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Yes...no-one should be ‘lighting fires’,  especially this weekend.

If all had gone to plan we would have been with all our children and grandchildren right this minute. 

We miss them. 

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Well, we're having to burn some garden waste because they've stopped collecting it and closed the tip. It's got to go somewhere but no-one told the plants to stop growing.

We're leaving it a few days to dry out and do it after 8pm when everybody should have shut their windows anyway. Not too much smoke.

But it's our own garden so no council to tell us off!

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It's remarkable how much material you can get into a garden waste bin. Several times I've noticed ours overflowing as the Mrs hacks away at recalcitrant growth, but an attack with a spade from above has so far lowered the level to the extent that the lid will shut. It's getting to be rather heavy mind. We asked the lads on the normal bin round if we could put garden stuff into the, very rarely even half full, domestic bin and they said yes. Unclear what the official view is. 

 

We do compost quite a lot of material, all our vegetable waste and some paper/card. Toilet roll tubes are used to raise some deep rooted seedlings, e.g. parsnips, they rot down once planted in the ground.

 

I've recently discovered that some of the supermarket plastic packaging can be used as seed trays, they're actually rather better made than some of  the trays you get for the purpose!  Yoghurt pots (Greek no fat in our case) make excellent garden  pots which we will use to raise sweetcorn (maize) later this year. You can poke holes in the bases of these containers using a heated metal thing, e.g. a bicycle wheel spoke. It will be interesting to see if any of these plastic items are biodegradable, so far nothing has decomposed.

Edited by Bryan
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40 minutes ago, Mr Standfast said:

I was thinking of turning the compost today

 

26 minutes ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

I may wash the car again today,

 

I’m writing a short history of timewasting, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. There are so many distractions. Look… hamsters… and they’re dancing!!

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1 hour ago, Mr Standfast said:

I was thinking of turning the compost today but I may put it off so I have something to look forward to.

 

Stay safe!

 

😉

 

If you what any help with that, just ask. I will need a bit more information though. Like what's compost? And what's turning? Is turning a musical term, like tuning? 

 

Edo

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1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

If you what any help with that, just ask. I will need a bit more information though. Like what's compost? And what's turning? Is turning a musical term, like tuning? 

 

Edo

 

I guess compost isn't so big in Brooklyn. Edo, its just a pile of grass cuttings and organic stuff left in a corner of the garden to decay into a mulch. Turning it gets some air into it to aid the microbes. Be interested to see where this takes the thread...I suspect we have some A grade compositor reading.

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Yikes! So compost is . . . rot? We had a lot of that in Brooklyn. 

 

When I lived in Oxfordshire, April was the month when the sun reappeared and the countryside began to bloom. I had thought I would take a 3-day train trip to Chester or Leeds. Chester because I miss Village England. Not to be this spring. I hate HATE taking pictures of empty street. I've said 1,000 times that I don't do Live News and don't want to. So I'm bored. Yes, we're all bored. 

 

2BBJ24T.jpg

The WiFi has disappeared in my building. ??? I'm using the data for Hotspot on my phone. It is expensive. 

 

Be extra careful and stay safe, people. 

Edited by Ed Rooney
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1 hour ago, Mr Standfast said:

 

I guess compost isn't so big in Brooklyn. Edo, its just a pile of grass cuttings and organic stuff left in a corner of the garden to decay into a mulch. Turning it gets some air into it to aid the microbes. Be interested to see where this takes the thread...I suspect we have some A grade compositor reading.

 

We have a half acre plot so lots to compost! Two big containers made from pallets, one with fresh stuff rotting down and one with the previous year’s compost. That goes onto the vegetable beds along with some local manure and the rotting down stuff gets turned over into the empty side. 

Fascinating stuff eh?!

 

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1 hour ago, Thyrsis said:

 

We have a half acre plot so lots to compost! Two big containers made from pallets, one with fresh stuff rotting down and one with the previous year’s compost. That goes onto the vegetable beds along with some local manure and the rotting down stuff gets turned over into the empty side. 

Fascinating stuff eh?!

 

That's exactly my system too as I have a huge amount to compost every year. from a very big garden with hedges along the sides by the field. Two four feet cubes for each bin and I fill them to the top. I also have a shredder so nothing needs to go into garden waste bags, even if we had them here, which we don't. We have them in our second home in Snowdonia. My asparagus is just coming through now so a few feeds soon. 

Pete Davis

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/

http://peteslandscape.blogspot.com/

https://www.instagram.com/petedavisphoto/

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32 minutes ago, Dyn Llun said:

That's exactly my system too as I have a huge amount to compost every year. from a very big garden with hedges along the sides by the field. Two four feet cubes for each bin and I fill them to the top. I also have a shredder so nothing needs to go into garden waste bags, even if we had them here, which we don't. We have them in our second home in Snowdonia. My asparagus is just coming through now so a few feeds soon. 

Pete Davis

https://www.pete-davis-photography.com/

http://peteslandscape.blogspot.com/

https://www.instagram.com/petedavisphoto/

 

 You mention Asparagus. Saw on the lunchtime news that farmers are looking for people to pick the asparagus in their fields as they cannot get the usual foreign chapies over.

 

So if you have nothing to do and fancy a bit of exercise in the fresh air put your application forward. Hurry though as places are filling quickly. NOT.

 

Allan

 

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29 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

 You mention Asparagus. Saw on the lunchtime news that farmers are looking for people to pick the asparagus in their fields as they cannot get the usual foreign chapies over.

 

So if you have nothing to do and fancy a bit of exercise in the fresh air put your application forward. Hurry though as places are filling quickly. NOT.

 

Allan

 

I think I'll pass on that one although I could bring my own asparagus knife. They will have the same problem come strawberry time too. By then I will be bending and picking my own from the bed which is next to my asparagus bed. Hopefully the lockdown will be over before the raspberries later so the pickers can come over. I will be too busy picking my own again then. 

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13 minutes ago, Dyn Llun said:

. By then I will be bending and picking my own from the bed which is next to my asparagus bed.

 

Our local farm centre grows strawberries commercially and for pick your own. They are grown in troughs at eye level so picking is really easy!

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Excitement this aftenoon as I watched a small rat run across my allotment and into the neighbour's plot.  Had I brought a semi automatic weapon and a few rounds of ammo, I could have missed the rat but destroyed next door's polytunnel as collateral damage.

Edited by Bryan
Missed an apostrophe !!!
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39 minutes ago, AlbertSnapper said:

I made a rhubarb and raspberry crumble this afternoon. Anybody want some ? 😋

 

Now processing some pictures... 😐

 

Rhubarb and apple crumble here. Caramelised fruit as in a Gordon Ramsay  recipe and a little nutmeg in the crumble.  Nothing like it!

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2 hours ago, Bryan said:

Excitement this aftenoon as I watched a small rat run across my allotment and into the neighbour's plot.  Had I brought a semi automatic weapon and a few rounds of ammo, I could have missed the rat but destroyed next door's polytunnel as collateral damage.

 

You didn't happen to have your spade at hand?

I stood next to my grandfather once in his backyard when we spotted a rat running along a board. He reached behind him for his spade, the one we call a German spade and the Germans call an Idealspaten (though that's a brand name): a heavy rather narrow very sharp blade with a long handle and a T shaped end. It's for clay. He swung it forward in one smooth motion and it flew, blade forward, six or seven meters cutting the rat in two.

He must have had lots of practice. He was in his late sixties, I was about 15.

 

wim

 

edit: a spade like this

 

 

Edited by wiskerke
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11 minutes ago, Thyrsis said:

 

Rhubarb and apple crumble here. Caramelised fruit as in a Gordon Ramsay  recipe and a little nutmeg in the crumble.  Nothing like it!

 

My friend's Mum gave me a recipe for the crumble topping that I make.

As before when I made it, the crumble resembled concrete. But much harder !

 

Your crumble sounds nice. Enjoy 😋

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My day’s been filled with a range of fun activities. This afternoon involved wheel barrowing just over a tonne of compost around to our new raised veg patch and then tonight I had the joy of finding the toilet wouldn’t flush. This led to a thrilling night of everyone’s favourite game...... rodding drains, what fun I’ve been having:)

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3 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

You didn't happen to have your spade at hand?

I stood next to my grandfather once in his backyard when we spotted a rat running along a board. He reached behind him for his spade, the one we call a German spade and the Germans call an Idealspaten (though that's a brand name): a heavy rather narrow very sharp blade with a long handle and a T shaped end. It's for clay. He swung it forward in one smooth motion and it flew, blade forward, six or seven meters cutting the rat in two.

He must have had lots of practice. He was in his late sixties, I was about 15.

 

wim

 

edit: a spade like this

 

 

You have to be impressed by a person who can bisect a rat with a thrown spade!  I was using the wrong sort of tool, a garden rake in fact, but had I had a spade to hand would no doubt have missed the rat and taken out a row of cabbages.   

 

It was my grandfather who introduced me to gardening. My dad kept the garden tidy but had no real interest, but my grandfather built a greenhouse from scrap timber and even installed a second hand piped heating system. He taught me how to plant leeks using a dibber, and to remove the seed leaves from brassicas and drown them in when transplanting etc.

 

I've tried to interest our grandchildren, recently organising the World Series pea growing competition, but the lure of electronic gadgetry is all pervasive, and I've made little progress.

Edited by Bryan
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3 hours ago, Bionic said:

My day’s been filled with a range of fun activities. This afternoon involved wheel barrowing just over a tonne of compost around to our new raised veg patch and then tonight I had the joy of finding the toilet wouldn’t flush. This led to a thrilling night of everyone’s favourite game...... rodding drains, what fun I’ve been having:)

 

I once used an expired Christmas tree to rod a drain, not to be recommended, as the branches sprang back into position as it was removed producing a shower of .......

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1 hour ago, Bryan said:

You have to be impressed by a person who can bisect a rat with a thrown spade!  I was using the wrong sort of tool, a garden rake in fact, but had I had a spade to hand would no doubt have missed the rat and taken out a row of cabbages.   

 

It was my grandfather who introduced me to gardening. My dad kept the garden tidy but had no real interest, but my grandfather built a greenhouse from scrap timber and even installed a second hand piped heating system. He taught me how to plant leeks using a dibber, and to remove the seed leaves from brassicas and drown them in when transplanting etc.

 

I've tried to interest our grandchildren, recently organising the World Series pea growing competition, but the lure of electronic gadgetry is all pervasive, and I've made little progress.

 

I'm rubbish at gardening. Besides this is all we have. But I do have a dibber!

Just never knew it was called a dibber. Thank you!

Dibber - only 474 x on Alamy.

Plus: one more thing the Romans did for us.

Hmm no mention of any dibber here. 😂

 

wim

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