Magazine style - all inclusive

[alp]

Hey, where have you been? Did you watch ATP yesterday? Amazing! New kid on the bloc! Glad to hear from you!

Got to go now. Need to dig up my Rajman Firecracker in the allotment before the frost has it! The others I will cover. Too much fluffying around. Enjoy your dry moment, Zenj! I know the feeling. Can't believe we had such a lovely dry sunny day yesterday!

 

[Zenj]

Yes have been watching the tennis the young ones are showing there talent and stamina now was a good final .

 

[alp]

I sent you the packet of seeds on Friday and hope you can get them today or tomorrow. Was a bit worried about you.

Hope you like the other seeds as well. Yes, the Tsipat??? seems to be very good.

 

[Perki]

I've been watching the odd match bit annoying amazon had covered as well , didn't get to watch federer destroy Novak and when I did get chance he were awful against tsitsipas missed 12 break points . The younger players but not that young anymore theim is 25-26 are catching up and look physically fast compared to the big 3 . Can't believe fed - nadel and novak are still top dogs most tennis players are over the hill when they hit 30s

Cold frosty morning today even wore my long johns today but it were quite nice in the sun . Its already frozen now hopefully this frost will finish off the last of the dahlias some just dont want to go black they are just hanging on.

 

[alp]

Yes, the top 3 are well over 30, but some sports personalities are just less troubled by injuries. I caught a glimpse of Federer's playing and knew he would lose. The guy is so young and taller. £20m is a lot of money. Well done to him.

It's cold and I am annoyed with myself. Yesterday, got to the allotment only to find that I had no pen with me. Came home and realised that Myrtle and Rajman Firecracker were both smaller clumps and of course,I mixed them up. Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Potted them up and wait for more confusion to come. The living room is full of flying compost gnats.

Sold the vitopod and now have a bit of cash to splurge

Google temperature and it actually is -1c! Whoa! Glad that I took tons of cuttings. A dry day to come, hopefully! I think I will don 2 pairs of trousers as well. No fun shivering in the garden!

My Honka has set seeds. Just a tiny bud. I replanted Honka in the hope of getting more seeds. But no, a quick tidying up saw me removing the last useful bud. Oh, dear! Dahlia sets seeds even in the frost here in East London. I was so unthinking and too quick. If it rains badly, I might move it back into the lean to.

Bought some bird foods from Wyevale. £2 for 3 bags of small suet pellets. had been very disappointed as they had been untouched. So were the fat balls. So 3 bird feeders and no takers. Kicked myself to have bought the fat balls. Two mornings ago, saw the suet feeders totally empty. Last night, knowing how cold it would be, I topped them up apart from the fat balls. Hope I have helped the birds a bit in this bitter cold!

I will stick to bargain balls! 49p for 6 (smaller balls - shrinkage but same price) as they have always been popular!

 

[Zenj]

Morning all heavy frost this morning and not clearing bright day though all plants are feeling sorry for them selves but a few spring bulbs are showing.

 

[alp]

Yes, very heavy frost and all my salvia amistad blooms were covered with icing. At 10am, all the fog and frost were gone! Just a very cold day. Put down tons of newspapers on the tiled lean to floor. Thank heavens for the free newspapers.

Zenj, you're right. Better not to worry about seedlings in winter. Even I have been freezing these last few days. Now I have discovered that I have been hosting feast for starlings and sparrows. Not a tits in sight!

Had potted up some Lupin Gallery Blue Shades and some Centurion Blue bi-colour delphiniums. Now I have to be careful they don't become meals for compost gnats.

 

[alp]

Last night, we had a roasted dinner with Butternut squash - oh, soooo sweeeet!. Brazenly asked my next door allotmenteer for one! I had it once when I was very young and didn't quite remember what it tasted like. Even though I had a big bag of spuds, I decided to add some of the squash. It was delicious and 2/3 of the squash was pure flesh! Pure bliss and I have already saved up some seeds for next year.

It's just cold in the lean to and my candle has finished burning! Feel sorry for the plants and can't wait until the temperature climbs up to double digit! A dizzying height of 10c on Friday!

 

[alp]

T&M is doing another £1 for £10 round and on top of that there is another 4 packets for the price of 3. I ended up paying £9.95. Now I need to get another allotment to house them.

 

[alp]

What a cold day yesterday was. Hope no more homeless died in the cold.

Seems to be the same today. Yesterday, I was tidying up the black boxes in the lean to and saw tons of gardening stuff inside the boxes. Some mealworms had gone really old and the chickens turned up their nose.

Salvage another tray of dahlia cuttings and replanted a Daphne Aureomarginata odorous. It was not happy where it was at all.

Gazania is tentative in this cold air, but it's a trier!

Mother of Pearl is flowering for a 2nd time!

Penstemon Sour Grapes M Fisher ? is very happy to perform in this cold!

Mother of Pearl's flowering stem!

Penstemon Arabesque Red F1 very bushy and the flowers are a striking red!

Flower of the year for me! Alstroemeria still flowering, even now!

Roses in the allotment

Mushroom and this was only one of the two.

Achillea - What a happy bunch!

Penstemon phoenix Red

A half formed Green Twister!

Some kind of Helleborus picotee?

 

[Perki]

I've had the lurgy all week but I've been doing a bit over the week still lifted the last of the dahlias yesterday. Had the afternoon off so wrestled the Cannas out of the pots and cut back the plants / removed tithonia from the hot border.

The shredding pile were getting quite large so pulled out the little woodchipper but the cutting were to wet and slimy so got out one of the bigger mowers and chomped them up with that. By time I had finished that it were already dark

my bulbs arrived today from farmer gracy I do tend to have a look at the quality of the bulbs when they arrive . Bought that 1 allium ambassador and it is HUGE , I think they sent me the XXL bulbs which were being sold for £9 each instead of the £3.50 bulbs

These are 3 of my other Allium Ambassador bulbs compared to

 

[alp]

Whoa! That's huge! How come I don't have such lovely mistakes! I didn't buy it as I only bought those 5 bulb lots. I even ordered ShubertiiI Hope it's exciting!

 

[alp]

Peter Nyssen is having £10 off. Use TENOFF1 at checkout

The new allotmenteer is going to deliver some horse manure today and I will be busy. It was drizzly last night and I hope it's not going to rain today as it will be so messy. Shredded 9 bags of leaves yesterday and it took 3 hours. Now I need to find somewhere to let them decompose gracefully. The next lot won't be shredded - too much hassle and now that I have a bit to get going, I will just let the leaves stew.

We have a respectable 7c now. It was so cold yesterday! Hope you guys are warmer and hope the rain doesn't depress you!

The lady whose house is next to the allotment was very obliging when I asked her for laburnum seeds and she gave me some. Now one has already sprouted. So thrilled. The same can't be said of my Witch Hazel seeds. I wish I had heeded Perki's advice and bought the Hamemalis. Last time we went, both Fiesta and Hamemalis had gone. Got some orange witch hazel seeds, but googled, more head-banging as they require 20c and then 4c.. I will just put them out in a pot and let them do their own business. Too painful to worry about all that malarkey..

 

[Perki]

I think you should of got the witch hazel to, they don't come true to seed so you orange ones could be anything and take many years to flower. Ones in GC like arnold etc are all grafted onto a root stock hence why they are so dear to buy.

I love laburnums remind me of wisteria ,I germinated a laburnum from seed before but forgot about it so it I bought a bareroot one but I could see where it were previously planted so I think I may of planted it to deep, anyway it never came to . I ended up buying one from the GC for about £30-40 7ft tall think it were early 2017 ? I happy I payed the extra for a larger plant now not just because it has established itself but all the years saved from trying originally from seed.

I am having the afternoon off , I really need to plant some bulbs and other stuff but Iam not feeling up to it, my throat killing me especially outside with the cold air . I probably will do something just so I dont get bored and feel like I've wasted an afternoon.

 

[alp]

Yes, it's a real shame. If I bought it from internet, it would be tiny. Seeds are pretty much useless as thy need special treatment. £10 for a 5 foot tall one is a bargain. Those with original prices were fetching £30. £5 for a Fiesta apple was brilliant too. OK, it was abit misshapen, but it can still be trained after a bit of trimming. Fiesta is delicious.

The lady warned me that laburnum seeds were very poisonous and told me a story in which a mother poisoned her children by grinding laburnum seeds into their food. . If you could get seeds, they would be easy to germinate. I might get son to get some for you as he might be tall enough to reach the seed pods. She told me to get them, but they were beyond reach. If you want them, I can get them for you. The seed pods were full of tiny black bugs which swarmed over my yellow top last summer and my son's lime green shirt. Now I know why! After that, I have sworn not to wear that top again to the allotment. Got quite a bit of horse manure, but the quality is not that brilliant. Richard turned up his nose, but H said he would get it even though he didn't think much of it. I didn't really mind as long as they can mulch my patch. Then the new allotmenteer son's in law said that he would get them every month, I went home as I was doing it with a tiny bucket for nearly 3 hours. Awful to be stuck in traffic at school finishing time. Took me an hour, not to mention the foul smells emanating from unwashed with matted hair who even had a wife sitting next to him, alkie whose blood oozed a different stench and chain smokers who came out to kill the air!

I myself have some bulbs to plant, only in pots. Don't fancy digging up the ground and killing the plants already in situ!

Hope your throat is getting better - salt water to rinse your mouth and paracetamol x 2 every 4 hour but no more than 2 days will usually work. I hope it's just a cold, Perki! Also, a bit of vapour rub around your throat will ease the pain a bit.