Early Winter bits & bobs?

[Shallot Man]

vegpatchmum. I think you should be ashamed of yourself. Take this a warning. Next time action will be taken.

[Ricard with an H]

I'm happy today, Mr Grump-bag is history.

Do you know, after I planted my garlic and onions I also planted a few store-bought garlic into my cold-frame and they are already sprouting.

Must be the Wicks compost that everything else hates.

[alan refail]

Well, well! One of those rare days when we seem to be enjoying the best weather in the UK - uninterrupted sunshine from sunrise on

[Ricard with an H]

I forgot to put my thermal long-johns on under my overalls, it's been a lovely day but cold.

Getting the right combination of clothes isn't my best trick, get it wrong and i'm wet-through with perspiration or get it wrong and i'm cold.

Getting it right is nice.

Just been to take my dog up the paddock for a ball throwing session and got the smell from the fire I made earlier. Isn't the smell of a wood fire lovely compared to coal products.

The good life.

[Clive.]

The Snowdrops are flowering.

Clive.

[oldherbaceous]

Well done Clive, now we really know the gloomy, freezing, miserable weather will soon be with us.

[Monika]

Completed a rather mucky annual job today: emptied five compost bins (ex-dustbins), extracting the lovely well rotted compost and spreading it on herbaceous beds to cover the bulbs. The only problem is that our two 'feral' hens Matilda and Martha think all these lovely piles of compost full of worms and other creepy-crawlies are put out specially for them and proceed to scratch them all over the place. I have now had to put chicken wire over our large patch of tulips to keep them off! Nobody owns up to owning these two hens (they roost in a neighbour's conifer) and they are truly 'free range' in that they roam far and wide in several gardens. There used to be three but one was taken by a fox, we think.

Anyway, I have now still two bins full of compost which will be used as mulch. I never use this compost, made mainly from kitchen scraps, on the vegetable garden because I don't want to spread any possible veggie pathogens.

[Geoff]

Silly season continues - Raspberries for pud tonight!

[oldherbaceous]

Morning Alan, looking at the weather i have to say i do feel sorry for you. As we have some lovely sunshine, it looks as if you are in for main rain.

Have you ever considered winding your local Church/Chapel clock, it seems to work for me.

Now where did i put those sunglasses.....

[alan refail]

Morning OH. Your sympathy is appreciated. It's still fine at the moment though the wind is just getting up. Looks like a rough day or three coming up.

Here's Capal Seilo (local name) and I'm blowed if I can find the clock

Siloh (640x480).jpg (183.63 KiB) Viewed 4792 times

[Ricard with an H]

Your chapel looks cared for Alan, many of the chapels round here are in need of repair and more than a lick of paint. I also noticed some being converted into homes.

Our chapel hasn't been used more than twice in the 11 years I lived here though the roof has had some attention. Both the rectory and chapel-house have been sold and modernised, there is still room in the graveyard.

I don't live in a village, the chapel was part of farm-community consisting of the farm and three dwellings of the two-up-two-down type. Presumably our chapel served this and other close farms in the area. Also presumably, this farm must have been wealthy by comparison to have it's own chapel and rector. I haven't managed to find any history of our chapel but the history of a close village includes that of their rector being a bit of a rascal.

[alan refail]

Morning OH

We still have the rain but we are looking after it carefully before we send it your way later today. Sun cream will be called for here soon

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Alan, if it wasn't yourself that sent rain at 4.45am and still raining at the present, i wonder who it could have been?

Maybe Geoff.....

[Stephen]

Swept up the leaves on the allotment yesterday. Bagged up for leaf mould. I went through the old bags of leaves and the two year old vintage looks fabulous.
This harvest of leaves is welcome as the trees themselves cast considerable shade over our particular plot (at this time of year we get no direct sunlight on the plot, sadly. (Lovely trees though - a couple of horse chestnuts and and oak; all well grown)

[oldherbaceous]

Rain stops play again here this morning, luckily i have a lot more bulbs to pot up in the greenhouse, so not all is lost. But i will miss out on my coffee and freshly baked cake, from where i was meant to have been working.