Early Summer Bits and Bobs - 2016.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Good joke PA, but it is very much like the first time I rode a horse. They gave me the largest horse, had to lift me on it, and told me how to hold the reins and make it go. We were supposed to be walking in single file across a field b ut my horse decided it wanted to be in front and set off like the wind. I lost the reins and stirrups and clung on to its mane until the man in charge caught up and managed to stop it. He shouted at me until I pointed out that I had told him I'd never been on a horse before and he hadn't told me how to stop it

My boyfriend said it looked just like a cowboy film.

[Westi]

Managed to get some dry weather this morning & sort out my brassica's as the current netting is nothing but a trampoline for pigeons, who have also been playing pinball with my strawberries, well some of them as there were quite a few mouldy ones due to both the damp & humidity. I managed to get 2 good bowlfuls for us though. The pigeons have a nest in the hedgerow & obviously ensuring their chicks are getting a varied diet! Best surprise though is have a wee squash plant, and while having a poke around also found a rooted seed so may still get something. Also found a very squash looking plant in the herb pots at home which I planted, but haven't a clue what it is going to be.

I'm particularly pleased with the cabbages which is why I was determined to save them, but they are bearing some scars.
Westi

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PTDC0053.JPG (266.42 KiB) Viewed 3414 times

[Parsons Jack]

It's a madhouse in the garden at the moment, with all the young birds about
There are greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, jackdaws and dunnocks, all with varying amounts of young being fed, or feeding themselves. All the while the pigeons and collared doves are trampling over everything.

I'm having to fill the fatball holder 3 times a day to keep up

Lovely to see them all though

[peter]

Planted out my squash and second let of sweetcorn today after helping set our shuttering for 300 yard path at the rugby club.

Yesterday was carnival with my fruby club, followed by a visit to the site and reunion for my old school, which I organised.
Open in 52 closed in 90 about 3800 pupils over that period
First arrival at 4pm last departed left at 23:45, somewhere around eighty people.

Friday I took the day off and acquired more shredded tree, covered the rest of plot 17 and planted out first lot of sweetcorn. Strimmed the edges of and then mowed the main path.

[alan refail]

Summer solstice!
Dark and pouring with rain!
At least it looks a bit more promising for the rest of the week.

[Geoff]

Definitely not a good day for our young Swallows to have decided to explore the outside world.

[Shallot Man]

Rained cats and dogs last night. Water barrels are overflowing.

[Geoff]

What an overnight disaster.

I was going to cut the grass today but the rain has come early overnight.

[Shallot Man]

Having the finest crop of strawberry's to date.

[Johnboy]

Hi Alan,
We managed to get 108mm of rain in 7 days last week and it has damaged and almost destroyed 25 acres of Potatoes.
Water off the hill put a mini river straight across the crop.
This is only the second year we have grown Potatoes commercially.
It is absolutely slashing down as I write.
JB.

[Pawty]

Harvested the first of the new potatoes yesterday along with three courgettes...... It's times like this when, dispite the weather, stuff not growing or stuff dying you realise that yes, it's worth it......

[peter]

Bought a 5&1/2 ton log splitter on Friday, decided I'd put up my old £10 Tesco gazebo to process my log pile under, as it looked like we might have a shower or two. Also an electric chainsaw and an electric log splitter that needs an extension lead aren't exactly rain compatible.
That was around 11am, I know late start, had a couple of very light showers and at almost seven a deluge of a cloudburst so hard that little drops were falling from the gazebo roof!

All packed away in the toolshed with the fan heater on fan mode to help dry everything. I ran out of dry places to put processed logs and still have about five barrows of cut unsplit logs to do. Some old stood dead for years ash defeated my new toy, much as they'd defeated my axe and my sledgehammer with log grenade, anyone got some dynamite?

[Shallot Man]

Re my best crop of strawberry's. I notice they are bruising very ea sly.

[oldherbaceous]

Morning Shallot Man, my strawberries are carrying a huge crop, but they are just rotting before they can ripen properly, with the constant rain we are getting here....and to add insult to injury, a Squirrel was running off with probably the only good one, when i went over earlier...

I'm glad yours a doing well though.

[Pa Snip]

From what I have seen on our site, and what friends elsewhere have told me, strawberries are cropping well.
The art seems to be in catching the right moment to harvest, if left even just a little too long on the plant they are rotting very quickly.
I have taken to picking mine when they are just under ripe.