Late Winter Bits and Bobs - 2017.

[oldherbaceous]

Maybe they heard that Harrison Ford was in the surrounding area.....

[Pa Snip]

Down on the plot today when we heard very loud engine noise the next thing two Lockheed c_130a Hercules planes came over wing tips virtually touching around 300 feet high ,ten minutes later they came again ,we don't have any RAF bases near us not that we know off burtonwood used to be an American base but now closed or so we have been told ,very noisy is an understatement

Dammmit dammit dammit.

I do apologise Robo. I specifically instructed them to find a totally remote area for pre-production tests of my new bouncing furrow trench maker.

I will get them to reassign the flight route before night tests start. In the meantime whatever you do don't store any large volumes of water near your house, just in case they load the wrong 'bouncers'

[robo]

I don't mind them making a few trenches down the plot it would help with my spud planting but down the fast lane of the m6 is a different matter there are to many on the m6 as it is

[Monika]

Shallot Man, going back to your bag purchase: why do you store your potatoes in bags? Until a few years ago when we used to grow lots of potatoes, we always stored them in supermarket apple boxes, clearly labelled, stacked about five or six high, newspaper-lined for insulation. It was so much easier to check on the health of the crop throughout the winter by just taking the boxes down one by one and ruttling through them to find any iffy ones. No need to empty them as we had to do many years ago when we used sacks.

[Westi]

Wow Tiger - do you eat lots or plant less than me - or do you need an allotment?

I've got loads to go yet - frilly sprouts, kale, parsnip, leeks, a few more cabbages, mooli, turnips, chard, beets & I have nurtured some corn salad & salad mix (in the ground) which are limping through but very small - but have not succumbed to mildew or slimey things - yet!

Would be interesting to know who is garden growers or who has an allotment! I feel very lucky to have an allotment - my back yard is a more like a bog than a garden so I'd have nothing if I had to rely on that!

[tigerburnie]

Westi, last year was my first season with new garden layout, three new raised beds and no ground area to plant whilst everything was re vamped. New greenhouse now in place, so a lot I grew under plastic last year in raised beds will be in there(Bulb fennel and Sweetcorn took a fair amount of room) and there will be no brassicas in the raised beds this year as a plot for them and tatties is almost complete, so one complete raised bed extra space too. Only 2 of us and I tend to grow to eat in season, we have a smaller freezer on purpose to stop us buying too much frozen or adding too much from the garden. Indeed 20% of the freezer is set aside for bait for my fishing and I don't freeze fish, but take only enough to eat fresh.

[robo]

Tigerburnie,you are a man out of my own heart, I freeze very little vegetables that we grow although I do like them fresh,I have a freezer just for my fishing bait although it's just a small one we brought from the shop when we sold it ,I also eat my catch fresh if I have a lot I pass it on to my daughter's very rare to freeze any

[tigerburnie]

I am lucky in my location, I'm only a mile from a fab beach for flatties, less than 10 miles from several good rock marks for Cod in the winter and Mackerel, Coalies, Pollock and a chance of edible crab and even a lobster. There's shell fish to be gathered, sea weed if you're brave enough and I have Brown Trout, Sea Trout and Salmon fishing within 10 miles as well. There's hills and glens for a bit of foraging along with a decent sized forest too. The coarse fishing I grew up doing is pretty much non existent, but I'm never short of somewhere to go to wet a line.

[Shallot Man]

Monika. Thank you for the idea, will give it a go this year.

[Geoff]

Sad day today. Got a streaming cold (first for a few years, I put it down to bathroom stress) so had to find a job indoors when I should have been mixing compost and filling containers to kick off sowing at the weekend. So I retrieved the box I throw all my used labels in and set to and scrubbed them clean. The sad bit; I counted them, 796.

[Westi]

Blimey Geoff!

Got enough to last a few years - or planting 20 acres?

[Ricard with an H]

796 ?

The fact you counted them indicates your commitment to your gardening venture, hardly call it a hobby Geoff. You no doubt sustain yourselves, friends and family.

I'm like you, I rarely get a cold, I had flue once. I get symptoms that I'm about to get a cold but those symptoms rarely manifest into a full blown man-flue. (As the girls like to diagnose)

Girls also get 'Man-flue'. Did you know that ? No, I'll amend that to: some girls get 'Man flue' in the same way that some people go scurrying off to the doctors surgery at the slightest sign of discomfort.

Presumably not being in contact with people on bus, train, pubs, doctors surgeries and children reduces the infection risk though in my case I have always been robust in the case of infections.

We mustn't steriotype people, I'm not typical in many ways. When I lived inland some neighbours had decided I was gay because I was caught wearing my wife's apron, my blokes apron was in the wash was my excuse but the nice neighbour said a bloke wouldn't wear an apron.

Is that typical ? (Smile)

[tigerburnie]

Dull, windless but warm, off to the garden centre to meet my daughter and her family, don't need anything, but it's my birthday soon(the real one this time lol), so I might need to drop some hints.

[peter]

Allotment Shop big delivery this morning, all squared away pretty fast.
Perhaps because more people turned up to help than turned up for the society AGM last night.

[Monika]

We spent most of the day clearing out our shed, throwing away quite a few things (including labels, Geoff, because I find they go brittle in time) and, when it was empty, lo and behold, we found a mouse-size hole to the outside in the corner (see my previous posting!) So that is safely plugged, but the little devil/s had chewed plastic netting and flower pots, nibbled a box with bonemeal and shredded a roll of kitchen paper - at least we didn't find a nest.