Kitchen Garden Forum

I was out on my boat fishing yesterday nothing special caught but a nice day in fact we are going again tomorrow it’s another cracking forecast only thing is there are bad thunder and lightning forecast with heavy rain

Sounds as if you,re in for a an exciting day then Robo. Personally I,d rather be on dry land undear those sort of conditions but I guess it makes it more of a challenge.

Glad you are still getting to do what you enjoy, Robo…hope you land a whopper.

Busy watering and weeding here in HP4.
Apparently we had rain over the weekend. I was away on a charity fundraising walk in Snowdonia and was really greatful that the weather was cool. If it had been in the high 20s, it would have been a real struggle.

For some reason, maybe a mild winter, we seem to have had more slug damage than usual.

Went to a talk on perennial flowers yesterday from a professional gardener, He said his opinion was that it was always far better, given a choice, to water in the early morning rather than in the evening.

The reason he gave was that if you water early morning, the soil will dry out during the course of the day when the birds are around to eat the slugs and other pests.
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If you water at night, the slugs and snails have several hours of darkness to come out and forage freely when there are no birds to eat them. Not sure I necessarily agree with this argument as hedgehogs roam at night, although I know they're a declining species.

Given a choice, when would everybody on here prefer to water, and why?

I've never seen a bird take any of the slimy things on my plot, too many other tasty treats left out for them around the site I maybe? They do have a liking for worms though.

My choice would be to water in the evening so the soil is dry during the day for weeding & hoeing as think this breaks the cap off the soil so when I do water it quickly gets to where it needs to be. I only water the plants at the roots so the slimy things still have to cross over dry patches to get to them. I also think the loose soil might deter them a bit as well drying them out a bit quicker.

Well, folks, you might not have to put up with me very much longer: my 'gall bladder' problem has turned out to be an aggressive pancreatic cancer which has spread to the liver. It might be a matter of months, but I certainly do not want any treatment other than pain relief. And, as my lovely late grandson said when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago, "I do not want any crying or wailing people around me", so I I would appreciate no comments ..... I will keep going and gardening as long as I can.

Well Monika, there are times when certain requests have to be ignored when shocks like that hit us.
I know you will be in all our thoughts.

Some things we can't change.
We just have to accept, keep calm and try to carry on. And hopefully you will do as long as possible.
Primrose x

Dear Monika……….my kindest thought’s, OH. xx

My best wishes Monica when my wife had cancer in her liver they told us it was easy to treat but like you her cancer was very aggressive one and finished up in her lungs but the one in her liver was burnt out twice

No crying or wailing Monica, just my very best thoughts that you get fulfilment & can comfortably do the little things you want to or give you peace for as long as possible. x

Just to wish you happy gardening for as long as you can manage x

Dear Monika, have you got many butterflies up with you this year?
There are quite a few about here….

I thought I had not seen as many bees in the garden so far this year and then I learned a neighbour living a few hundred yards away no longer had any hives so I wonder if that may be part of the reason.
Does anybody know how far bees normally travel from their hives in search of pollen?

Hello Primrose,
Bees can forage for pollen etc, upto five miles from the hive but on average it is only within a mile radius and during its lifetime a Bee can travel the equivalent of to the moon and back in its quest.