What's happening in your garden today?

[Anniekay]

Depends how long you leave it running

Not as long as the dish washer does !! * (runs and hides) *

 

[Sean Regan]

I would imagine, when rinsing by hand, to get things as clean as would a dishwasher, you'd have to rinse each item of crockery, one at a time, that will use a lot of water.

 

[Anniekay]

I would imagine, when rinsing by hand, to get things as clean as would a dishwasher, you'd have to rinse each item of crockery, one at a time, that will use a lot of water.

My water runs less than 5 minutes. How long does the dishwasher run water? See, those commercials on TV that tell you you use less water with the dishwasher are lies to get you to use their dishwasher detergent. Then you have to buy the extra stuff so that you don't end up with spots on everything. Pretty pricey IMHO. Plus, my hands do the whirling around to remove the food particles, no electricity needed !!
Then, if you use the heat drying feature....$ for electric heat. It's logic but the people who make commercials think: " They'll believe what they're told". Not me !! "If it isn't logical it's not the truth" is how I roll.

But ya'll can do as you please and use your machines all you like.

 

[Sean Regan]

I collected my new Flymo Blower/Vac from Homebase, this morning.
It's a bit fiddly changing from "blow to suck," but it works well and for the same price as a tank of petrol, it's not bad for the money. It comes with a two-year guarantee.
This afternoon I used the new machine to blow some wisteria leaves off the two pergolas and collected most of them up by sweeping, then the rest with the vac. Of course more were falling as I was working and plenty more were coming down off next door's silver birches ending up on the lawn. Then it started to rain. So I came in.
If it's dry tomorrow, I'll strip the wisteria on the garage pergola. I can do that using my step stool. The branches will also get a bit of sorting. I can use my Flymo mower to collect the leaves on the lawn.
The pergola on the back of the house is still heavy with wisteria leaves. I'll need the ladder to strip those and I need to reduce the number of "heads." There's also a 6ft pergola crossbeam that needs replacing, I can do that once the leaves are down and I can see what I am doing.

 

[Anniekay]

I moved one of my raised beds, a 3'x6'x17" tall bed, because, I thought that having it slightly under the canopy of my red oak would help my veg by giving them a bit of shade the hottest part of the day. That was all very well but, I was wrong !!

Roots from the tree grew UP into the raised bed !! * (mumbles a few curse words*). So, I moved all the durt out of it, dug around the outside of it to loosen it from the grass then moved to north by about 40' The bed is metal so, it wasn't heavy, just digging it free took a while.

I intend to move the one right behind that one which I moved and the larger 4x8' one in the back as well.


I intend to add this compost/ organic soil conditioner to the beds. Peat free, locally sorced !! And I got 10 bags @ half price !!

 

[Jersey Devil]

My water runs less than 5 minutes. How long does the dishwasher run water? See, those commercials on TV that tell you you use less water with the dishwasher are lies to get you to use their dishwasher detergent. Then you have to buy the extra stuff so that you don't end up with spots on everything. Pretty pricey IMHO. Plus, my hands do the whirling around to remove the food particles, no electricity needed !!
Then, if you use the heat drying feature....$ for electric heat. It's logic but the people who make commercials think: " They'll believe what they're told". Not me !! "If it isn't logical it's not the truth" is how I roll.

But ya'll can do as you please and use your machines all you like.

I also do dishes by hand. I am alone so I just keep out a couple plates, bowls, silverware, etc. Keeps me from collecting a sinkful of dishes if I get lazy. Forces me to wash em or I gotta eat outta my hands

 

[Zigs]

More leaves today

 

[olly-buckle]

It's cold and wet, and I'm feeling that's all I need to know. Chopped up a lot of logs yesterday and had a blocked up nose that kept me awake, I hadn't thought of it as a dusty job, but I shall wear a mask in future, and some shin protection.

 

[Sean Regan]

It's cold and damp again today, the fallen leaves can wait.

 

[Tetters]

Yep! I reckon we are showing our age, and not only that, it is allowed!! Cold, wet and windy is the time to find useful (or trivial) things to do indoors.
I decided to get all arty and make a Christmas tree. I'm using pipe cleaners and it's taking ages. We don't bother with much decoration stuff, but do ''show willing'' and it keeps me quiet and amused. Last year we brought a little tree indoors and stuck sparkly stuff on it, which made it so sad, it died in the end. Not doing that again - I prefer to leave the trees where they should be - outside!

 

[Anniekay]

It's cold and wet, and I'm feeling that's all I need to know. Chopped up a lot of logs yesterday and had a blocked up nose that kept me awake, I hadn't thought of it as a dusty job, but I shall wear a mask in future, and some shin protection.

Get a little spray bottle of saline solution from your Chemist. ( I think that's what you Brits call the Drug Store ) and spray that up your nostrils until you can blow all that dust out.

I have very dry sinuses so, I use it a couple times daily just to stave off nose bleeds from the dry heated or air conditioned air inside the house.

 

[Anniekay]

Yesterday I dug up the areas in my garden where I want to plant my spring bulbs, added some bone meal then mixed compost into my sandy soil and called it a day.

Today I got half of
my spring bulbs planted: Tete tete narcisus, Quail narcissus, and Ziva paperwhites. 115 bulbs all together. Then I planted two more of my raised beds with snow peas. The 2 raised beds that I planted with snow peas about a week ago have all come up !!

 

[Sheal]

I had to look up Quail narcissus Annie, we know them as Jonquils here. That should be a lovely display come Spring. I'm waiting to see what comes up in this new garden of mine before investing in bulbs.

 

[Anniekay]

I had to look up Quail narcissus Annie, we know them as Jonquils here. That should be a lovely display come Spring. I'm waiting to see what comes up in this new garden of mine before investing in bulbs.

Good idea, @Sheal !! You may already have some really lovely bulbs just waiting to reveal themselves !!

 

[Sean Regan]

I got into this wisteria on the pergola attached to the garage this afternoon. I do this around this time every year. I only needed my step-stool to get at it.
I guess a hairdresser would call it, "first time cutting to shape."

There's been a lot of growth during the year, hidden by the foliage. A lot of this growth is unwanted. Any new branch that wants to grow upwards, had to go. I only want lateral growth at the top and branches that cascade over the patio at the side.

It'll get a more detailed pruning between Christmas and New Year.

The other pergola still needs to be stripped. I'll need my big ladder for this. I also need to change a 6ft lateral beam that is showing signs of rot. I'll also check the tops of the two posts at the same time. They have caps over the tops to keep the water out. I may need to re seal them with silicone. The three 16ft main beams are fine.

I used my Flymo Ultraglide mower to collect the silver birch leaves off the lawn.
The patches of moss will get some more iron sulphate this week.

My new Flymo blower vac. is very good, though it's a pain to swop between the functions, as the nozzles have to be changed and the bag attached or removed. But for the price, it's only a small inconvenience.

The two acer palmatums need the dead wood pruning off, as they do each year.

This one will need more attention to get it back to the "dome shape" I like. Removing the dead wood may leave a gap or two, but I can wire some branches to close them up if necessary. The "fringe" will also need evening up.

I can then remove the wire in the early summer once they have "set."

As usual, there's lots of new growth coming from the tops.

Once these jobs are out of the way, that's pretty much it for the year.

 

[Logan]

Nothing outside at the moment got things to do inside.

 

[Sean Regan]

As it was dry this afternoon, I pruned the last wisteria.

I removed quite a bit of old growth.
I started at 2.00pm and it only took me half an hour.

Then an hour to clear everything I'd pruned off!

I had to use next door's green bin as ours was full from the pruning of the other wisteria and his empty. The bin men come tomorrow morning, so it's not a problem.

I still need to clear the gutter over the French windows and inspect the tops of the support posts. But I was running out of light. The suspect cross beam, doesn't really need replacing. I gave it a few coats of Cuprinol in the Spring and looks OK.


This morning I had a round trip of eighty miles to Preston to collect my Stressless chair from Buffalo. It's had the back and the seat re-padded and the front panel of the headrest replaced, I'd worn through the colour of the leather, but it is getting on for fifteen years old. They made a good job of matching of the leather. The back and seat still have a a crease in them, but that's just because the leather has stretched over the years. They would have to over-fill the padding and it would lose the contours. I took the tables and the arm rests off before I took it up there.
I really missed the side tables. It cost £350, but that's a fraction of the cost of a new chair. It's now very comfortable

On the way there, I noticed a big tailback on the other carriageway of the M60. I guess there'd been an accident. I've an old TomTom sat/nav. The maps probably haven't been updated for over five years. I'd have to pay if I wanted it done. Although when I bought it, it said the maps would be updated "for life." Five years ago I got the nonsense that the hard drive couldn't accept the updates as there wasn't enough memory.

On the way home, although I didn't really need it once I was back on the motorway, "Sally Satnav," warned me that there was a hold-up ahead, but the planned route would still be the quickest.
"It was the first time she'd ever spoken to me, other than giving directions!"

 

[Anniekay]

I picked my biggest Bok Choy and made a soup !!

I watched a video on how to make this soup. It has chicken broth, a tsp ginger, tsp garlic, tsp olive oil, tsp salt then you add your washed and cut up stems to the boiling pot, boil about 5 min. until the stalks are soft, then add cut up leaves, boil 1 minute and you're done !!


I used only the biggest leaves and saved the heart to stirfry for a side dish with some baked chicken tomorrow.

 

[Zigs]

Your Bok Choi is doing better than my Wong Bok Annie

 

[Zigs]

You've heard of Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Well these are Teasels germinating in an open seed head