Kitchen Garden Forum

Welcome to the forum, never got round to it on the real thread! We grow all sorts of stuff. We have a medlar but somehow never get round to doing anything with the fruit, they are bigger than usual this year so we must make the effort. Our big failure is quince, each year the foliage gets some sort of disease which I guess stops it producing buds as it doesn't flower.
We have lots of soft fruit too; strawberries, raspberries (Summer and Autumn), blackberries, loganberries, gooseberries, red currants, black currants, blueberries, Japanese wine berries.

They had the annual pumpkin competition in our town yesterday I could not enter as I had a prior appointment with some fish out of the river Mersey but the winner weighed in at 25 stone that would have beaten mine by around 17 stone

I bet you enjoyed the fishing more Robo. Do they use a forklift to get these giant veg about, I can't imagine popping one in the car boot.
I once had to drive around with a boulder in my car for a couple of months as my boyfriend hurt his back lifting it in. I've still got it in the garden, it's got lots of fossilised sea creatures and sparkly bits in it. Boyfriend is long gone.

Have you tried giving your quince a good feed with Growmore or BFB Geoff? Mine has been looking rather rough and not producing any fruit for a few years so I decided to see if some pampering would help. I gave it plenty of fertiliser and a thick mulch of good compost and kept it well watered and it didn't drop it's leaves even though they were a bit scabby, and I got a big bucket of fruits off it. It must know it's on the list for the chainsaw if it doesn't buck it's ideas up.

It gets fed Growmore and potash like the rest of the orchard but I haven't tried mulching. I don't spray anything but I am very tempted to try some sort of fungicide on this.

Just lost our and the neighbours front wall to a hit and run by two scrotes in an Audi with no number plates that failed to make the turn from the road opposite and fitted through a gap between a parked Fiat 500 and the neighbours end of the wall that i swear was narrower than the Audi.

Thank heavens it did or our new Skoda would've been toast, likewise thank heavens it wasn't going any faster or my Land Rover would be been done for.

On gardening matters i think I'll need to give the bamboo some attention.

The lack of respect for peoples property, seems to be getting less each year, a real shame....and what a nusiance for you Peter.

What a shock. The thing that grieves me most in these kinds of incidents is that it's always innocent people who end up being inconvenienced and having the expense of putting things to rights. Just lucky that you were not hurt and your cars weren't damaged. Hope the police manage to track down the culprits and throw the book at them but sadly this is often not the case.

throw the book at them

Two weeks picking up litter you mean.

Yes Geoff, very likely to be the case. We see them with their red High Vis jackets all the time in our village. One of these days I'll go up to them and humiliate them and ask them what they did.

That's part off the problems this country is having ,when they catch the scroates and I've no doubt they will they will get fifty hours community service

No doubt stole the Audi, so someone's lost what looks like an expensive car too. Jails are full, so it makes you wonder what has happened to society.

Sorry to read your news Peter, hope your insurers are responsive and cooperative.

Good to see you about Pa Snip, you have been missed.....

a nice sunny day for digging out the compost cage and spreading stuff over the borders. I'd love to produce enough to spread a 3" layer over everything but have to try and eke it out and give all the key areas a sprinkling so it doesn,t go far alas !

But apart from harvesting about two pounds of perfect small potatoes hidden in its depth we discovered our faithful spare Vixtorinox potato cleaner which went missing about a year ago and reappeared In immaculate condition despite a year' s incarcerationIt in the decaying vegetation. I reckon it must have gone through this experience several times in its 50 year lifespan ! if only the remainder of our kitchen appliances lasted that long !

The other thing we discovered were lots of these white creatures. They were about an inch long when they uncurled themselves and started trying to struggle across the bird table. I wonder if somebody can identify what they are? Not a good photo, sorry !

Found a runner bean plant about three inches high.