Late Summer Bits and Bobs, dear Monika.

[tigerburnie]

We have thunder and lightening and the Aurora all forecast for tonight, it could be quite a colourful sky if it's not too cloudy.

[Cider Boys]

Woke up this morning and it had rained over night which will help replenish my water butts, I had been very pleased with my swedes which had recovered from two devastating caterpillar attacks only to discover that some of my sheep had got into my patch of swedes and eaten all the new leaves back again and were now attacking my parsnips. Can only blame myself for poor fencing I suppose.

Barney

[Stephen]

Westi, I'm sorry to read of your multiple difficulties. Persistence is so very important.

[tigerburnie]

Thunder and very heavy rain has led to localised flooding up here this morning, but the roads are now dry again, but more rain is forecast. I have taken the gutter pipe off my greenhouse as both water butts are full to over flowing and I won't need more water than what I already have to keep the greenhouse watered till the end of the month. My carrot s seem to have perked with the rain and even a few late germinating parsnips are growing as are the late planted winter cabbages. Two raised beds now cleared, the Aliums and the "others" all harvested, though the others were not up to much lol.

[oldherbaceous]

It’s so frustrating that the water butts are always full, when we don’t need to water….

[Stephen]

Plenty of rain in the past couple of days. Wonderful, but wouldn't it have been welcome a few weeks ago? I'll be interested to see what recovers because some things look absolutely dead.

[tigerburnie]

Thick fog this morning, railway flooded up the coast near Stonehaven, I think I can safely say that's summer finished for us up here, still mild though and dry at the moment.

[oldherbaceous]

I predict a lovely Autumn for you, Burnie, mild, still and very pleasant…..of course, I have been wrong before…

[Primrose]

A sudden very heavy but short shower earlier this morning has deprived our roof tiles of a layer of "accidental" insulation. It has sent a whole,load of dried up shrunken moss pieces tumbling down onto our patio . Annoyingly we only had our gutterings cleaned a couple of weeks ago so I suspect they have caught the bulk of the tumbling moss pieces and will probably overflow if we have heavy rains this winter.

Mustnt complain too much though. The lawn is slowly starting to green up again. Just a pity the rain didn,t come when it was most needed.

How are your late sown runner beans performing OH? With the change in weather you may have taken a lucky punt.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Primrose, the Runner beans are cropping really well….the only problem I am having is, there are Bumble Bees going to the back of the flower and cutting in, then the flower drops off without setting.

[Primrose]

Yes I,ve had that problem myself in the past. One of the reasons why I migrated to climbing French beans which are self fertile.

But qi wonder why the bees do this and is it learnt behaviour? Is it perhaps because they are low in energy because they,re short of pollen? Do we have any former bee keepers on here?
. The problem always seems to be worse in hot dry summers for some reason which makes me wonder if they' affect the bees' behaviour or wellbeing for some reason.

[tigerburnie]

I stopped growing runner beans after poor returns too, I found French Beans to be a much better plant all round and less of a glut too.I didn't grow any this year, but intend to next.

[robo]

I’ve just got my garlic in for autumn planting ,the prices are through the roof ,the normal place I get garlic from is the hut it’s run by a syndicate you pay £4 a year to be a member then most things are cheap I went for my supply of garlic and onions they normally have around six varieties to choose from this year they have two no isle of white garlic as I was told it’s far to expensive both garlics was £1-25 per bulb

[tigerburnie]

I've just ordered my onions seeds and some heritage peas and tomatoes just in case the prices go up.

[Shallot Man]

I’ve just got my garlic in for autumn planting ,the prices are through the roof ,the normal place I get garlic from is the hut it’s run by a syndicate you pay £4 a year to be a member then most things are cheap I went for my supply of garlic and onions they normally have around six varieties to choose from this year they have two no isle of white garlic as I was told it’s far to expensive both garlics was £1-25 per bulb

Used to grow garlic for my daughter when I had the plot. Would plant a row with I.O.W garlic [ and pay through the nose.] And a row with Spanish supermarket garlic [think for under a £1. At the end of the season. They all looked the same.