Late Summer Bits and Bobs.

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

Moderators: KG Steve, Chantal, Tigger, peter, Chief Spud

User avatar
oldherbaceous
KG Regular
Posts: 13851
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:52 pm
Location: Beautiful Bedfordshire
Has thanked: 276 times
Been thanked: 307 times

Well i think we are about at that time of the year.

Poor Old Codger is having a right rough old time at the moment. Nearly all his joints are giving him all sorts of problems and he is in a lot of pain. He asked me if i would mind digging a few potatoes for him, but while i was digging them, i snapped his fork handle off......sorry Codger..... :oops: :)

What is everyone else up to? As it's been mighty quiet on here...
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
User avatar
alan refail
KG Regular
Posts: 7252
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Chwilog Gogledd Orllewin Cymru Northwest Wales
Been thanked: 5 times

I've managed to get through the summer with my one new eye. Cucumbers and tomatoes are cropping well, if a little untidily. Beans have been good, but I lost a bed of lettuce to aphid infestation early on.

The operation on my other, useless, eye is scheduled for next Thursday afternoon, so I should soon after that be fit to sort out the mess which I have had to let develop around me over the summer.

I have done my first winter sowing and will do the second in due course. I am entering a new phase in growing. Sadly I lost my wife at the beginning of the month after a fairly short but very unpleasant illness. I am now trying to work out ways of growing for one. If anyone has any advice I would welcome it and thanks in advance.

Before we moved to Wales I was working four allotments and supplying family and neighbours aplenty. Here I have concentrated on growing a wide range of crops to keep two of us fed with some spare for a few neighbours. My family is now scattered between Leeds, Glasgow, Darlington and London, so there is not much they will use. I am thinking of a more limited amount of salad crops, a few brassicas, possibly beans and certainly tomatoes, cucumbers and beetroot, though in smaller quantities. Potatoes, courgettes and pumpkins I will not bother with.
Cred air o bob deg a glywi, a thi a gei rywfaint bach o wir (hen ddihareb Gymraeg)
Believe one tenth of what you hear, and you will get some little truth (old Welsh proverb)
User avatar
Primrose
KG Regular
Posts: 8061
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:50 pm
Location: Bucks.
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 288 times

Alan, so sorry to hear of the loss of your wife. With that and your eye problems you have indeed been having a turbulent year. Sincere Condolences and kind thoughts for your next eye operation on Thursday.

I imagine it will be quite an exercise in discipline trying to grow for one person. One always tends to sow more to make up for seeds which don't germinate and then it's hard to throw the surplus onto the compost heap because you never know if some of the plants will get eaten by slugs or otherwise killed off, and despite having started off with a surplus you up with a frustrating deficit.

i've just passed on a year's back copies of my Kitchen Garden magazine to another person who enjoys growing her own vegs and have lined up another person after that who also lives locally to whom she will pass them on when she has finished with them so they will end up being well read and well thumbed, which is probably what a good magazine should be, as a friend passes on all his RHS magazines to me, which I then pass on' we seem to have a very efficient recycling operation.

i will be busy processing tomatoes for tomato purree for the freezer tomorrow and making a nice spiced pear in lemon/orange/cinamon syrup with some cooking windfall pears foraged earlier today. Things always taste nicer when they're free :lol:
User avatar
oldherbaceous
KG Regular
Posts: 13851
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:52 pm
Location: Beautiful Bedfordshire
Has thanked: 276 times
Been thanked: 307 times

Dear Alan, at times like this, i wish i had payed more attention to my English teacher, i then would be more able to write something that reads a little better. Anyhow, i am deeply saddened to read about the loss of your wife, Alan, and please will you accept my sincere condolonces as well.
I think you are being so strong planning ahead with your veg growing, as it must be so tough.
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
User avatar
Cider Boys
KG Regular
Posts: 919
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:03 pm
Location: Somerset
Has thanked: 9 times
Been thanked: 38 times

Alan, please also accept my sincere condolences for the sad loss of your wife.

Barney
Westi
KG Regular
Posts: 5936
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:46 pm
Location: Christchurch, Dorset
Has thanked: 702 times
Been thanked: 255 times

Sorry to her about the loss of your wife Alan, it has indeed been a turbulent year for you. All the best with the eye op as well.

I think you'll have to have some mega self control to sow for just one. You're obviously a very experienced grower, ever thought of asking the local store to take some of the excess to sell or selling it somewhere (Like at your gate with an honesty system), where the money could be donated to something you support? They do this a lot in the villages around here & I quite often stop when driving by to pick up something that I haven't been so successful with.

Westi
Westi
User avatar
Geoff
KG Regular
Posts: 5581
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 5:33 pm
Location: Forest of Bowland
Been thanked: 134 times

Sorry to hear about your sad time Alan on top of everything else, hope the second operation goes well to help cheer you up.

Can't advise on sowing and planting for one, I often get complaints about growing too much when things come ready together. If you plant out 8 cauliflowers and something does for one or two it's not as serious as if you had only planted 4, I tend to err on the safe/surplus side. If you keep some back in pots something gets the planted ones just as the spares are too pot bound to be any use. The important thing of course is to grow what you like most perhaps including some things your wife wasn't too keen on.
robo
KG Regular
Posts: 2808
Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2012 10:22 pm
Location: st.helens
Has thanked: 9 times
Been thanked: 56 times

Very sorry to hear about your loss alan, best of luck for thursday hope all goes well
Elaine
KG Regular
Posts: 1207
Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:40 am
Location: Hull, East Yorkshire.

Dear Alan, heartfelt sympathy on the sad loss of your wife, I'm so sorry.

Good luck for Thursday.

xx
Happy with my lot
Monika
KG Regular
Posts: 4546
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:13 pm
Location: Yorkshire Dales

So sorry to hear about the loss of your wife, Alan, my heartfelt condolences. You will be growing too much for some time yet, but, as others have said, you are sure to find grateful recipients for our surplus. The process to growing just for one will come gradually, Alan, as the current pain will slowly ease.

The allotment is looking distinctly autumnal now with the bare ex-pea and broad bean beds, the onions and most of the shallots lifted, some potatoes lifted, the courgette leaves just showing the start of mildew and the asters and first spray chrysanthemums flowering. But the green manure is sown and I am certainly drawing up the plans for 2016.

I broke a bone in my left foot at the end of July (not gardening, I hasten to add) and my digging and even just walking to the allotment have been rather curtailed. By now it's just discomfort rather than pain, but it does make us glad that we gave up half of our allotment last autumn. Managing a full size one, and on a very sloping site, would have been rather difficult recently.
Elaine
KG Regular
Posts: 1207
Joined: Sun Feb 01, 2009 3:40 am
Location: Hull, East Yorkshire.

We have been extremely busy decorating the house and preparing for my Stepson, his wife and little girl arriving from the USA to live in the UK. They will be living with us until they get themselves sorted out. My husband is over the moon, as he hasn't seen his son since we went over to the US for their wedding in 2002. We spoke regularly on Skype etc but we sadly never had enough spare money to finance a trip over there.

They arrive next Friday! :D :D :D
Happy with my lot
Gerry
KG Regular
Posts: 428
Joined: Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:55 pm
Location: West Cork,

Alan, So sorry to hear of your loss. Sincere condolances and best wishes with your op.
Regards,
Gerry.
PLUMPUDDING
KG Regular
Posts: 3269
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:14 pm
Location: Stocksbridge, S. Yorks

Very sorry to hear about your wife Alan, I thought we'd not heard much from you recently.
I'm glad you are enjoying your new eye and hope your next opp goes well too.

I've had the stitch out this week and have to wait 10 to 12 weeks for my next one doing. At least it isn't as scary when you know what to expect.

One way to limit how much you grow is to sow in blocks rather than long straight lines. It looks attractive too. It's easier to use just a few while they are small and then re sow to keep a succession. I've also started planting mangetout peas and some of the taller ones up a circle of canes with netting fastened to it. It just limits how many I grow and they are easy to pick. You can also peg a bit of fleece round it too to keep the sparrows off.
User avatar
Primrose
KG Regular
Posts: 8061
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 8:50 pm
Location: Bucks.
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 288 times

We were having a garage clean up today when I came across two forgotten winter squashes from last autumn in good condition. I accidentally dropped one on the garage floor and it simply bounced without damaging or cracking the skin.at all. i suspect the flesh inside will be very dry though. It will probably require an axe to split them open as the skins are so tough now.

A neighbour kindly dropped off s carrier bag full of Victoria plums this afternoon so i have open frozen a lot of halves,to be bagged up as they freeze beautifully, and tomorrow as it!s due to rain most of the day (it always does on a Bank Holiday Monday :lol: ) will be making plum jam before they get too soft. That's the only problem with Victoria plums. I find they don't store well.
User avatar
Pa Snip
KG Regular
Posts: 3091
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 8:20 pm
Location: Near the big house on the hill Berkshire

Primrose I could do with making some plum jam as well, the plum tree on the plot has come good for the first time since planting in 2012.

Alan sorry to read of your loss. Good luck with this weeks eye op.

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
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic