No postings in this forum for days. Are you all too busy in your gardens or have you abandoned all thoughts of gardening and gone on holiday?
I daren't go on holiday yet as there are several biological entitites currently trying to take over my garden - tomato blight, gooseberry sawfly, grass, sow thistle, bindweed, ground elder, etc. Although something is very kindly eating all my blackfly and greenfly, I am having to deal with the rest (bordeaux mixture, pyrethrum, hoe, fork).
Perhaps you are all wrestling with similar problems and therefore have no time to post.
And, can anyone tell me why my autumn raspberiies have started producing fruit in July, again? We have normal summer weather (18° to 38° C, thunderstorms, a few days rain, then sun and warm weather for several days) so it isn't weather induced.
The buzzards are back in the valley and seem to be looking for young birds as well as the usual mice and voles. Yesterday there was such a racket from the crows when one of a pair of buzzards landed in the tree they were in. Can any ornithologists out there tell me why they come down the mountain (surely it's much more dangerous for them down here - cars, guns. dogs, etc.) when there is food up the mountain?
Where are you all?
I am here :)
Good!
I was beginning to feel lonely!
So was i gerddi. Noone was interested in my flycatchers LOL.
Yes, just busy busy time probably.
I think that what a lot of people call autumn raspberries in fact have an extended cropping season, it's just that they carry on into the autumn, rather than they only produce fruit in the autumn. That's what mine used to do anyway.
I should think the buzzards are coming down because there are easier pickings lower down, worth running the gauntlet of all the other hazards.
Think i've given up the battle of the weeds for this summer. Perhaps try and reclaim my garden in the autumn, if everything else has quietened down by then. Sounds as if you haven't yielded to the enemies yet
:)
my raspberries, all three varieties are cropping, we're eating them with nearly every meal !!!
I'm with you Philomel on the weeds, it must be the rain, the gArden looks o.k if you don't look too closely, I go for the cottagey/prarie look anyway.LOL .Lucky you Gerrdi, I'd love to see buzzards,and some more exotic birds.
We've had visitors all weekend,and I'm absolutely shattered now, so today I'm just going to sit in the garden and enjoy the sunshine.(once I've stripped and washed all the bedding !!)I've held off sowing my perrenial seeds as we're off on hols in 2 weeks, do you think that it'll be o.k. to sow them later in August?It tends not to get cold here until Nov,plus I don't have room for anymore at the mo,till I manage to get rid of some.
Here wild raspberries are ripening and some of our yellow raspberries are ready.
My raspberries are also cropping by the ton this year. The kids like me to make wine. Everything in the garden/jungle is flowering early. Even up in the north west things appear to be doing things far earlier than they should. You are very lucky having buzzards around you. The only ones I get to see are when we go down south to Hereford and beyond. Do you get any other unusual birds in your garden or do you not know their names?
I'm here as always.
Most of the garden is just ticking over now, hopefully all we'll need do from now on is clip the grass in the wildflower garden short with a pair of dagging shears (must get a new whetstone!) I need to plan some more plants for the area as it's a tough one to deal with. Most plants just aren't man enough to cope.
Sorry Gerddi I don't know whay the birdies are paying you a vist or why your autumn raspberreis are fruiting, mine have finished fruiting although we might get a second flush in late August, that's sometimes the way.
Harvested big juicy blackcurrants and gooseberries this weekend. Strawberries are cropping quite well but few ripe fruits as yet. Even the Passionflower has a ripe fruit waiting to be picked (Chickens love them)
Buzzards are mainly carrion feeders but also walk about feilds eating insects and worms
What other "exotic" birds. Well, some are the same as the UK but some are different. For example, we have grey wagtails instead of pied wagtails.
The larger birds locally are buzzards and red kites and there is a pair of eagles nesting on a nearby mountain (near Lucerne) but I've only seen them flying over, not up close.
Nearer home we have serins, nightingales, redstarts, blackbirds, jays, magpies, jackdaws, ravens and crows and there are alpine choughs up the mountains (only seen those at 3000 metres).
There are also storks, although these are more in the central lowland area; I've seen them near the town of Zug; wild ones feeding at a pond and tamer ones (ie coerced ones) nesting on a Gasthaus. They are gorgeous!
We don't have as many sparrows as we had in North Yorkshire, nor starlings, and there are no robins :-(
Every summer we have swallows nesting in the barn next door.
Lots of flowers here. Also lots of weeds. Have given up the battle for the moment. I'll be starting to cut back some of flowers soon, will rip out some of the weeds then. Been busy with exams and assignments at uni.
so where am I these days?
I'm very busy advising people on what to do about bats that are living in and around their homes
Mark
I hope you are advising them to be nice to them -bats are gorgeous little animals and don't deserve their bad press. I'd feel quite honoured if they roosted in my roof space.
We had pipistrelles nearby in North Yorkshire and, here in the alps, we have mouse-eared bats, which are quite a bit bigger.
yep I do my best to let the bats stay. I also give talks on bats, guided bat walks and lecture on bat conservation
if you want bats you have to make a small hole in the gable on the south side of your house. the hole needs to be against the wall and only need to be as small as the end of a match box.
Oh gosh!
Don't talk to me about house martins.
They nest in my eaves and squeal at sensitive times. Which confuses my wife.
And legally, I cannot remove them.
Please explain this to my wife...
JOHN
c'mon now a friend of mine has 19 nests and has never complained. I wish mine would return. They havent nested in the nest for a few years now.
squealing sounds more like Swifts which are even more exciting to have
Mark, did you get my email?
ROTFL John
Mark, if you get excited by swifts in your eaves, my condolences to your wife. I cannot even get my wife excited by throwing my old socks at our bedroom's ceiling beams, wherefrom they hang comically like bats. Leering at us.
She was once rudely woken by one sock falling on her face in the small hours ("Ee! Bats!" she squeaked) and I was shaken awake, to batter it to death with a Perrier bottle.
So I do not think swifts would be an improvement.
But each to his own...
This message was edited Friday, Jul 26th 2:10 PM
We have bats flying past our windows at dusk every night, we though that they were in our roof but no we have been up there and reckon they must be in next doors. We love to watch them.
John!
Shame on you!
Martins and bats are both lovely creatures. We had martins under our eaves and they didn't keep us awake - it's man's noises that keep people awake, not nature!
Educate your wife - bats are lovely little animals, do good (eat lots of disease-spreading flies) and she should feel honoured at having both martins and bats in the house - both bring good luck!
And, where is the reply to my email!? Stop hogging this forum and get writing!
Mick
An old friend of mine did what you do in Welwyn Garden City. Great job - my congratulations to you.
hi5 to Gerdii
forget about bats in the cavity!! they are usually in the cavity wall
LOL John
I suffered greatly at the hand(foot?) of male sockness as a girl, since I have three older brothers. You have just served to remind me why I never did marry any of those beaus I met in the more excitable years of teenagehood. The shine of clean mens socks wears off after the wedding day.
Wondering where that awful smell was coming from wasn't something that took much time to find out. Favourite places for worn sock dumping were established in my brothers early years. Almost the territorial marking of the human male couped up with others of his own gender and relative species.
Certainly the throwing of mens socks old and new is not something that would be of mild interest to me unless it is in my general direction. I'm sure your wife may feel the same way *G*
Dear Baa, Gerddi and Mick
Uh, whatever did Mick do - in Welwyn Garden City?? :)
Gerddi, I have been afflicted in the last five days through not having Internet access. I have just sent you an e-mail which is 5 days out of date. So please print it out, shred it and mulch your few (remaining) Fab tomatoes with it.
Baa, do not disdain nylon socks or pantihose. They make wondrous capillary tubes, if twined, to bring water to pots in hot weather. They do not rot.
Dry, they expand to unlikely proportions to dry beans and peas wherein, if hung from your beams. (Preferably not over the bed.)
They truss up tomatoes, beans and melons - and, shrouding one's head, repel flies and visitors. (Well, very old pantihose does.)
Alas, I never have enough of them. But if I was to advertise in this forum for old pantihose, doubtless some folk would misunderstand me...
And I would be toaded off and have to join GardenWeb.
JOHN
John
ROTFL If anyone else wrote that post I'd be seriously worried!
My main question is (curiosity often overcomes my desire not to know such things) ... what is it your visitors have done that caused you to make the experiment of pantyhose on head, vis a vis visitor scaring?
Now I know I'm a mere child to many people but I recall a few old programmes where burglars wear them for misidentification purposes (I dread to think what nylons do to the female bottom). I also know a few men who, having worked in very cold conditions, wear them under their overalls (it's just a comfort thing dear *G*) but to drive away unwanted visitors? This is a new thing ... if you ever write a book on modern etiquette, or indeed a tome entitled 101 things to do with your old nylons, please let me know I'll be buying a few copies as Christmas presents!
Incidently, if you are serious about your old nylon requirements, regardless of what else you may do with them, let me know I'm sure I can find some.
Dear Baa et alia
Please everybody forgive me for my unforgiveable absence from this forum for two weeks. I thought I had my Internet access resolved, but it seemed not. A techie, who suffers from delusions of adequacy, absconded with my computer and - when he did not return it - I hijacked it from him, and re-configured the wretched modem by myself.
Well, I thought you might like to know all that...
No, Baa, my wife would never understand my soliciting pantihose from a strange lady. Especially one called Baa...
However, I am always willing to accept consignments of old nylon socks which (I trust) will offend nobody but the postman, and which I can cut down to truss tomatoes with - or to toss at the ceiling.
Yours, always dibbering
JOHN
Ahh there you are John, I thought you'd got lost among the tomatoes!
Sadly my tootsies will only tolerate cotton or wool socks :(
Oh Baa
Disdain not cotton or wool socks.
Cut them vertically into 1 metre slips and wind them around tomatoes or thrusting beans/peas, to tether them. Then at season's end, toss both the haulm and socks onto the compost.
But I suspect you've Thought of That, already...
I'm back to my blighted tomato patch, trying to rescue a few before the Darkness (and the blue bruised stems) closes them all down.
John
John,
do you have ANY clothes left at all?
;-)
*wrapped up*
Wintermoor
John I have just been harvesting my cherry toms. I have sadly neglected them I had no idea the plants grew quite so big and I often forget to water them. My 5 foot canes were nothing short of useless. I dont have any socks or tights, maybe an old bra or two would do? Anyway I have still managed to get a good harvest, so Im pleased really.
john ,have just got back from my hols to find garden gone junglified.And my outdoor toms have black places on the stems, and some of the toms are brown, is this blight? i've never had it before if it is.what should i do? remove the affected ones? could tights help ? :-)They seem to do everything else!are you sure you're not bob flowerdue in disguise?perhaps ypu wear tyres in your spare time.I'm off out now to try to sort out this overgrown mess, if I can fight my way through that is !!! :-)
P.S. picked loads of plums last night too, those that weren't on the ground, not too sure what to do with them all,(jam's not an option, no one here eats it)there's too many for even me to eat all in one go, though I did try last night, 9who needs laxatives)
LOL Wintermoor and Sueone!
John
No I hadn't Thought of That since fibre seems to take an age to break down in the compost bin. We tend to have stunted tomatoes here they've only reached 2ft tall. Perhaps I'll put up a no smoking sign in the greenhouse *G*
Sueone - you have blight!
Panic not, you didn't really want to grow tomatoes, did you? Seriously, dig out all the affected plants at once, put them in a big plastic bag without brushing the leaves onto other tomatoes, and take the lot down to a landfill. It's shedding blight spores all the time and you don't want it in your compost or anywhere on your land.
Once you've got blue/brown stains on the stems, the plant is doomed. But there's a chance the blight may not have spread to other plants. So act quickly!
Then spray the remaining plants at once with Bordeaux solution (a mix of copper sulphate and washing soda you can buy at gardening centres). That may save the remaining plants.
I set out 220 heirloom tomatoes this year, sprayed them with Bordeaux solution at end July and also in mid August - the peak blight season. And still I have blight.
This has been the worst blight month that local growers can remember - high temperatures plus continuing high humidity of 75%, the fatal level.
Still, I think the Bordeaux solution has greatly slowed its spread, so I have spent all today salvaging most of the tomatoes green, to ripen them indoors then save the seed.
Last year, blight moved so fast in my garden it destroyed 72 heirloom tomato plants - that had not been sprayed - literally overnight. From proud green fronds to brown rotting mush in just 12 hours.
True, Bordeaux solution is not organic (though the Soil Association reluctantly approves it), but there's no effective alternative.
Only do it QUICKLY!
John
Sueone & John
Join the club!
It's been an awful year for blight and nearly everyone, apart from my sister in Shopshire, has tomato blight this year.
My blight resistant potatoes were doing fine until the last lot of rain and I'm thankful I was growing them under black plastic and had already harvested most of them.
John
Where's the reply to my e-mail - I asked for a receipt of my "seed order"; haven't you received it? I know you've had non-computer conditions!
It's a good job I didn't need many tomatoes! How did the resistant ones do? And I agree with you - Bordeaux mixture!
Sueone
Put those plums in the post to me! I love plums and bottle them, freeze them, make pies, purèes, etc, and am currently waiting for them to come cheap enough for me to buy a big box.
If you want some recipes, send me an email.
And as for the jungle - autumn is almost here and most of it will die down soon!
And I've just spotted that you have mouse-eared bats gerddi. I'm green. They're now extinct here. Definitely on my "want to see" list!
Pipistrelles - yawn...........
Thanks for posting that last bit about jungles. It's given me the will to live :)
did you say jungle philomel how about helping me tame my allotment?
Got enough of a jungle of my own, but thanks for the invitation LOL. It was the thought of tackling it that was diminishing my will to live. gerddi pointing out that it will soon be dying down has improved my mental state beyond bounds :)
Oh gerddi - don't hit me! I'll set my tortoise on you.
Yes, I have your seed order and lo, I have acknowledged it! (Well, it might still be sitting in my conservatory, adding its little bit of ethylene to ripen my green tomatoes, hastily plucked in from the Blight today.)
If it is, I shall post it to you posthaste (which is, of course, an oxymoron - how does 'oxymoron' translate in French?). If it's not, the Swiss postal service already has it, so please chastise them.
Idea: just post several packets of Gruyere cheese, with an indecipherable address. Then all their subpost offices will have to close down by Autumn.
Yours, hastily salvaging blighted tomatoes
John
thanks for the advice , I'm off out now to destroy the affected ones, hope it doesn't spread to my greenhouse ones, they are growing strong. The greenhouse is a long way from the veggie plot though, so I'm hopeful!Gerddi,I'd love some recipes, there's nothing much in my books apart from plain old plum pie and crumble. Maybe I should invest in a few modern cookbooks. thrust a bowlful onto my neighbour last night ,before she could refuse !!!After dealing with toms, the next job will be to pick more plums.I love the idea of fresh fruit, but I'm never sure what to do about the glut that comes sometimes.