Late Autumn Bits and Bobs.

[Shallot Man]

O.H
You managed to see a Dr ? you must narf have some pull in your area.

[tigerburnie]

I love a bit of honey, but only buy from bee keepers at farmers markets, you'd be surprised how little honey is actually in those jars in a supermarket, always raw honey for me.

[Stephen]

Dry today, so I got a lot of clearing up done at the garden. Mostly burning old, rotten timbers.

[tigerburnie]

We had Scotland's record warmest November night last night, Mallards are breeding on a local pond, I still have Roses in flower (no leaves, just flowers!!) the weather is certainly different, the 40 mph winds are spoiling it a bit though. The grass needs cutting again and the weeds are growing in the raised beds.

[Westi]

I can't believe how mild it has been - neither can the weeds, they are well happy! I read on FB or somewhere that this is pretty much it for winter being milder than normal. A bit of me can't believe that as I think we will pay for this mild weather, or maybe we will, but with too much rain & too many wild storms? Anyone seen a reliable long term forecast?

[tigerburnie]

I don't think reliable and weather forecast belong in the same sentence Westi..............................

[Primrose]

I can remember previous years when the lawn mower would have been nicely tucked away for the winter by now with the last cut done. This year,it's certainly still working overtime and the lawns will need another cut next week again.
And I have nerines , crocosmias and fushias still flowering.

[Westi]

You are so right Tiger! I do miss the like button - admin? Maybe a 'like' & one or two others like 'agree', maybe 'care'??

[Primrose]

Another one here pleading for the "Like"button..
Somehow without it the forum seems rather un-interactive.

[Westi]

I was reading back on the forum & note there are few actual growing questions popping up, it's more mundane weather & stuff. I was wondering if we would be able to attract more members if the core group of us took on just one veg each that we grow OK or differently to get reliable results? I was thinking that now there is the contact beneath our avatar anyone new that was a bit worried about something & too afraid to ask openly on the forum could send a pm. We could then respond to them confidentially but then open it up to the forum (without mentioning their name), as a reported problem & a potential solution that the rest of the forum can add further to if they have any tricks or tips?

I also noted the user numbers (browsers) are dropping, but some of that could be attributed to the changes I suppose & we still have a lot of subject titles & sometimes you really don't know what one your question fits under & General Chatter seems the easiest to jump on as more users on this one. Maybe our forum list should be easier like, root crops, brassica family, spuds, soft & hard fruit etc. What do you think? I'm not anticipating we would be overwhelmed but it might be easier for new users to take that first step?

[tigerburnie]

I had hoped my videos might have raised a bit of interest, but seemingly not, sadly forums on all sorts of subjects are losing out to facebook and the like, a fishing forum I used to use shut down, it went from over a hundred regular posters to less than 10 in about a year. It seems it's mostly the "oldies" like me that refuse to use "social meeja" that still frequent forums these days.

[Primrose]

Sadly Tiger there,s some truth in what you say. I,ve personally avoided social media because there are so many falsehoods abounding on there, and sadly often a lightweight perspective floated which doesn,t add to the seriousness of any debate.

Also I think gardening and vegetable growing tends to be a somewhat seasonal activity and we,re now entering the quiet season, albeit somewhat belatedly this year, so perhaps that's one reason why things are slowing down.

I certainly don't think fiddling with forum formats helps and if they,re necessary for technical reasons, keep to the original pattern as much as possible. We all know the worldwide angst the computer software giants cause when they make major software changes. They seem to have little understanding of human psychology and peoples' resistance to change, especially when they,re all struggling with other national stressful issues in their,lives. If you want to encourage people to continue visiting forums they have to be places which people enjoy visiting and that involves both ease of access as well as quality of content.

I wonder if an longer article promoting it more widely in the magazine would help although I do realise people are cutting down on magazines etc as the cost of living bites.

[tigerburnie]

Well it's not been quiet in our garden today, took me almost two hours to cut the grass and strim the edges lol. That gear has now been cleaned and put away for the winter, I will take the blade off and sharpen it another day and apply a bit of rust protector on the non plastic bits. The Robin followed me about, so I'm guessing he/she should be happy.

[Geoff]

Strange weather indeed, cut my grass today as well. Gives me a job to do in the garage with the forecast for tomorrow, clean the mower!

[Colin2016]

You mentioned falsehoods abounding on social media, I also notice this in the magazine & on the forum.

I am not complaining as we all have different was of achieving our goals.

Heard this comment on gardeners question time "ask 3 gardeners how to do something expect to get 4 replies."

As for declining use of this forum could it be due to the weather and lots to be done outside? I got rained off this morning hence my contribution today.

I notice the magazine is going to be relevant to the month it comes out ie: things to do in June in the June edition. I think this will be a great help for newcomers and some of us oldies.

Perhaps a page relative to the forum in the magazine would help.