to China, they will be tortured and die a terrible death!

Can't wait for these elusive yetis!

Yesterday, a lady freegler came for my rhubarbs and I gave her some to plant and some to cook. Then saw neighbour and quickly offered or
offloaded him some which he gratefully accepted.

The Black Beauty had become black Beast I had to cut this beast into 3 parts as it was too big to go into the fridge. He had the bit near the stalk!

I have yet another juggernaut in the allotment!

 

[Perki]

Morning raining again for the umpteenth time August has been a shocking month rain rain rain. To many plants flattened mostly by the rain but the wind as well from last week.

what are courgettes used for ? soups - sauces

I've got some seeds to sow so I may go and do that

 

[alp]

Yes, Perki! August is here! But summer is NOT! First day this year I have had prolonged rain, but it had more or less stopped and then started again; but then it's not proper heavy rain. Now it's just gentle rain.

The courgette was gross - too big. I cut it into 3 bits and found a victim, my new neighbour, Ray, too offload it to. Very pleased and I cooked some in the rice yesterday. Another giant squash went to my friend who helped me laid the lawn, the one with a hyperactive Russian student. You could actually roast the big courgette. Think you mum can teach you a trick or two. @Perki do you cook at all? The first time I taught my son to crack open an egg, it went underneath the frying pan!

I had cracked open alstroemeria seed pods with two side plates for more than an hour. Before, I used both of my thumbs. As my right hand is showing symptoms of Carpal tunnel syndrome, I had a brainwave and used 2 plates to squash the hard seed pods inside a plastic bag. It worked and it's much quicker.

What are you sowing please, Perki! I will follow your advice. Cleaned up half of the lean to. With these low temperatures, I'm afraid my Pied de Selno melon and the yellow mellow plants will be just that ie. plants. Not enough heat to form fruit and I have planted all of the them outside. Off to watch Escape to the Country.

Do let me know what you're sowing, Perki, please!

 

[Perki]

Do I cook at all not really , other than chips and baked beans pizza and other junk food if I can be bothered , I do make apple crumble sometimes or a cheese and onion pie / mince pie xmas that about it , I am a very fussy eater and to lazy to make anything.

 

[Perki]

Seeds I've sown are perennials for next year - Agastache Liquire white - Penstemon twizzle scarlet and purple - Echinacea pallida - Veronicastrum Album and Verbascum Nigrum Album . I got sent Verbascum by accident instead of the Veronicastrum so a quick email and they arrived this morning.

 

[alp]

Do I cook at all not really , other than chips and baked beans pizza and other junk food if I can be bothered , I do make apple crumble sometimes or a cheese and onion pie / mince pie xmas that about it , I am a very fussy eater and to lazy to make anything.

That's so sad, son! If I don't eat properly, my bones will ache and knees hurt. I have to have a stick of celery and carrot every day. Well, I guess we're all of different constitution. When I told another allotmenteer that I didn't like rhubarbs, she said I should try Apple crumble. Haha! I didn't even like rhubarb tart. But I will try it again, just to see if rhubarbs ease my pains and ache! When you have children, what are you going to do when they only eat chips, Perki?

 

[alp]

Seeds I've sown are perennials for next year - Agastache Liquire white - Penstemon twizzle scarlet and purple - Echinacea pallida - Veronicastrum Album and Verbascum Nigrum Album . I got sent Verbascum by accident instead of the Veronicastrum so a quick email and they arrived this morning.

My cupcake seeds have never germinated! So this year, I have no cosmos at all. I'm very annoyed with this exclusive supplier of cupcake seeds as I have nothing but normal plain white cosmos. Fancy being the EXCLUSIVE seed supplier for that variety!

I bought echinacea pallida seeds from another supplier and they turned out to be very similar to the normal purpurea. I have Green twister and Green Jewel, but none of them have flowered. World wide wait! Need to google your seeds. Where did you get this twizzle scarlet and purple please? I do like penstemon and have taken tons of cuttings. I have found out that all these stupid softwood, hard wood and semi ripe marlaky is a bit of waste of time. Best is to take sharp knife and cut near the basal bit, especially if the stems are fleshy. I now buried the root areas, hoping to be able to harvest the stems as new plants.

 

[alp]

Sunny day and I need to get rid of the greatest social medium in the plant world in the front lawn. I got rid of the dying acanthus mollis and now I need to fashion a hedge near the main road.

The best rainy day I have had for the whole year. I think after Sunday, the whole garden will have had a proper genuine soak.

Rain has certainly cleansed the air, plants and it's like a summer-big-clean.

Listen to the expert and pulled out the spent flower spikes

Salvia Solomon's Dance

Salvia Dyson's Joy

Night moth

Trying to capture the bumble

Glorious alstroemerias

 

[Perki]

I find my Penstemon Garnet layers itself when it touches the soil, I got my seed off Seedaholic obviously I cant say on germination rate yet . Nutsncones on ebay sell Penstemon Twizzle series as well . have you never grown Veronicastrum before ? I never grown them from seed before but I've got 3 varietys in the garden , they are great plants really easy but they don't like drying out.

 

[alp]

Totally agree as I can see roots trying to go inside the soil. They look like teeth. I have now Penstemon Pensham Eleanor Young, Arabesque F1, Pheonix Pink and some boring reddish and a very white one looked dying, but I think there might be life, Sour Grapes Bearded, Sour Grapes (split into about 6 plants from one reduced plant £5) So much better than the lone stem from the nursery in Ingate where she sold one or 2 stems from £2.75 to £3.65. The gray Sour Grapes she wanted £7. So pleased to get mine from Wyevale and it was full of stems.

I really want to have a go at Veronicastrum as the flowers are hilarious and I will do anything for a laugh! I bought 3 packets of Sensatioin Mixed but I have NEVER had any luck with the germination rate. I googled your Twizzle and I hope you will upload them when they flower.

Perki: How do you keep seedling overwinter please? I so want to do delphinium, but I'm dreading killing them during winter.

It's been very cool in the morning, but just now the sun was out and I was hot. Got rid of tons of weeds from the front. Hopeless, they are the one with leaves like strawberries, but much smaller and they network everywhere. Tried to pull the roots out whenever I could, but nearly fell down due to how deep the roots went. I'm trying to fashion a hedge in the front.

My layer hen has been talking to me. She jumped up 8 inches to the upper platform and her head must have hit the roof and toppled the whole plastic tub of 5kg mealworms - hinting that I SHOULD FED HER WITH THESE. Whenever I gave her something to eat, she would pick the mealworms in a frenzy and the next frenzy was to beak out all the pellets or cooked vegs. I used to think, "Oh, dear! She has no food and she's going to starve!" Now I realise her trick, I would just put 2 handful of pellets or vegs or rice. When I fed next door chickens, she would hiss like a horrible aggressive snake and run back and forth along the cage and would turn up in the hatch box when I arrived at her den. I have now made it a point that if she topples the water which is inside a heavy 5 to 6 inch tall ceramic pot holder for plant, she won't have any until she hatches an egg the following morning. Very fed up at her lousy manners! I wonder how good I'm at training her! Judging from my son's behaviours, I haven't been very successful!

 

[Perki]

Well I am hoping to get them germinated and potted on into at least 7cm or 9cm pots so not seedling plants instead, seedling don't tend to do well during the winter months, they would need to be in the house/propagator with grow lights on otherwise. If they grow they grow if I fail I will try again in spring.

 

[alp]

Yes. Especially there are tons of seeds in a packet. I have got quite a few repeat seeds for 30p. I don't mind 30p and hopefully there are genetic variations amongst them.

Love lower temperature as I can sleep a bit longer. Usually, I wake up at 4.30 or 5.30. And today I have the added bonus of not having to be surgically attached to the water hose.

Ideal weather for tidying up the garden.

My right hand is aching every time I used the big one. I wish there were more lady secateurs. The left one is too small to cut thick branches, but for now I'm very happy with it.

My cornus controversa variegata is not doing much, but reverting to green.

Cirsius Siliquastrum No 1 on the border west facing, but benefit from West setting sun. In a pot and bought at the same time as the one grown on the border

This one is very happy and the language of the plants seems to be telling me that it is happiest in a warmer area. It is being warmed by the dwarf walls one of which warmed by the rising sun. I have layered two branches here, pegged down by stones!

 

[alp]

Laptop played up after installing updates. Very bright day. My fabric planter seemed to have been trodden on. It's like someone or some critters had been and cleared the sheets on top of the hen coops as well. Very exposed. I can forgive it if it was a hedgehog! Saw an adult dead frog on the lawn. Poor thing - must be some kind of virus.

My melon is the size of a 5p in diameter, compared with Monty's, they are totally hopeless. Just sown some Pak Choi and Rocket seeds. Wonder if summer will turn up in the next 15 days. I feel like gods' forgotten children. only half an inch of rain from yesterday neon green blue blobs. Lords, whoever you are, my plants need rain!

Talking about freegle, I have never seen such a lot of rules. Was told not to duplicate posts - I posted one fuchsia and then found out I could make 2 more people happy. So I posted 2 more. No, not on. Volunteers have had a lecture for me. Used email as I couldn't understand why Chat didn't show up on several occasions. Got a warning, saying that the email communication would be frowned upon and things removed and asked to put up a poster or donate. Got some silly items like a tiny jokey thermostat, told to donate as I had had some items from freegle. I reckon they inudated so many freeglers with donation demands that the latter tried to cancel their subscription. They then emailed and asked me if you could help deleted member xxx?

 

[alp]

Already home after bargain hunts

Helenium Moorheim £3 and Early Sahin £3 and a Mardi Gras £3
Aster Blue £2.50
One Cornus Kousa Wolfe Eye £5 and another one unknown £5. I would have paid £9.99 last week. Mind you, the petrol costs me that much. But it's an outing.

 

[alp]

I split all the asters and even some heleniums yesterday. Now I have at least 3 to 4 plants from each one. Very pleased with asers as they have so many tiny buds on top already.

When my son has his decent holiday next term break, I think I will visit this place

Pedalos and canoes return to Great Yarmouth's historic Venetian Waterways after £2.7m revonation sees famous tourist spot return to 1920s heyday

• The Venetian waterways are reopening after a 10-month £2.7million restoration including the boating lake
• It was created to boost employment after World War One and the collapse of the fishing industry in 1928
• Nearly 20,000 flowers have been planted and a 1920s cafe is being restored at the popular holiday spot

Went to Great Yarmouth when son was a baby and the food in Haven was brilliant, the sand endless and sky blue! Fond memories.

Finally, I relented and planted Arthur Bell rose in the soil in the middle patch. I want to take every single plant with me, but this Arthur Bell just hadn't done anything for me. One flower, no scent ... No, not really a rose. So I removed all the lower thorns and made it into a standard to increase my planting area underneath. So now, I have crippling willow, Cornus, and a £2 acer standard in the middle of the plot and around them, I had taken out Black Currant, a dead Cornus , Stipa giganteas, Salvia Uliginosas and thalictrum. Had taken out more irises for planting in the allotment. Very pleased. I think I will call my plot Iris Field.