The Retirement Thread

[welsh dragon]

Can you send the sunshine this way please.

No chance. I'm keeping it all to myself.

 

[Drago]

I have risen!

 

[IaninSheffield]

Mornin' all.
Warm and sunny here in the shire of York.


Nah, not really.

 

[screenman]

There is a lot of rain coming down here, I doubt I will be doing much outside today.

 

[Dave7]

Good morning all.
A couple of questions for you horticulturists ...............................
Apparently garden centres are to open on Wednesday. Is it too late for me to buy/plant tomatoes?
At this time of year do I still have to start them off indoors........I have a lean-to I can put them under.
After reading your previous tips the plan is to buy grow bags and transfer the soil type stuff into pots

Roses!! I applied stuff for black spot etc this week but noted that the instructions are to apply twice a year maximum. Why is that?
Thanks

 

[Tenkaykev]

Good morning fellow retirees,

Went downstairs to make coffee, saw a roadie zoom past on the road outside🚲

Mo and others mentioned watching an old episode of Morse last night.

The "Naked Scientists" podcast I was listening to yesterday had a forensic pharmacologist as one of the guests.
One of the hosts asked how Cyanide works as a poison. The pharmacologist mentioned that it was Agatha Christies favourite poison, with 18 people being murdered with it over all of her books.
She also mentioned that Agatha Christie was fond of poisons as she was a qualified pharmacist in real life.

Have a lovely day folks 🏃🚶🚲🌞

 

[IaninSheffield]

The "Naked Scientists" podcast I was listening to yesterday had a forensic pharmacologist as one of the guests.
One of the hosts asked how Cyanide works as a poison. The pharmacologist mentioned that it was Agatha Christies favourite poison, with 18 people being murdered with it over all of her books.
She also mentioned that Agatha Christie was fond of poisons as she was a qualified pharmacist in real life.

I have that very episode queued up on my mp3 player. Shall look forward to listening to it 👍

 

[Dave7]

Yesterdays BBQ went well apart from managing to drop one of the burgers between the bars and into the gunge at the bottom. How can it do that?
Quite warm this morning.........the lull between the storm I think. If MsD ever gets out of bed we may get a walk in. Apart from that I have no idea what we will be doing.

In approx' three hours time we were due to land in Majorca for our 2 week holiday. ahhh well. We will wait for lock down to finish and have our staycation. Not sure if I have said this previously (stop me if I have) but where I come from, on the Wirral, has some amazing places to visit so although it's only one hour away we will book a hotel for a few nights and do it justice.

 

[Mo1959]

Apparently garden centres are to open on Wednesday. Is it too late for me to buy/plant tomatoes?

Plenty time I'm sure. Our local Facebook page has people giving away excess tomato plants at the moment.

 

[screenman]

Yesterdays BBQ went well apart from managing to drop one of the burgers between the bars and into the gunge at the bottom. How can it do that?
Quite warm this morning.........the lull between the storm I think. If MsD ever gets out of bed we may get a walk in. Apart from that I have no idea what we will be doing.

In approx' three hours time we were due to land in Majorca for our 2 week holiday. ahhh well. We will wait for lock down to finish and have our staycation. Not sure if I have said this previously (stop me if I have) but where I come from, on the Wirral, has some amazing places to visit so although it's only one hour away we will book a hotel for a few nights and do it justice.

We try and have at least a 4 day break in Liverpool every year, we love the city, the people and the area.

 

[PaulSB]

Me and MrsD had our BBQ..........just burgers plus I had an old English sausage (I put my shorts on to do the BBQ )

Good I had been concerned about the old English sausage.............

 

[PaulSB]

Well good morning. Bright and breezy here this morning and only 10C. Today is a rest day from cycling, I've done six consecutive days and it's a strong easterly this morning. I'll see what tomorrow brings. Slept till 6.00am which is good and feel rested for the first time in days but I'm not as perky as I should be..................this may be connected with coming downstairs to find both the front door and back door wide open after inspecting the bottle contents, lack of, in the kitchen I think I know why the doors are open. Self-inflicted.

I repaired the strimmer yesterday so I can strim and then cut grass. Built a couple of windbreaks on the allotment to protect peas and beans from this easterly - the ground is dry and strong dry wind would badly scorch the foliage. Today I'll be thinking about frost protection which is going to be tricky. Usually I just cover tender things with newspaper but with strong winds and 1C forecast for the next two nights that isn't going to work.

 

[PaulSB]

Good morning all.
A couple of questions for you horticulturists ...............................
Apparently garden centres are to open on Wednesday. Is it too late for me to buy/plant tomatoes?
At this time of year do I still have to start them off indoors........I have a lean-to I can put them under.
After reading your previous tips the plan is to buy grow bags and transfer the soil type stuff into pots

Roses!! I applied stuff for black spot etc this week but noted that the instructions are to apply twice a year maximum. Why is that?
Thanks

Dave - first a question. What stuff did you use for blackspot? It's a fungal infection and most chemicals I'm aware of need to be applied every 7-14 days.

Tomatoes I'm sure you will be able to buy tomatoes. Make sure they look fresh and green as it is 100% certain there will be a lot of old stock knocking about - this will apply to a huge range of plants. A decent garden centre will insist their suppliers only supply fresh stock as they will know as well as I do (i've been there!) some growers will look to sell older stoick first.

The earliest traditional date for putting tender stock outside is May 15th when in theory the chances of serious frost have passed. It's not essential to follow the rule as conditions vary widely. I start earlier but I am prepared to make the effort to protect things. I don't grow tomatoes outside as I have a greenhouse so my experience is limited. My advice would be you should be fine to plant out now but wait a few days for this wind to subside - windy conditions stress plants by increasing the rate at which moisture is lost through the foliage. Plants moved in to containers will be stressed anyway for a few days while they settle in. If you can use a warm sunny sheltered spot for growing. When you plant your containers/pots if you are planning to use canes to support the tomatoes put the canes in first and then put your plants in as close as possible to the cane. It's easier this way and avoids damaging the tomato root system if a cane is inserted later.

I'll pop up to allotment and photograph mine in a bit so you can see how I grow mine.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Well good morning. Bright and breezy here this morning and only 10C. Today is a rest day from cycling, I've done six consecutive days and it's a strong easterly this morning. I'll see what tomorrow brings. Slept till 6.00am which is good and feel rested for the first time in days but I'm not as perky as I should be..................this may be connected with coming downstairs to find both the front door and back door wide open after inspecting the bottle contents, lack of, in the kitchen I think I know why the doors are open. Self-inflicted.

I repaired the strimmer yesterday so I can strim and then cut grass. Built a couple of windbreaks on the allotment to protect peas and beans from this easterly - the ground is dry and strong dry wind would badly scorch the foliage. Today I'll be thinking about frost protection which is going to be tricky. Usually I just cover tender things with newspaper but with strong winds and 1C forecast for the next two nights that isn't going to work.

Not sure if it's the same in your neck of the woods Paul, but around here there's a very long waiting list for Allotments.
There are allotments just a couple of hundred yards away from me, adjacent to a little park. I bumped into a bloke I knew through work coming out of them and mentioned that I hadn't known that was his sort of thing.
Turns out it wasn't originally , his wife had long expressed the desire for an allotment. After many years her name came to the top of the list and she got stuck in for a while, but then the reality of it and the work involved caused her to lose interest.
My friend who'd been helping her out on a more regular basis had inherited it and found it the ideal contrast to his day job.

 

[Paulus]

Morning all, a nice sunny start to the day here. All set to change this afternoon when you northerners send down the cold weather 😉

A domestics day, the fridge has strange life forms growing in it, and the windows could do with a clean.

Another day in paradise. 😁