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Peaing it down was it?

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Erm, it had bean earlier. :)

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Just found this beautiful critter on my lettuce in the greenhouse. It's a Scarlet Tiger Moth. Quite stunning!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...567e7d93_h.jpg
Scarlet Tiger Moth Callimorpha Dominula by garynortheast

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Amazing colours.

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Sorry, this isn't really the place - but what's the score with cordless lawnmowers? I've been borrowing a lawnmower until I'm on my feet but it rreally is a pain in the urse , looking at reviews of both cheap lawnmowers and expensive ones it says the batteries last 15-30 minutes :smt011 When you start adding extra batteries to swap (pain in itself) it gets really expensive.
Anyone got any experience? It would pain me a bit to buy a petrol one in 2021

Re: The Veg Plot.
 

When I had grass, it was only a 1/10 of an acre. Not much but it's what the land developers thought was appropriate for southside city-dwellers just outside of Chicago back in the early 1900s. I had a gas mower for a while and wound up giving it to a neighbor. I picked up a little 20" wide reel mower for under $100 and could never find any fault with it other than it didn't care to cut weeds. The grass was easy though, and it was maintenance-free.
I have a water-conserving yard now and gave the reel mower to a neighbor down the street who has a pretty sizable front yard. She mows it in the same time she did with the gas mower, it just doesn't cost her anything and she doesn't need the carb blown out every time.
Americans think it's all hippie-nonsense but for the life of me I can't see a drawback. The only work I've ever done to it has been a shot of WD40 before I gave it away. Worked to knock a little surface rust off the blades, now it's back to normal.

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Friend has one (large lawn) and likes it. Have a look at the reviews on Screwfix re the ones they sell. Had a quick look and one reviewer mentions 45 min run time.
When the time comes will probably go battery myself, the risk I suppose is re the battery - If it fails usually very expensive.

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A good brand should.d be reliable. I have three Stihl cordless tools and if my petrol Hayter lawn mower ever gives up I'll be looking at the battery options from Stihl. Will be getting a scarifier and blower (the latter partly for drying the bike) at some point soon too as I have invested in the battery and charger.

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Cheers all. Reviews I've seen say a 4ah battery tops out at about 30 minutes. Two of those will be about £120 and if it degrades over time I might need a third! But perhaps it's down to the manufacturer quality.

45 mins run time might do me if so . It probably takes about an hour at the minute but a lot of that time is messing around with cables. TBH I wanted a cheapo to see me through until I can afford to fork out on a robot one - I think if I'm spendin £250 - I may as well spend £400 and save on labour!

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i have a robot grass and hedge cutter.. its called my neighbour :-)

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Ya sweet talking ****e ya. How'd you arrange that?!

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in my little part of the street we all get along with each other. my next door neighbour asked if he could do it many years ago and he has kept doing it ever since, i have said that he does not need to but he does. this same person also cuts a few of the other peoples hedges and the bowling green grass, hedges and maintains things there as well.

i spray the weeds twice a year and put the buckets out every week. one of the other neighbours brings the buckets back in.

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What a street :flower: That's how it should be really!

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Just an update re my no dig bed. Its been very successful up to now. The lettuce are the best in the garden. I left a couple of shallots in the no dig the rest planted in the existing garden. They look just as good as each other. The beetroot in NDB are looking really good, soon be ready for harvesting.
On the main plot, where appropriate I now compost then put cardboard down and plant through the card.
Cuts down on weeding which I detest.

Re: The Veg Plot.
 

Pleased to see the no dig approach paying dividends, good for you for sticking with it.

The weeding is something I don't mind, especially if it's hoeing. I find it quite relaxing really.

We've done quite a bit of planting through cardboard here on these beds I'm working with at the new place. Where possible I've added a layer of mixed soil and horse manure and planted through that. There wasn't enough compost ready here to build up the beds to a no dig level this year, but I've made composting as much material as possible a priority now ready for next year.

There is a very large veg growing area here spread over 12 beds, all of varying sizes. Some of the smaller beds I mulched with a thick layer of horse manure as soon as I started working them, so next year they may be ready for the no-dig approach. The rest may take a couple of years to build up.

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Two more of the Scarlet Tiger Moths have turned up on the veg plot here. They're a male and a female and they are mating, so we may see more of them next year.

They're not supposed to be found this far north in Wales but a number of people in the area have seen them over the last few weeks. I suspect it's something to do with the changing climate and resulting weather.

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I'll play, just because my soil is a bit different from what most are dealing with. I have only had luck here with my date palm, queen palms and various succulents, although our young pomegranate tree seems to be doing well. Here's my latest attempt: nopales catcus. Now let's see if I can figure out how to link from Google photos...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/PN...-no?authuser=0

The flagging is to keep my dog from marking them. He likes to "claim" anything that decides to protrude in the yard; he's a very discerning mutt.

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Actually, I had good luck with the roses this past Spring too. They've gotten less enthusiastic what with the 110-degree heat this Summer, but the plants are still healthy.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rV...-no?authuser=0

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You might need to try reposting those pics, as none are showing when I look at it.

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Nope, can't see the pictures I'm afraid Drewski.

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Huh, my photo skills are lacking on this forum. They show up for me but that could be a Google Photos issue.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gN8FQCkJ32sA64C79

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qoXwHdMjuuawh6Dx8

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I believe you need to use something like Flickr. And then post a BB code on here.
I've never tried direct from Google.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0f9fdd4b07.jpg2021-07-02_07-45-15 by martin cockerell, on Flickr

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On topic.

Loads of strawberries in my garden at the moment. Almost too many.

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I'm growing a thistle. I didn't intend to grow one but it appeared next to my shed so I became curious as to how big it would grow. It's currently just over 3 feet with multiple flower heads (not yet in flower).

Each autumn I gather poppy seed heads and then sprinkle the seeds (hundreds, maybe thousands) where I'd like poppies to grow the following year, apparently they're not enthusiastic on this idea and refuse to show. I have a "stonebond" driveway which is little pebbles set in epoxy - this is where some of the poppies have decided will be perfect to grow despite the absence of soil. :rolleyes:

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We have some Greek Oregano doing the same thing in a patch of dry pebbles in our garden. It found it's way there from a plane pot 10 feet away.

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Today I have mostly been digging mint out of a bed! Never, ever plant mint in anything other than a container!

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You'll never get rid of it Gary. It will be back before long.

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This is serious digging Adam, every last bit of the root is coming out. It's only a small bed, about 3yds x 3yds. I've been on it most of the day and I'm only just halfway across.

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Tarragon is almost as bad, plus it's a fast growing thug that pushes everything else out of the light. Took me three years of relentless digging and weeding to finally stop it coming back. Good luck on your quest Gary.

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I did that with Bluebells in our old house. They were back fairly soon just from the tiniest invisible amounts of root. We ended up having to dig all the soil out of the borders and replace it.

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My 4 ft tall thistle is now flowering and the bees have found it. It's fascinating to watch them dig in. I also discovered that a miscellaneous plant that appeared this year, at the front, is a common ragwort which is slightly poisonous but since I don't graze any horses, I should be ok :) Most of the colour in my front and back gardens (they're both small) has not been from anything I've done, birds/foxes/wind? I consider it serendipity gardening.

I thought I'd dug out my one potato plant but apparently not, so I've harvested a few spuds too, another fortunate accident. :D

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Got a bumble bees nest in my garage next to the work bench - its a bit disconcerting trying to do a job with buzzing in the left and right ear at the same time! One interesting snippet is they fly in and out by the same route e.g the keyhole on the side door! Trouble was they arrived back from collecting pollen and were then too fat to get back in. The door slides so there is an inch gap they can get through without any trouble. I have now fitted a cover over the keyhole.
I would strongly recommend not letting the ragwort go to seed its a devil to get rid of once its established without resorting to chemicals. If you get the Cinnabar moths caterpillars to colonise your ragwort its quite spectacularly coloured, yellow/black like a wasp (to warn predators that its concentrated the ragwort's poison in its body.)
Years ago my cousin ended up seeing the Doc after an extensive strimming session on his small holding cutting Ragwort

I do like your gardening style!

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it seems that everything on the veg plot has suddenly got going! Over the last couple of days I've been picking peas, runner beans, french beans, broad beans, cucumbers, courgettes, chard, and beetroot. I also ate some of the ripe boysenberries on the new, small vine in a pot on the yard. Very tasty!

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Decent few raspberries, but my neighbour pointed out my apple tree has fluffy aphids which will kill the tree if not treated. Can anybody recommend a good treatment ?

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Two facts that I didn't know were connected.

1) We had hundreds of gulls circling this afternoon
2) Ants were swarming again.

Gulls, apparently, like to eat flying ants (I googled it).

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There we go then, nature balancing itself.

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I had woolly aphid on a cooking apple tree a few years ago for a couple of years. I seem to remember using a blow torch over the affected areas. It then just disappeared. It seemed to get established on scars where I had cut branches off. Gave it a scrub then used bitumen paint to seal the scars.
Some advice on here
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=724

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Thanks for the replies. Range of pesticides is confusing, don't want to do anything that harms bees though .

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I like the blow torch idea, I could use my gas flamed weed killer.