Early Summer Bits and Bobs.

[WestHamRon]

Very tasty Westi, I'm now looking forward to the PFA's that might need another four weeks and I did grow a second row that have just shown.

I hadn't realised that you have to clear the ground of potato tubers, leaving just one in the ground can bring on a lot of disease. Apparently.

Only if they were diseased. it sounds as though yours weren't
Volunteers next year are always a pleasant surprise.

[Westi]

I never get them all out Richard, you just get them popping up again the next year in places you didn't want them. If their not in the way I sometimes let them grow but generally they are! They will grow from the minutest little spud left in the ground.

I don't know what disease you'd get, please tell me more. I get blight here but cut down the halums as soon as I spot it, so have never got it into the potatoes and I rotate them on a 5 year cycle so hopefully any disease has worked itself out of the soil when I next plant in that spot.

Westi

[Westi]

Pretty and Pracitcal! I'm currently the bees best friend!

[Primrose]

Lovely splash of colour! Bet your neighbouring plot holders love you for helping to get their runner bean flowers fertilised. Does anybody keep bee hives on your allotments?.

[Westi]

Only one (I think) Primrose & they swarmed a while back. Don't think they replaced them as the plot is overrun currently. I'd quite like some of my own but cost prohibitive unfortunately. But these could be someones or just the wild ones doing what bees do. Either way I let the poppies & chives self sow each year & it is quite heartwarming to look in a poppy & see 4 bees collecting pollen.

We have nearly 200 plots so someone else may have set up a hive. Not for long though as we are a new 'affordable' housing development in the making.

Westi

[Pa Snip]

Westi, Nice one. Lovely splash of colour.

Sadly on our site we have one or two who do not seem to appreciate that we need the assistance of both bees and flowers, they want the bees to do their work on their crops but moan about the flowers on other peoples plots self seeding on theirs.

Blinkered vision or what !!

[Ricard with an H]

I don't know what disease Westi, I only know about blight from what I read and that white rot I got on onions and garlic. My soil is getting better each year so the rot I got may not come back if I rotate.

I have a complete bed that has been taken over by Sweet Rocket, very pretty, a woman's touch though on a daily basis I think what I could have grown in that bed. I always sow flowers even though I have lots of bee friendly areas dedicated to wildflower.

Why would gardeners complain about self seeded annuals unless that became invasive, some can take over and be difficult to get rid of though presumably making sure you pull them before they seed will solve the problem.

As in any sport or hobby or just day-to-day living there are people who need to lighten-up and people that have deep-rooted intolerances. I'm intolerant towards unnecessary noise like music or a radio out in the open or can be heard through the walls, revving car engines, the use of a cars horn to say hello or goodbye, shouting, I have become more sensitized to noise pollution since I lived here though I am generally know as very tolerant. I wouldn't mind growing stuff alongside Westi's floral contribution though I would get pissed-if she played AC-DC at the required volume for those hard of hearing.

[Primrose]

Yes I do so agree with your complaint of playing music outdoors. You have the beauty of the natural silence of nature, or the birds singing. Why do people want to pollute the atmosphere for everybody else outdoors?. It's very selfish in my view. Why not use your iPod or whatever device with earphones if you like to work with a little music or radio to inspire you?. The same applies to houses close together in summer where the Hi Fi or RV is blaring at full volume. People seem to forget that if you can hear the sound in your own back garden, noise doesn't stop at your own fence boundary.
And don't talk to me about all these boy racers who drive down suburban streets at 1 am with their car windows down and radios playing Boom Boom rock music at full volume !

[Ricard with an H]

I love to listen to the radion when I'm working in my shed or in my home and Inwould like to have the radio with me outdoors but how could I possibly do that without offending someone.

Occasionally we get rented accommodation visitors who think the whole valley wants to hear their choice of music so rather than keeping the doors and windows closed they open everything.

What's the psychology behind this I wonder ?

Some days during harvesting times or muck spreading we have a lot of machinery noise though I don't hear it because it's part of where I live. Some days sheep can be very noisy But it's so quiet here you can actually hear cows farting and if there isn't any wind you can hear them chewing.

Even my best friends sound their car horn as they leave, I hate that with a vengeance but I put it down to me becoming sensitised after 15 years in a peaceful environment.

[Geoff]

Great display Westi. Just when I was going to say this thread should be Late Summer ... - certainly late or non-existent here, annuals like that wouldn't dare to raise their heads. I feel it is a worse Summer so far than the wet ones a few years ago because it is so cold; wet and cold this morning.

[Pa Snip]

Right folks,

Grab a cuppa

Sit down

Prepare to be shocked


Are you prepared, is the psyche ready for this


Yesterday Mrs Snip picked our first raspberry !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know, amazing news isn't it.

News only tempered by the fact it was
Just the one raspberry

Now please do me a favour, don't flood the board and this thread with posts in awe !!!!

(nutter on the loose)

[Pa Snip]

Dammit I forgot to take a picture lol

[Ricard with an H]

This reminds me of the first time I tried to grow potatoes in old tyres. (A non-event so it doesn't count)

I listened carefully to my teacher who in hindsight had just passed-on the information though it did sound sensible at a time I was trying to get rid of 50 or-so tyres left behind by the people who developed this farm into two homes.

I stacked and fed and nurtured up to nearly five foot of tyres and when the flowers came and wilted I unstacked to find six (At a guess) spuds.

Six seems to be a re-occuring number in potatoes at the moment, I'm hoping this doesn't persist.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Someone on the radio said that strawberries and other things were earlier this year due to the sunny winter and warm April. Has anyone else found this?

In my garden everything is later than usual because May and June have been so cold, windy, dry and dull.

A lot of tree fruits haven't set as no insects were flying when they were flowering.
It does look like a a good strawberry crop though and they are just starting to ripen - a good week later than last year.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I took advantage of B&Q s pensioner's 10% discount day yesterday and bought lots of paving slabs to put paths in the vegetable garden. I'm just levelling it and laying them on the soil so they are easy to move if I want to change things.

I've put four in so far and it looks so much smarter and things seem easier to reach.

And regarding noise from neighbours when you are enjoying being outside listening to nature, the man across the road has been renovating/rebuilding an old car for weeks now, so all I can hear is screeching saws, drills and hammering for hours and hours.