General Chat

We have grown tomatoes in pots outside for a few years as well, this year we have more cherry ones and the plants have lots of green fruits but the larger tomatoes haven't done so well. the cucumbers are doing ok still but OH has lost the courgettes and the runner beans have been very poor this year. I think it may be the very damp weather.

Have any of you ever grown Yacon, we brought 3 plants from a nursery and they are growing well. The tubers (look like sweet potatoes) but taste like pear and can be eaten raw like fruit or cooked in soup/casseroles or shredded in to a coleslaw. Looking forward to tasting them , daughter recommended them as they are good for diabetics as it can be used as a sweetener in pies and crumbles etc. I use almond flour instead of normal flour as much lower in carbs.

Joan lovely to hear from you , I am like you I do some in the garden and then have a sit down and then start again . It's just good to be able to get out in the garden and achieve something.
Hope Sylvia is doing ok with her moving and also her hubby.

Take care all and hope you all have some nice weather.

Ginnie

Linda I have a hanging basket with a tumbler tomato in it we have grown them like this for years and they do well.
I lost the one courgette plant I had, it had flowered but gradually just gave up and died. I couldn’t see the reason.

Cyclists - why do not nit understand they need to wear bright colours - a nightmare on more rural roads with shadows from hedges and trees coming and going. Sometimes the shadows are very deep.

Why do they not read the Highway Code and understand that pedestrians now have o prioty over them. I had to wait for a group to sort itself out and wobble off, took ages and not one acknowledged me ( invisibility cloak again :-P)

Something has eaten my two courgette plants, they had good flowers, but no more :-(
There are no slug tracks there either. I have cut and come again Spinach next to the courgettes and that is untouched.
The tomatoes in the greenhouse haven’t done well. They had flowers on the bottom, but they all fell off. The greenhouse isn’t in a good position, it is too shaded and there is a lot if mould in the glass. . I think the weather hasn’t been good this year which hasn’t helped. It has an automatic opening window, but I can’t keep the door open because.next doors cats try to get in. They are an absolute menace, they torture lots of little voles and mice every day. One of them did get in when I left the door open while I was in the garden, it was scratching at the bottom of one of the tomato plants. It was also trying to drink from the watering can which had the tomato fertiliser in it. I shooed it off, but I should have let it!
Having said that all the salad leaves and herbs which I have grown in there have been successful . I may try growing tomatoes outside in hanging baskets next year

Escalonia is a very salt resistant, fast growing evergreen that is used everywhere round here for hedging, particularly at the front, which gets all the winter gales off the Clyde. If left alone it can grow to 12ft or more and about 3 - 4ft wide.

I have never seen one in a pot but it should do OK, as long as you cut it back hard after flowering (about now). Be brutal - it will recover!!

Lots of info about escallonias online, Florence:

eg - https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/escallonia

They will grow tall if allowed to, but can be pruned back to a manageable size. Often used in hedges.
What size are your pots?

Hi again, no sorry Florence I am not famillia with Escalonia, I have heard of it but never bought or planted it.
Only thing I can suggest is "maybe" it needs feeding,especially as it's in a pot, !

My regular garden magazine talks about the feeding of many plants especially those on pots.
Though most of my plants/shrubs are in the ground I plan to feed them this year, if its not too late !

I was thinking of buying the product called BOOST to feed them but I understand Tomato feed is ok to use ? & I have a big container of that, lol.

Yes, our son will also need a good feed whilst he's here, LOL, it will be worth it to get the various jobs sorted.

Joan.

ArgyllGran, there are hundreds of cyclists passing my house here on a daily basis and yes they hold the traffic up something awful and the bus. The roads here are windy country roads with hidden dips and not many chances to overtake them but do they pull over and let you pass? No chance! Daughter and I say "torture" everytime we see them and its chucking down lol

How anyone thinks cycling with a tent on the back in awful weather is a holiday is mental really!

Last year we grew carrots in a large rectangular box. The leaves grew huge and did really well until one morning, I looked and then realised the leaves had all been eaten yet no trail of a slug etc. But we eventually spotted the culprit, a bright green caterpillar who had filled his boots!

So I made sure his boots were not filling up anymore on my carrots by getting the trowel and flung him over the fence into the drain which was full of green weeds for him to chew on!
So disheartening isnt it after sowing, watering and watching things grow and then something eats it all grrr.

Joan, do you know anything about Escalonia? I have 2 plants in ceramic pots i bought recently and think the pink flowers are coming but will they need bigger pots eventually? I cant plant them in the ground.

Glad you are out in your lovely garden as it really makes the time pass quickly doesn't it. Glad you son is coming to sort some jobs for you but you will have to feed him well with cakes etc

Linda, oh my! That will be sore. I've had it happen to me with one of those bottles and it jolly hurts. Hope you put some Savlon on a dressing and covered it. A tin of baked beans once fell of the shelf and bruised my ankle and I thought I had broken it was sooo painful. So no you carry on resting it and take it easy, poor you,

So tonights tea is a healthy jacket potato, salad, cobbettes, Tzatziki sauce and some light crisps to dip.....well sort of healthy lol But fruit salad for desert.

And now the clouds are moving, there is blue sky and some sunshine. Typical as its late afternoon!

Oh, that sounds painful, Linda!

Good to know you're beginning to feel a bit better, Joan. It does take time, and affects everyone differently.

Lots of campervans around here too, Florence. They're a menace on the roads in the summer. And cyclists! When I went to town for shopping a few days ago, I was held up SIX times by cyclists. I had to crawl along for ages at about 15 mph, waiting for a chance to overtake, which wasn't easy as there was such a lot of traffic coming the other way, on a road with lots of blind bends.
Fortunately, I didn't have to be there for a particular time.

You mentioned salad leaves, Linda. Something has eaten all my salad leaf seedlings this year.
They were sown in a crate, on top of a table outside, and with netting over the crate - so it's not birds or rabbits. Not slugs, either - no shiny trail.
It's a mystery, and disappointing.
The spring onions, sown in the same crate, seem to be OK, though. Still very small, but apparently whatever ate the salad leaves doesn't like onion .

I won't be growing strawberries next year, although it's been a good steady crop this year, and I like them.
However, I've realised/remembered that they don't like me.
I had thought that last year, but then this spring I couldn't remember why I had decided that.
But this year, since I started eating strawberries daily about a month ago, I've had red puffy skin around my eyes, and a rash on my neck - and now remember that the same happened last year, though not so badly, and was the reason I had decided not to keep the strawberries.

Today started off cool and cloudy, but now the cloud has cleared and it's pleasantly warm, with a good breeze.
The rowan berries are starting to colour now. Autumn must be on the way, even though we don't seem to have had much of a summer yet.

Good afternoon, it is a lovely sunny day here as well. I tended to all my hanging baskets this morning, replacing some if the plants. I also planted out some chives which had been grown from seed in the greenhouse. I also sewed another large tray of cut and come again salad leaves in the greenhouse. The trays of salad leaves have been a great success this year.
I am having a very lazy afternoon, I just mended a hole in a pair if Esme’s leggings, she fell over and got a hole in them when I took her out on Thursday. OH gave the car a really good clean this morning as it was dirty inside due to taking rubbish to the tip. This afternoon he is painting the gloss paint in the study. I do feel guilty just sitting here with my feet up :-D. Actually, I am seriously wounded, well OK, I hurt my leg a little bit. While I was making lunch a large full bottle of tomato ketchup fell out of the fridge. It is the type you store upside down. The white top bounced off my shin and has gouged quite a large hole in the skin.

Hello to all.
Hi Florence sorry to hear you have got a gloomy day, it's really nice here, the sun has shone for much of the morning,with a wee breeze so not hot, thank goodness.
I have been in & out today doing a bit here & a bit there, I'm rather slow this year & have to rest often but recover quite wuickly & do a bit more.

Just wee bit more to do on the long hedge, then I can leave it for this year.
There are lots of lovely plants growing in the flower borders,the Roses are beautiful, the Crocosmia are showing wee flowers so it won't be long before they put on a good show.
The Potentilla look really nice, well some of them do, there is one (a white flowering one) that has put out some lovely new growth but not a single flower, disappointed about that.

We have another hedge, a storter one that's made up of 3 different plants, ( Fushia. & 2 types of Cotoneaster ) it grows height wise very quickly & not an easy hedge to clip so I'm thankful its not over long, lol.
My daughter who was here for a few days with her family did a good job of removing new growth from several old tree trunks,the trees were cut down some time ago & as they were VERY old trees I had hoped they would fade away in time, but no, the trunks keep putting out new leaves & have to be pulled off asap, otherwise the growth gets quite dense & not easy to deal with.

I have our eldest son coming over tomorrow, he coming from Forres & quite a journey so he's staying overnight so that he can do as much as he can befor ereturning home.
He has a job list as long as his arm (that I gave him,) & slowly but surely he's getting to the back of it, LOL.

Well I must end there & have a bite to eat, I have worked up an appetite today.

Look after yourselves.

Joan.

Afternoon everyone looking in.

Very gloomy looking day here with low clouds and no sun!

Lots of campervans and tour buses so many tourists about and nowhere open....its Sunday :-D

Just looking online at clothes in the sale and picked up couple of jackets and a top for a good price and free postage. So hope they suit as hate having to send back!

Might make a fresh fruit salad later as bought lots of fruit yesterday. Jacket potato and salad for tea tonight, nothing heavy as can't face any big meals.

Hope everyone else looking in is ok

Florence in the hebrides

Joan lovely to see you posting and busy in your lovely garden.

Im sure it was fab having family stay with you for a few days, that woukd have been a real boost.

Tesco is 1 stop away and am so glad as patience is running thin lol

It is good to see you Joan, I am glad that you have had a good time with your family visiting.
Oh dear Florence, it is annoying that you found something you like and you can’t get it. I just looked at Facebook and a post came up showing that the dining chairs are now in a sale with thirty percent off :-(

I just walked into town for some exercise, but my hip was aching and I had bought some heavy things, so I got the bus back.

I am enjoying bathe Olympics, I will watch a lot of it

Hello to everyone.
Well here I am, not feeling too bad just now, though I am still finding things tough without my beloved Jack I am slowly getting there !
I have some good days but still having some bad days, it all depends on what I am doing about the house & garden,there are soo many memories here.

I have just said cheerio to our youngest daughter & her family, they live in Lanark & have spent the past 4 days with me, it was lovely to see her, the last time being at her dads funeral in Fenruary.
The weather hasn't been too bad for them so they were able to get out & about most days, they are on their way home now & I am missing them already, I hope it won't be too long before they can visit again.

I have been reading through the thread most days,everyone has been busy, especially Lindad, oh my Linda I need oxygen after reading through your threads, you are such a busy lady as is your hubby, what with the house & the grandchildren,
It won't be long now when all the house jobs are completed & both of you will be able to enjoy a well earned rest & hopefully before you make a start on the garden.

We have a lovely day here today, the sun is shining, no breeze to speak of & not over hot thank goodness. I have spent some time outside but I am not as fit as last year, losing Jack has left me feeling old & slow, & I need to take regular rests in between doing garden work !
Our daughter & here hubby helped me with some jobs outside, clipping back stary bushes & trees, things I cannot reach, & the 2 grandsons had a great time raking up the grass cuttings, of which there was a LOT, lol.

Well now girls I am off to see what else needs to be done outside, I have almost finished cutting down the long Rugosa hedging, it's been hard going but looks much better much lower than it was.
It's a bit straggly just now but once the new growth sets in it will be fne,

It's been nice chatting,I will try to get back sooner next time.
I hope everyone is having a lovely day & the weather is nice for you.
Take care.

Joan. <3

Afternoon all

Sorry Linda, Olympics not my thing!
Breezy after noon here and the rain has held off so far for another big show on today :-D

I am currently waiting for Tesco and am rather bored. Time given 1-5 and no updates yet!!

I dare not start anything before they come so am just" surfing" on the PC but even the news site isn't that interesting!

I had ordered a black sideboard with 2 cupboards and 3 drawer with shelves inside the cupboard. Its to put the TV on and then i can store all the old photo albums in side out of site.

i have paid for it already and delivery charge. date due 30 Jul. Today i get a notification that the item is no longer available/out of stock so they are refunding me grrrrr Its over 2 weeks ago since I ordered it so not a happy bunny.

I went online and looked at different sites with the same item but either out of stock or don't deliver up here! I have looked for something similar but not found anything and so annoying.
Correction, yes i did find the item on 1 website and the delivery charge was £100 and I'm not paying that :-P

Oh well back to the drawing board i guess.

Hope Sylvia in Canada is ok as there have been some horrid fires I guess she is busy with her moving etc and dealing with hubby but hope all is ok with her.

Well the sun is shining...yay :-D better make the most of it before it slips behind the clouds lol

Florence in the Hebrides

Well, I am watching the Olympics opening ceremony and am not impressed so far. The music in the segments is too quiet to hear properly

After eveyone
Linda, when my carpets were all replaced last year, it was an upheaval moving furniture etc from room to room and then back afterwards but it was worth it i9n the end. They say to get tidy you need a mess to start with!

Its showery here and there is a local country show on today and another big one tomorrow. Never fails to rain does it. I remember it well when I use to go and when it rained the stallholders inside the tents were happt because everyone ran into the tents for shelter but.... it didnt make them buy anything.

The people would touch things on the stalls, move things etc and only ate any free food that was going. There was somewhere that made chocolate bars and the lady would break up small bits and go round with a tray to get sales.They all took the free samples but few bought the actual bars.

People do not have so much spare cash these days and you have to pay to get in which isnt cheap if you have a family with you.

Sorry omg, its torrential just now :-P :-P :-P So sorry for those at the show and all the animals. Its bouncing off the roads, just awful!

Well its slowly stopping and strangely the sun is now trying to peep through the clouds, so hopefully it will clear up for the afternoon.

Nothing much to do today except finish off my Tesco order and general tidy up.
Some paperwork etc but nothing major.

Joan if you are looking in, hope you are ok

Florence in the hebrides

Good morning from sunny Yorkshire.
We had another tiring morning emptied study so OH can paint it before Tuesday when the carpet fitters come. There are two large cupboards full of stuff, so all of that had to go in boxes and is now in the bathroom. I am going to go through everything before it goes back and have another chuck out. There are lots of games etc which we won’t use again, so they can go . We moved all of the furniture into the small bedroom which had been carpeted on Wednesday along with some of the furniture from the other bedroom still to be carpeted. We have a wardrobe and double bed from there still to move, but that can wait until Monday
I need to go to the supermarket later on, I don’t know how we get through so much food with just the two of us.

That reminds me, I need to add bread to the shopping list as well.

I took Esme out for the day to Lightwater Valley. I go on my own as I get in for free as her carer, she has the annual pass I bought her at the start of the season. She had a good time as always, but I am glad to be home. Pushing her wheelchair round is very tiring.

Yesterday, the carpet fitters put the vinyl into the bathroom and en-suite and the carpet into our bedroom and another bedroom. We had to move all the furniture back after they left, so that was tiring. They are coming back next Tuesday to carpet the stairs, landing study and second bedroom. OH still has to decorate the study, so tomorrow we will have to empty that, then empty the other bedroom before Tuesday . At least we will be on our own as the girls and their parents are going camping from tomorrow until Sunday at a family festival called the Deer Shed Festival . They have a spot in the accessible camping field, so can keep the car next to the tent.