Kitchen Garden Forum

A good little buy, Retropants….
We refuse to buy them anymore, Primrose…..there was something on the tele a few years ago about the production of Jersey Royals but, I can’t remember exactly what they said!
A lovely description of your day, Clive.

Garden centres are like pubs to an alcoholic to me. I always come away from them having communed with the devil !

...a bit of a tidy up in the old greenhouse, pots sunk in the ash substrate are now filled with fresh JI No.3 and with new 7ft canes tied to the wires...the tomato plants though are having a few days in the front room, enjoying the views of the front garden..whilst this Northerly airflow weather, that's arrived today, hopefully soon passes..

C.

Weather played fair again, not sunny but not rain as predicted so managed to finish most of the prep work & get those pesky invading raspberries out. Only the bean beds to tidy as it has been prepped previously but full of weeds, so I will get the hazel sticks up this week. Then all to do is weed the last 2 flower beds which are just small along the tunnel sides which should coincide with some more plants being hardened off enough to go out as temp improving at the end of week.

I snoozed off this afternoon on the lounge after I came home & slept right through the emergency alert test! I would be doomed if it was the real thing! The phone was right on the coffee table beside me as well!

My phone didn't make a sound. maybe I'm an under cover ninja and don't need to know........................?

Forgot all about it, nothing showing on either of our phones, I assume you are supposed to be able to see something after the event. Maybe both phones use 3G with the grim mobile service here that luckily won't run a smart meter for us.

My phone gave a disappointing 3 second burst instead of the promised 10 seconds. Gather the papers are saying the test was a bit of a washout with many phone users not receiving anything.

Unsubscribed to the text alert as I am not a slave to mobile phone.

Only one phone has credit on it and that is turned off the other is only used to read books from library and check emails.

How long before the scam arrives saying you are doomed but if you press 1 I can save you!

When do we get the kit to build a bomb shelter down the garden?

Explained mine, I am on Pay As You Go and normally have mobile data switched off to stop it accidentally taking all my credit and apparently that is the network it uses. Took a bit of Googling before I found that well know technical website The Daily Mirror.

PS : Mind the Government website https://www.gov.uk/alerts/how-alerts-work is confusing to say the least, on the same page it says "Your mobile phone or tablet does not have to be connected to mobile data or wifi to get alerts" and "Reasons you will not get an alert, wifi only". So who knows? So if Heysham nuclear power station blows up they won't be able to tell me to run away or stick brown paper on my windows.

Geoff wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:59 pm Wet today so I'm brewing a batch of beer, a bitter called "Blackest of Sheep". Only my second attempt but the stout I made in January has proved very drinkable.

That reminded me, a few years ago when we had the time and space we got quite into homebrew. It was a beer called Nog, a dark ale.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0617/ ... 1680702583

We made ours and it was delicious. For a laugh we called it "Old Mog" and I made a cartoon label for it. Husband took some bottles into the office over Christmas and New Year and left them on the "help yourself" shelf. His then boss had spent most of New Year's Day in the office by himself (well volunteered, man!) and had come across this Old Mog. He emailed straight away to say how much he'd enjoyed a bottle!

Radeo peas sown on the 15th are just showing through...

Potatoes that are 6" high, hilled and covered with fleece...I see we are given 6 hours down at 3C overnight...up from the earlier prediction of 3 hours at 3C then 3 hours at 2C...

C.

Nog doesn't seem to be available as an all grain kit. The stout I made had exciting ingredients like ground coffee, dark chocolate and a vanilla pod.

Haven't dared to go down the garden yet and see if all my fleecing was effective last night. It went down to -3.2°C but what surprised me most and might have done some damage was that it was below freezing from 12:30 to 07:30.

0.1 inside the greenhouse last night, but the suns out and it's a balmy 2 degrees now, I'll wait before putting any plants out yet.