[ymfoster]

Thanks Penny,

Yes cactus need the sun & warmth, but they're still attractive without the flowers.
Sounds like you've well & truly tested your new loppers, they are very good aren't they.

Trekguy you certainly have had a good crop of vegies this year, sounds like you folks need a Fowlers bottling outfit to preserve the fruits of your labour,

Thanks Bob,
It's a great time of year for flowers & now the bulbs are finishing the roses are starting to flower & I'll have to spray for thrips & black spot soon.
I fed everything yesterday & we had some lovely rain last night & this morning to water it in, how's that for timing, I see the slugs like my Seamungus pellets now.

Yes Bob the tomatoes need regular watering, also if our lettuce don't get plenty of water they get bitter. Glad you got a fair crop from your tomatoes despite the poor start.

I still need to cut the Plumbago back, it's taken over again & is getting new shoots now so I'd better get stuck in.

[Tuppence2]

I've heard that seaweed fertilizer is very good, Yvonne. I did see some at the garden centre not long ago. Must get round to using some. Yes, the loppers are very handy. I sawed more logs today. It takes me a long time and I only have the energy to do a few at a time. I cleared most of the fallen apples, too, and raked the leaves and added them to a heap of leaves I'm composting.

We did get some sun today, Bob, and rain is forecast for tomorrow. The brassicas were wilting again this morning but look all right this afternoon. I'm sure they'll be all right if the wood pigeons keep away from them. The Tundra cabbages under the netting look good.

I think I've planted my daffodils to near to the top of the soil. Alan Titchmarsh has just said on TV to plant them 6 inches deep so the bulb s don't dry out and they re-flower for longer.

Pulled up and disposed of the courgette plant today as it was beginning to be attacked by something that is making the leaves grey and I don't want that spreading.

[telecom69]

Hi Penny, Just a quickie, yes you do need to plant the Daffs about the 6 inches mentioned or else they will topple over when they start to get tall, thats in addition to what Mr Titchmarsh says, so you need to either to get them out or put more soil on top,the choice is yours lots of rain about today but not so cold,hoping you are getting some rain also .....

[Tuppence2]

I think I'll dig them up, Bob. They'll be easy enough to find. What a nuisance! I ought to have checked before I planted them but we learn by our mistakes.

Yes, it's wet this morning. I heard rain falling earlier and it's spotting now. Hope we get more in the day, tbough I've to get moving now as I have to catch the 8.30 bus to Devizes to play Mahjong with my sister and the U3A group there. The front garden is so dry and I've not been watering it, so the rain is very welcome.

[Bush Lady]

Potting Soil Saver

A great way to save money on potting soil, save yourself a
backache, and recycle/reuse styrofoam packing peanuts is to
fill your planters about half full of the styrofoam peanuts,
add potting soil on top to fill the pot, and then plant. It
uses less soil and makes the planters lighter when you need to
move them.

[Tuppence2]

Very useful tip, Bush Lady. Thanks. Hadn't thought of that.

[Tuppence2]

Raining here, though not particularly heavily. My brassicas are being eaten by pigeons, I think, so I've put a temporary net over them. When I plant spinach in the spring, I'll use a poly-tunnel.

I've dug the last of the potatoes and look forward to planting new potatos. Bought a juicer and juiced vegetables today, sweet potato, celery, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, carrots and parsnip. A tasty drink. Made some nice juice with fruit the other day.

[Bush Lady]

Hi Penny, I seen the Potting Soil Saver idea in a Yahoo Group that I go to. It sure can be a back saver when we don't have to lift those heavy trays around. Glad you find it usefull.

It's good to hear that you have dug the last of you potatoes out. I have mine in the basement for a while already. Have a pretty good crop this year, in fact, I even have to many. Can sell a few bags, if someone comes around asking for potatoes.

The nights are starting to get cool. Have been having a good hard frost every night. I still have some carrots left in the garden. If anyone wants some of those, I have enough in the freezer for myself.

[Tuppence2]

It would be nice to be near enough to have some of your vegetables, Bush Lady. In error, I grew potatoes that weren't good storers so it's good that I've finished them and don't have a surplus. Must be careful as to which variety I plant next year.

We've not had frosts yet, though I don't expect they're far away. Very wet this morning. I'm off to Meeting and then, if my friend decides to go in the rain, we are going to Lackham Agricultural College (6 or 7 miles away) as it's their "Apple Day". Will take photos if we get there.

My "Toggi" riding raincoat and "Driza-Bone" hat that I got, second-hand, from the Charity shop the other day will come in very useful today!

[Tuppence2]

I visited the Farm Museum at Wiltshire College (formerly Lackham College of Agriculture) today, and here is an album of photos, including the walled garden and greenhouses. I remember my gran had a dolly tub and washboards in Hull, where we visited as children. There's a photo of "wash day" included.

I was surprised at the size of the lemons. Are they harvested while they're very small for sale in shops, or are there giant varieties?

Click on the photo and it will take you to the album.

Penny

[Tuppence2]

I visited at Farm Museum at the Wiltshire College (formerly Lackham College of Agriculture) today, and here is an album of photos, including the walled garden and greenhouses. I remember my gran had a dolly tub and washboards in Hull, where we visited as children. There's a photo of "wash day" included.

I was surprised at the size of the lemons. Are they harvested while they're very small for sale in shops, or are there giant varieties?

Click on the photo and it will take you to the album. You can chose to view the album as an automatic slideshow.

Penny

[telecom69]

Hi Penny, That was one great slideshow, I looked through it twice it was so interesting,bet those raised beds caught your eye, some of the photos brought back memories for me, the Dolly tub and washboard especially,my Mother used to use one when we were young children,can remember her skinning her knuckles more than once on them,the women of those days had it hard in so many ways, its a bit different now of course,the bomb shelter too brought back to me my very young days,we used to have a brick built one in the back yard but we didnt go in it very often,mostly she put us under the stairs,as I recall, or under the table,when the air raid sirens went off...I remember those days surprisingly well actually,can remember the rationing of food,and pictures of the concentration camps at Belsen,Buchenwald etc and the gas chambers,I cry now when I think back about it, those memories will never ever be erased from my mind, surprising how some things just stay with you forever,yet sometimes you cant think what you did on any given day last week ....the cactus and succulents looked well I thought.....

For me that was a great slideshow I thank you for sharing it one photo puzzled me a bit because in the background I could see some Runner Beans in flower still, maybe they weren't beans but they looked like it ....

The Lemons apparently come in all sizes,as you can see from this clip from another site
"
Sizing Lemons

California/Arizona lemons are shipped in sturdy, standardized paperboard cartons that hold about 40 pounds of fruit. The size designation, printed on every carton, states the number of lemons in the carton and also gives an indication of the size of the individual fruit within that carton. For example, a carton of "140s" contains 140 medium-size lemons. A carton of "200s" holds 200 small-size lemons, while a carton of "75s" contains 75 very large lemons. The best buy is the size that is most plentiful. It may be practical to buy different sizes for different uses."

Glad that you were able to visit the place,despite the weather,would never have seen those photos perhaps,,,we had two days of non stop rain but it finally cleared yesterday afternoon,but its still very cold, everything is soaked,most of the Dahlias are lying down finally having given up I think now,water lying everywhere,not a good end to the Season Im afraid .......

For me now not much to do in the garden except to keep filling the wheelie bin, with spent plants etc the Clematis Montana is not giving up just yet,quite a few odd flowers keep appearing, but mostly everything else that dies back is doing so,still got a few Tomatoes going that I keep fetching in to ripen,when they are finished I shall move as many containers as possible into the greenhouse,just for extra protection,plus of course still keeping the grass cut for as long as possible,seems nowadays that never stops growing,with the milder Winters we get ....

Happy gardening Penny,I know you still have some stuff ongoing .............

[Tuppence2]

Hello Bob.

Very pleased you enjoyed the photos. Sorry they brought sad memories as well as good ones. Our parents and gradnparents has is so much harder than we do as regards housework, we just shouldn't complain about our lot. I'm just too young to remember bomb shelters and "digging for victory". Did you notice the wire sculptures of a man and woman working in their "war-time" garden? Very cleverly done.

I was surprised, too, to see runner beans - there were still beans on the vines. My tomato in the greenhouse still has flowers and I'm loathe to dispose of it, but I don't expect they'll come to anything.

Thanks for the article about lemons. The ones there were huge, like melons. I hadn't realized they come in so many sizes. There were figs and bananas, too.

I liked the cacti display, too. The Haworthia was very striking. Not many flowers on them as the greenhouses weren't heated. There were reptiles and small exotic animals, along with birds and lemurs which I didn't photograph, as the College runs courses in small and exotic animal management. In my day, it was an agricultural College and I went there on a 10 day course from school, working with cows and other farm animals.

It's not raining this morning. I've just taken a look at the brassicas and they're standing up. They seem to wilt if I water them, which is strange.

Sounds as though it's time to lift you dahlias, or do you leave them? Frank lifts a lot of the ones he and Carole grow.

[telecom69]

Hi Penny, I dont know what to think about the wilting Brassica's Penny,only thing I can think of is that haven't put down many roots yet and therefore are suffering from over watering perhaps ?

We had our first frost yesterday,it wasnt a severe one but it was bad enough to ice up the car and greenhouse windows, the Dahlias and also the Bronze leaf Begonias that I have left,survived it also so Im pleased about that,after the frost it was sunny well into the afternoon ....I was always taught/told that it was best to lift Dahlias after the frost had blackened them (which it can do surprisingly quickly),having said that,I have a couple of smaller varities that have been left in large bucket containers for several years now,and always flower well,every year without any attention,so I suppose that leaving them in the ground,providing of course, that its not somewhere that gets waterlogged over Winter, might not be a bad idea ....I might just do that this year,it will take away all the drying storing and starting into growth in Spring that you have to go through if you lift them..

I wouldn't think that the remaining flowers you have on the Tomatoes will come to anything now Penny,there will not be enough sun or even time for them to do much more now, but I do know about the being hesitant to dump them its as if we think well they wont hurt being left,and they might just .....but they never do of course ....wish you well Penny ...happy gardening

[Tuppence2]

Hello, Bob. I think you're right about the brassicas. They won't be well-established. I picked a ripe tomato yesterday. It tasted very nice. I've got two peppers forming on the pepper plant so I'll leave it and the tomato for a while.

I was given a lot of Conference pears, fallers from a tree at Palmer Gardens, and juiced them yesterday. They make delicious juice.

Rain forecast for today and it's wet out this morning. You've beaten us to frost, none here yet. It seems to be colder indoors than out sometime and I'm putting the heating on morning and evening.

It would certainly be a lot less work if you left your dahlias in the ground. I know a lot of people do.