Mid Summer Bits and Bobs - 2017.

A place to chat about anything you like, including non-gardening related subjects. Just keep it clean, please!

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Primrose
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Had a wry chuckle this morning. It seems that several of our friends who are keen vegetable growers have been spotted walking around carrying carrier bags full of surplus courgettes and mini cucumbers! They're being produced in almost plague proportions this year! Luckily if there are no more takers, everybody having exhausted their courgette recipes, they can always be dropped off at our village library. I think all their recipe book must be permanently open at the Courgette Cake page!

Incidentally our Mini Crunch cucumbers are being used very satisfactorily in Chinese and Thai stir fries but i think some of the surplus ones may end up having being pickled with dill.
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Mouse2
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Talking of courgette cake, Primrose, I invented a new one a few days ago, and although I say it myself, it was delicious. Well, 'invented' is probably a bit of an exaggeration - i took an old family favourite recipe for Kentish cake, and added courgette to it. The result was everything I had hoped for, and I will definitely be making one for the 'cake containing vegetable' class in our village produce show in September. Obviously, I will have to make (and eat :D ) it a few more times before then, to see if I can improve it.

Sadly, the cake didn't make much of a hole in my courgette mountain, as I only used four ounces this first time, but I will try increasing the quantity in my next few attempts, to see how much I can get away with putting in!
Last edited by Mouse2 on Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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I'll have to look up the Kentish cake Mouse and adapt my courgette recipe, I think I put a bit too much courgette in the last one. It's nice with a bit of orange or lemon juice in too.

I've experimented with a packet of Cornichons and dill on a seed strip ( from Lidl) and found several little fruits yesterday when I was watering the greenhouse border. They are delicious, sweet and crunchy and much nicer than large cucumbers. I don't think they'll get as far as dill pickle, although there are rather a lot of flowers on them so you never know.

It's been pouring down all night which is very welcome as I noticed the ground was dry almost 6 inches down when I was planting out yesterday. The rhubarb looks to have grown about a foot over night too.
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Mouse2
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Heavy rain here too. Still not enough to refill the water buts, but enough to make the plants very happy - and when they are happy, I am happy! :lol:
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Murky, breezy and cool up here today, dry at the moment
Been gardening for over 65 years and still learning.
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Primrose
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I tried to dig up my grape vine last winter as many of the leaves seem to be blistered with some kind of infection. . I chopped off virtually all the stems and got it half out of the ground but didn,t have the strength to dig out the main stem and root. Despite this it's growing like crazy again this summer and is bearing two perfect bunches of grapes. I feel as have to leave it in and give it another chance ! It's oonviously a tough little fighter!

The overnight rain has really greened up the browning lawns and all the veggies seem to be thriving but it's still somewhat humid and I'm getting worried about blight now all my tomatoes have plenty of unripe fruit on them. Several of my sweet corn plants are now taller than I am !
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peter
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Cleared up the burnt out trailer bar today, I started with a barrow and shovel and starting at the front right had reached the rear right corner the long way.
Then a fellow club member brought a 14' flat bed trailer and we put the big or heavy bits, fridge, beer coolers, six x six foot doors on it, then we hitched the wreck to his farm pickup truck.

The wrecks bare wheels still turned!

It was dragged off next to the skip and the second round of shovelling began.
Lots or charcoal, burnt fibreglass and melted aluminium, includingspatter from the explosion, as in this is what a full CO2 bottle looks like after a fire. BTW that's 1cm thick alloy.
Much chit chat about its value as a work of art in the Turner Prize and whether we should fix it high on the wall as an ashtray or lower down as a urinal!
IMG_20170722_170445.jpg
IMG_20170722_170445.jpg (544.55 KiB) Viewed 3435 times
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Primrose
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Don,t you wish the yobs who did this could be caught and forced to do the clearing up job themselves as part of their Community pay back reparations. I know what penalty I'd impose on them them and it wouldn,t win any prizes for political correctness!
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I'd save it for the Chelsea flower show next year it will look nice with a pile of rocks round it
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There's talk up here about banning parents from disciplining their kids by giving 'em a smack when required. I don't support violence, but there are occasions when I got a smack and got the cane at school(bit of a tearaway) and frankly deserved it. To let kids get away with whatever they want is a recipe for trouble further down the line. I grew up through the teddy boys and mods and rockers/hells angels and skin heads eras and they had more respect than todays delinquents. Respect no longer exists in society not for property or for people.
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peter
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Had intended to do some mowing. :?

Moved some residue of my shed and garden tidy up to give access to the lawn and on my way back from allotment concrete shed I was caught by the days first cloudburst, and had to shelter for a while in my metal allotment shed.
Since then we've had a succession of heavy showers moving through, just as you think it's drying out a bit the next one rocks up. :roll:

Good for the brassicas and squash, not hurting the young leeks either. :D
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Pa Snip
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Heading off in the early hours of tomorrow (Monday) morning a few hundred miles to the north east.
Have booked a room at two country house hotels

Taking a weeks break. Visiting Beamish, Lindisfarne and other spots around County Durham, then down to the edge of North York Moors to visit Bempton Cliffs and the coastline. Hopefully will also have enough time to visit North York Moors Railway again.

Have asked daughter to weed & water plot and deal with any produce needing picking, bet she does the latter and forgets the watering & weeding.
Know what ?? !!! I don't care.

I've lost the plot as far as interest goes at the moment.
Last edited by Pa Snip on Mon Jul 24, 2017 5:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Pa Snip
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robo wrote:I'd save it for the Chelsea flower show next year it will look nice with a pile of rocks round it


That idea might just help the police find the guilty quarry

The danger when people start to believe their own publicity is that they often fall off their own ego.

At least travelling under the guise of the Pa Snip Enterprise gives me an excuse for appearing to be on another planet
Gerry
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Pa, Your comment about your daughter picking produce and forgetting the rest brings to mind an experience a friend had.

He was flying away on holiday and his son asked if he could borrow his car. "Yes" he said, "but first you must cut the lawn".
When he returned home the lawn wasn't cut and his irate son wanted to know why he didn't leave the car keys.

"I did" he said "They were tied to the lawn mower handle".
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Pa Snip
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Gerry , I like it.

Got me thinking now because she has asked to borrow some money and wants me to leave it for her. Bit dodgy leaving it on the plot though

The danger when people start to believe their own publicity is that they often fall off their own ego.

At least travelling under the guise of the Pa Snip Enterprise gives me an excuse for appearing to be on another planet
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