Sizzling Summer Bits and Bobs.

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

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Monika
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That must be devastating to see a full tree so damaged, OH and Cider Boys. A year's loss in, say peas or beans, is bad enough but to lose a tree must be so much worse. My commiserations.

!3mm of rain yesterday and 12mm today, so about 1", certainly very useful, including filling the tubs with roof run-off. I don't suppose it will have got to the roots of the brassicas yet, but it's better than nothing.
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oldherbaceous
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Barney, Primrose and Monika, thank you for your kind words regarding the Plum tree....I'm just so annoyed with myself for not making up a brace when I first saw the split. A hard lesson learnt...
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

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Motherwoman
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I haven't been to this forum for at least a couple of years as work was rather demanding, I pop back and it's lovely to find you all still here! Hopefully I will have more time now I'm partly retiring. I still have my allotment although it's taken a bit of a back seat lately, so that is going to get more attention too! Have you had the 'it's a terrible year for runners conversation?'
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Geoff
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Sad to lose an old fruit tree after you've spent years establishing it. Went for a walk round the garden with the dog last evening after we had been cooped up by the rain and found my Discovery almost horizontal. Put a stake in and got the neighbour to help me yank it upright. Pushed some soil into the cracks where the roots have moved and hoping it will survive. This morning I've done the Summer pruning on it thinking reducing the foliage might help. I had thought of asking on the water saving thread if anybody thought bringing forward the pruning of fruit trees would reduce the stress on them. Never got round to it but I think I am going to carry on and do the others. Found Ashmead's Kernel also needs staking but it hasn't gone as far as the Discovery.
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oldherbaceous
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Dear Motherwoman, it's good to have you back, as you have been missed...

My runners are cropping really heavily this year....just had to pick them very young, as they were soon going tough, if I left them to get to their normal size.

Hope your Apple trees get their root system going again, Geoff.
Regarding the early Summer pruning, it can only be a good thing to help them with conserving any moisture...the worse thing that will happen is, they might put a second flush of re-growth on but, it is only a matter of a slight re-pruning.
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

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Daveswife
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Very interesting reading these earlier posts about the sizzling hot weather. We had rain on 30th May but then none until 27th July. Even then, not much. But over the weekend 28/29 July there was more. I could almost hear the garden sighing with relief. In the non-stop searing heat, hedges, shrubs and trees will all have suffered and become stressed - rather like myself!
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retropants
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whereabouts are you Daveswife? sounds exactly like the weather we've had, no rain since the end of May, a tad on Friday eve, then a bit more Sunday morning!
Daveswife
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We live three miles from Nottingham City centre, to the west. The weather map has often looked promising in the last week with rain on its way but each time it has just missed us!
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retropants
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OK, quite far from me then, I'm near Heathrow airport!
Monika
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Nice to hear from you again, Motherwoman! I wondered what had happened.

And did you mention "terrible year for runners"? Well, just the opposite for us - we can't eat them fast enough! The current strong winds are blowing them about but there are plenty of them, as well as the climbing French beans. I must admit that during the long hot spell I regularly sprayed the flowers with water, may that helped the setting?
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Well done Monika! Mine took off, stopped & barren in the middle & now full of flowers & baby beans above. Not the end of their season so will have more than a handful - hopefully anyway!
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Motherwoman
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My runners are looking very thin on the foliage, loads of blackfly, and a poor set. Not just me as most on the upper slopes of the allotment site are like it. The people on the lower end are not so bad. Perhaps it's the effect of being on the top of a very free draining site.
And it's nice to be back!
Stephen
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Runner beans - mine are really tough this year, very disappointing.
Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
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Geoff
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Different effect of sizzling Summer tonight. Tried to submit my quarterly solar generation meter reading online tonight and it wouldn't accept it as it was out of the range they expected. Almost 20% higher than last year; May, June and July have each been the best of the 4 years I have had the panels. I've got to phone them tomorrow, I bet they are getting a lot of phone calls, you would think they would have the wit to update their expectations. It better hadn't delay my payment, good old EON.
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Motherwoman
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Eon: No, we're not expecting it that high, take some back.
Geoff: But this was what you wanted me to do right? Generate electricity?
Eon: We didn't expect you to generate this much, where do you think we'd be if we paid out to everybody?
Geoff: Not in breach of contract...?

Let us know how it goes!
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