Late 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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oldherbaceous
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After todays weather, I thought I better get this in quick....a right miserable, chilly day!

But next week is looking a bit better, as the wek goes on..... :)
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
Monika
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Thank you, OH. Yes, it certainly feels later summerish, almost autumnal - 8C last night and a rather cool northerly wind all day, but the sunsets and sunrises have been brilliant lately!
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Geoff
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Early Winter Bits and Bobs - down to 2.2°C last night, that's just not August.
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oldherbaceous
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Maybe September will be glorious, Geoff.... :)
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
Monika
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Down to 5C last night here, but I do remember a year in the early 1970s when July was the only frost free month in the year. A night frost on 30/31 August killed all the very tops of the dahlias .....
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Clive.
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I'm sure I've recounted this before...but it always seems a bit sad when beans etc are coming to an end for the year....

...but I've now completed the cut out of the old and tie in of the new raspberry canes and today the loganberries have been trained and tied in...
...now, I see that as a starting point, getting ready for next years production :)

Tea followed, tomato sandwiches ...with Kosovo Bulls Heart tomato grown from two plants exchanged from next door for a couple of my red cherry tomato plants. Not often we have grown outdoor tomatoes, they certainly went well in a sandwich :)

C.
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Shallot Man
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Now we are leaving the CM, does this mean all the Heritage seed will be freely avaiable.
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Shallot Man
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GARDENING IN WW2.
Thoughts of an old man [ now] during those times.

No seed potato's , cut the top inch from any spud, cut side up until dried, then sown. No choice of make, just Red or White's

Runner Beans. Mum was not allowed to pick the first half dozen plants. { next years seed ] These were not allowed to go more than 4 ft high.Dad believed the bean put all its energy in the first bean. At the end of the season, my job was to pick only the largest pods. These were stored in the shed still in their shucks. Next growing season my job was to shuck all the beans, and only select the largest beans for sowing.

Manure. As our Bungalow had no mains sewage, it went on the dungheap with the animal waste. Goat, Rabbits, Chickens, Horse, Pig, [four large heaps were kept on the go. ] Each heap was kept at least a year befor puting on the plots.

Shallots. On lifting, I had to sort out the bulbs, again only selecting the largest for next year. We noticed that as the years went by, the shallots got less and less bulbs, but were of a larger size.

Hatched our own chickens, another job was to check incubator[ 40 eggs ] each day for paraffin and trim the wick . Wonderfull to see them on hatching day, heading towards the small window, then dropping onto the drying tray below.

Had our own rabbits. Would bring an outside Buck in each year. The fee for this was a Shilling, or the pck of the litter. Dad always paid the shilling.
Lastly one of Dad's favourite sayings were, son the time to hoe is when it don't need doing. [Took me years to figure out what he meant.

Hope I haven't bored you. :wink: :wink:
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oldherbaceous
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Dear Shallot Man, what a wonderful post,...how things have changed.. things used to work so well with the seasons.
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
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Primrose
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Shallot Man - Lovely to read your reminiscences. Yes, it was a different world then but still plenty to learn from old habits.
Monika
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We kept our own rabbits for food during the war - unfortunately, as I was used to cleaning their hutches and playing with them, I could never bring myself to eat them. And I still dislike rabbit to eat, even the smell of it cooking puts me off.
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Primrose
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I recall one set of grandparents in WW2 digging a big pit in their garden for all their kitchen waste instead of having a compost heap. Every year a new pit was dug in a different spot in their vegetable growing area. I,m not sure why things were done this way. Is there any greater benefit To letting stuff decompose in situ rather than in a heap and then spreading it later when everything has rotted down .

I do remember my parents stringing runner beans and preserving them in salt which eventually dissolved into brine. They went brown and had to be soaked overnight to remove the salt to make them even vaguely edible. Foul things!

I know many families swapped their chickens or rabbits when it came to culling time so that people didn't have to bulk at eating what had become family pets.
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As space is freeing up in some beds, I've been planting out my chicories - treviso and verona. I've had to hold them back in their modules but the ones I planted a week or two ago are looking nice and perky, so I should hopefully get some decent heads off them over the winter. I'm not going to bother forcing them as I prefer the raddichio type for cooking with and they're much harder to buy in the shops.
I emptied out a couple of planters, one with sweet peas long since gone over and the other with a courgette that was no longer productive enough to justify the space. These have been planted up with tulip bulbs and my wallflowers that I grew from seed and did really well. I have deep purple tulips and orange bedder wallflower, so I should have a nice display in spring, also from scarlet bedder and purple/red tulips.
My second crop spuds are coming on a treat. Plenty of top growth. They seem happy in their bags in the greenhouse. I also resurrected my pea gutter that I used in the spring. I've sown it with peas, red mustard and another salad leaf that I've forgotten! It's also in the greenhouse with the aim of it being a gutter salad bar.
I'm quite excited about my romanesco broccoli- it's forming heads now so I'm giving it a weekly feed of tomato food to help it along. Can't wait for this one.
In the meantime, Pumpkin Hill continues to thrive. I chopped back all the trailing ends I could find so the plants put their energy into the fruits that are swelling and/or ripening nicely. The plants have yielded about 5 good sized fruits each. I chopped a lot of leaves from the plants, too, to give them plenty of the remaing sunshine.
The most joyous thing about all the pumpkins are the bumblebees that are busy pollinating the flowers recently. After their fuzzy bodies have been into those big flowers, they emerge looking like flying cheesy wotsits on account of the mass of btight orange pollen they get covered in.
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My thoughts of an Indian Summer are diminishing rapidly, not this year methinks! But on the positive no wind today so got the burn finished at lottie so can prep that area! I can also see a big expense coming as well as the laminate sheets keep blowing out of the greenhouse - both the pressure but also just the silicone muck holding them in place as too thin for the clips. Shouldn't really complain as it's stood up well for 30+ yrs & was the absolute cheapest I could find at the time. It's too close to the garage as well & I getting too old for the creative weeding in the wee space between them, even the cats can't fit in that tight space & now bamboo canes are so thin they can't hold the weight of the hoe on the end.

Recommendations welcome! I highly rate Keder but it would look out of place so a more traditional, normal type with proper laminate sheets, no glass - kids are back at school this week & no doubt with social distancing the footballs will be out so last few proper glass panes left will end up casualties of pent up energy!
Westi
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oldherbaceous
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Gosh it's dark in the mornings now...
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
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