2: Our gardening diaries - from latest toys, flowers to wildlife .. Please upload pics

[alp]

It's raining, this is the first rain since May 2017

Sounds like you live in a desert! Where do you get your water from mostly then, @Greenhorn ?

This winter, I have had a lot of rain. I am hoping for the best in my garden which is always dry.

 

[alp]

Good morning: First night that I have had a proper sleep even though I exercised half an hour before going to bed. Another bleak day ahead. Yesterday it was overcast all through the day.

 

[Logan]

Alp,yes going to be cloudy all day here. What do you drink before going to bed? When i go to Keith's, i have 2 ordinary capachinoes.Last saturday i had 3.On the night couldn't get to sleep, i usually have decaf coffee or tea at home.

 

[alp]

If I drink anything after 8.30pm, I will be like the woman in the advert serving at the check out, thinking about toilet pan all the times.

I only drink tea or water and occasionally coffee during the day. Avoid drinking anything after 8.30pm.

I now get onto the exercise bike for at least an hour a day, so hopefully, the leg muscles will get stronger and firm up my middle. That's the hope any way.

Saw your wallflowers on sale and they weren't cheap. Shame all the allium gladiator bulbs were gone in Summerhill. Now that I have been to these posh places, I value my economy diy gc much, much more. Might weed a bit more today and sweep the narrow path littered with hellebore leaves. So many of them and I'm running out of space to recycle them.

 

[Logan]

That's ok then.Yes the wallflowers are expensive, we've saved a lot by growing our own. It's very difficult to recycle the leaves, because they're so dense. I put them in the grey bin for the dustmen,we are aloud to put some in.

 

[alp]

Here, people pay £23 to have green waste taken away. But they are very fussy and would complain even with a bit of mud. I ask you! How ridiculous is that? You can weed without taking up a certain amount of mud. I don't even want to use my home-made compost as it is a hell of a job to weed. There are some very tenacious endemic weeds from home-made compost or from horse manure and I can't really burn them off as it would be very anti-social. We have 3 categories for recycle. General household in black bags, recyclables in orange bags and green waste in a green tub. I have seen some 5- 7 crates in certain areas. Recycling gone mad!

You want to be a good citizen and divide up your rubbish, but 5-7 crates is pure madness. Any way, they all end up in the Phillipines (poor people there). As a global citizen, we really must reduce our packaging. I sometimes strip of shopping of its packaging material before I leave the shop. It's a nuisance and they should do something about it.

 

[Upsy Daisy]

Morning all, grey and dreary looking outside today.

Well , didn't get anything done in the garden yesterday, definitely would have needed a ' Heart of steel ' @alp

So.....may , if it's not too cold, stick to the same plan today, we will see

Yes I find drinking caffeinated drinks in the afternoon/ evening keeps me awake @Logan .....we only have decaf tea and coffee at home too.

We grow our wallflowers from seed normally too, start them off in early summer. Last year sadly most of mine died as I was up in London most of the time and they got missed out when hubs did the watering! So ended up buying barerooted ones......they are cheap enough , you buy them in bundles....had 12 in each £1:50p bundle.

Have a Tip Top Tuesday

 

[alp]

I spent half of my yesterday talking to the bank which suspended my internet banking for I dared to move our money to another bank. Before we knew, both our accounts were suspended. They said that this was a new behaviour and they were worried about fraud. In the end, they gave us multichoice to see if we could pass security. Son failed his and had to go to the bank itself to have the suspension uplifted. That's how I spent most of the day and another 1/3 was spent looking for the cards. When we couldn't find them, we blamed the "holes" in the house!

Another miserable day beckons..

Yes, @Upsy Daisy , wallflowers could be very cheap. Sadly, I can't see one this year. I might start doing them again as they are a rarity this time of the year! Saw a hellebore with 2 stems in Altons asking for £11.97 ! A man bought a Confederate Jasmine and I bet he must be an ex stock broker! The place asked for so much for a plant that it's literally unreal!

 

[Logan]

We only have 2 Wheely bins, green for the recycling plastic and paper. Usually it's shipped over to China to be recycled, but China isn't allowing it to go there.So it's getting stock piled here.Grey bin for the other that they can't recycle. Hubby takes a lot to the dump, where there's different skips to put things in. I've got 3 compost bins, but i don't put weeds in. I put uncooked kitchen waste in and plants from the garden. I use that as a mulch on the roses and fruit. You could put weeds in a bucket of water to rot down.

 

[alp]

We only have 2 Wheely bins, green for the recycling plastic and paper. Usually it's shipped over to China to be recycled, but China isn't allowing it to go there.So it's getting stock piled here.Grey bin for the other that they can't recycle. Hubby takes a lot to the dump, where there's different skips to put things in. I've got 3 compost bins, but i don't put weeds in. I put uncooked kitchen waste in and plants from the garden. I use that as a mulch on the roses and fruit. You could put weeds in a bucket of water to rot down.

You don't know how much weed I have! Enough to make you cry! But I will try! Oh, gawd, it's so dark and grim and cold that I don't even want to move away from the radiator. I have the whole house to myself.

 

[Logan]

Yes it's dark here and drizzling, won't get to do much. Still got the light on to do this.

 

[alp]

Same here. But suddenly remember the order to Deacons' nursery. They told me that they don't have twined apricot / nectarine and if I wanted two separate trees, I would have to pay more. They said they would email me last week, no. No email, no phone call. And then they said I couldn't be contacted and yet nobody has called. Won't buy from them again.

Another annoying thing was that they sent me another invoice of £17 as they didn't have twinned apricot/nectarine. It's not my fault their inventory was not up to date. To be kind, I said they could newly grafted one (but you know how dodgy it would be to send one in transit with a newly grafted bud. When they heard my name on the phone, someone by the phone said the order would be sent out MONDAY ie. today and yet even I had no idea what they were supposed to send as I was trying to be fair to them and to myself and had to change some items to fit the price.

 

[Upsy Daisy]

Quite grey here too, but thankfully it's not cold

Just had a wander round the garden , staked a huge wallflower that I left in from last year....normally I pull them all up but I left a couple in last year to see how they coped, and to see what the quality of bloom was like.It's full of bloom Although I usually sow the perennials variety I still tend to chuck them .

Just popped in for a green tea break then will go back out.......that's if I don't get distracted with something else

 

[Upsy Daisy]

We have 4 types of council refuse collection, black for general waste ( fortnightly ), green for recyclable, tins, certain plastics, cardboard etc ( fortnightly) box for glass and batteries ( monthly) and a box for food waste ( fortnightly). Don't bother with the food one as it goes on the compost. The green recyclable one tends to be put out monthly too as we don't get much waste. We don't get much in the black one either ,but always put that out as I don't want decomposing rubbish hanging around They also have a garden wheelie bin that you have to subscribe to, again we don't have that as it all goes on the compost

 

[Upsy Daisy]

............see, told you I'll get distracted........almost time for lunch now