I have restarted this thread as it appears that due to the recent site upheaval the old thread seems to have been banished never to be found again.
As I sat eating breakfast enjoying the rawhide clip Abandoned posted, I watched in shock, horror, and amazement as a blackbird flew off with one of my strawberries in its beak. :o
I have been creating a small potted garden under my covered courtyard in the centre of which there is a table filled with strawberry plants. :)
The pots are covered with bird netting, and I must admit that it's only a temporary job waiting for me to get around to making a better cover.
At first I watched with interest as the bird flew in, landed, then looked up at the table - my strawberries were safe, or so I thought - I should have known better as that was why the netting was there in the first place.
..... A slight distraction as the culprit of my story has returned and an outside intervention of the strawberry saving type has been necessary !!! :-X
Now where was I - having set it's sights on my table of culinary delights the bird came around to the front of the table, looked up again then hopped up onto one of my new potted Clivias. ???
What, I thought, watching in surprise as it sprung with great dexterity from the pot, up and under the netting onto the table and proceed to gather and eat my long waited for berries. :o :( ::)
So thinking cap on, off to the garden/hardware centre and reinvent the cover before its too late. :)
PS - It would nice if the cry emoji could be fixed as well.
PPS - The scene of the crime - the upload worked, and so did the camera - I charged it the other day and noticed I haven't used it for twelve years, and the battery still works ;D
Quote from: Glenn on October 25, 2023, 03:05:03 PM
I have restarted this thread as it appears that due to the recent site upheaval the old thread seems to have been banished never to be found again.
The site was recovered using a six month old backup, so anything posted between April and the 2nd week of October is gone forever :(
Quote
PS - It would nice if the cry emoji could be fixed as well.
:) ;) :D ;D >:( :( :o 8) ??? ::) :P :-[ :-X :-\ :-* :'(
How strange. I'll look into it.
Thank you
:'( ;D blackbirds and crows are very clever. :) Your plants look nice and healthy. I thought of missing thread as I was rolling my big pots into the garage for winter storage. Record high temperature for October here yesterday, now cold and rainy. Leaves are falling. Still have some work to do outside. Enjoy your spring and strawberries :)
Having to move your plants into the garage to keep them alive - what a bother - :-X
Although we do what we do to make our gardens nice - keeping your plants alive is a small price to pay for the joy a nice garden brings. :)
At least where I live all we get are a few light frosts in the winter which is a bit of a blessing, although the coming summer will be very hot with 38C days - 100 F will double my water bill if I want to keep my lawn and garden alive.
Now the days are near perfect - cool mornings, warm afternoons, and clear sunny skies. :)
Summer will be different - then I have to keep a cup outside next to the garden tap, otherwise I have to constantly come inside to have a drink of water, and then, finally, it will be back inside to avoid the worst of the heat.
PS I have been making my own liquid fertiliser and I feed the plants once a month which seems to be working, and when they don't like a particular spot in the garden I move them until I get it right -- too much sun, not enough sun etc.
:) Pots rolled into the garage were empty, plants are now compost, seeds have been collected. ;D After months of planting, pruning, weeding, watering, watering, watering, ;D I am glad to see the season end. Soon we will have snow :)
Took a week off work last week to try and get the garden ready for summer (NZ time), ran out of holiday .... I also promised kid I would take some pictures which is still on my to-do-list :)
Finally moved my herbs inside for the winter. Not too soon because it got below freezing last night! My pepper plant was looking decidedly sad last night, but is much improved by this morning.
My tomatoes and peppers are dying off, but I usually wait until spring to compost the rest (mostly because I'm lazy about it lol). We'll see if the strawberries and mint will survive; fingers crossed!
I also took a few days off to help get stuff ready, but there's always so much to do, and not enough time! I'll have to try again on the weekend.
Am on phone, so just seeing if I can add a picture of the tomato plant I added to its summer pot in the weekend ... here goes
Your tomatoes are coming along nicely Catty - what type are they?
I wonder how any other people move their pots inside to keep their plants alive during winter?
I'm lucky in not having to do so as I have have so many pot plants now that I would have empty my garage to fit them all in. ;D
Quote from: Glenn on November 02, 2023, 02:53:26 PM
Your tomatoes are coming along nicely Catty - what type are they?
The one in the picture is a ponchi, the other three are a campari, Heartbreakers and a sweet 100.
I've also got a raised bed with strawberries and blueberries, old compost bin has herbs, blackberry and a raspberry in it.
Apples, lemons and more herbs, plus my roses have started to flower
oh, your garden looks good. :) I'm not familiar with the first 2 tomatoes you mention but I usually grow one sweet 100 plant, one is enough ;D The name suits them.
Yes, very nice indeed.
My tomatoes are still a ways off yet - 'Grosse Lisse' and 'Black Russian' with 'Rouge De Marmande' going in next so it will be a 4-6 weeks behind the others in fruiting
Quote from: Abandoned on November 03, 2023, 02:28:50 PM
oh, your garden looks good. :) I'm not familiar with the first 2 tomatoes you mention but I usually grow one sweet 100 plant, one is enough ;D The name suits them.
The ponchi tomato produces a beautiful intense flavoured, round red and yellow fruit on a compact plant, and the campari is a type of hybrid tomato and are deep red and larger than a pear or cherry tomato, but smaller and rounder than common plum tomatoes
I have a feeling campari might be called something else in America :)
Quote from: catty-cb on November 04, 2023, 11:38:54 AM
I have a feeling campari might be called something else in America :)
That's possible I suppose. We have a large variety to choose from, all shapes of tomatoes and sizes of plants. Our growing season for tomatoes is 4 months at best so early varieties are best unless a bigger plant is bought. Sun ripened homegrown are the best. :)
Spent some time out in the garden today, and tomato plants now all in their summer pots
Normally on a nice warm evening would have all the doors and windows open, but its Guy Fawkes night tonight so very shortly once it gets dark enough all the neighbors are going to start letting off fireworks, it's going to terrify the cats so they are safely inside and I have the TV on, but they are still going to spend most of the evening hiding ... it wouldn't be so bad if there was a cut off time but they will be going off all night .... all the fire departments are standing by to deal with the fires
If there was ever a vote on this I would ban fireworks unless it was a public display ???
Sorry forgot to include picture of tomatoes
Now, those are nice looking pots an trellises - I haven't seen those styles before. :)
Oh wow your garden looks great! Those rosebushes are really pretty.
We've had our first frost here, but my cherry tomatoes didn't die. I probably won't get to see the rest of the green ones ripen though haha. I don't remember the variety though, something Tom maybe? Yours look like they're coming along well.
The tomato pots are called Tui Tomato Grow Towers
https://tuigarden.co.nz/product/tui-tomato-grow-tower/
Have them sitting on upside down plant bases which have wheels underneath so I can move them about the porch.
Quote from: angainor88 on November 05, 2023, 01:23:23 PM
Oh wow your garden looks great! Those rosebushes are really pretty.
The white rose is Alberic Barbier and the reddish one is Mrs F W Flight, I had this one in my previous garden and couldn't take it it with me so found a rose farm that was selling it
@angainor88 was going to post a comment over on the mod, to say thanks for the american housing cos
@brads3 has-been using them over here
https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/762603-meet-the-bannies/?page=3
And they look great, anyway re comment on mod it was acting a bit weird possibly cos I was trying to do it on my phone so I gave up and posted here :)
ah thank you
@catty-cb !
I still need to add my stuff to the simtropolis site and update WoB on the american housing one. Some day I will find the time to do things...
But this week I need to do all my (USA) thanksgiving planning, especially as I am hosting this year. Someone else will bring the chicken, but I have to figure out sides and desserts etc. Not hard to do, really, but I have been putting it off. And I have to bake some bread this weekend too.
Quote from: angainor88 on November 09, 2023, 11:30:49 AM
...Some day I will find the time to do things......
Yes that's the tricky bit finding the time, I've got a list that never quite seems to get smaller :)
We don't have thanksgiving in New Zealand, instead we have something called Matariki which takes place mid winter here (July), traditionally it was an occasion to mourn the deceased, celebrate the present, and prepare the ground for the coming year, today its probably a bit like thanksgiving but its more a community event rather than just families last year our town closed the main street off in the early evening and had an outdoor party for everyone who wanted to attend.
Well it's Sunday afternoon, it's hot outside 34C 94 F, and a day to keep out of the sun and catch up on other things, and a break from the garden.
So I thought I would share with you a few photos of a project I've been working on
The first photograph is my garden shed surrounded with kangaroo paws and the paving I've laid
The second is my garden shed and vegi garden
The third is that of Clivias alternating down the side of the house - peach, yellow, Belgium Hybrid, and cream/yellow when in flower.
Out of sight in the courtyard are, green, apricot, bronze, yellow/cream, bi-colour, orange and others.
I battled for the last few years to get the lawn to grow in the area, but as it's shade covered in winter it was a loosing job and a constant annoyance, so I gave up trying and laid pavers instead - and having finished it turned out quite well and was something I should have done much earlier.
PS As an added bonus I lost 5 kilos doing the job ( which took several months ) and I'm now back to my more normal weight.
Looks really good :)
Am tempted to turn some of my lawn into paving be a lot easier to manage, but my last attempt at paving around the three raised veggie beds put me off ever doing it again
Thank you,
And I agree, laying paving isn't easy at times.
The old grass had to be dug out, and the ground levelled, slopped and curved
And of course, when I came of square from the shed and square from the house the two didn't line up, and it took forever to work out a pattern and angle that brought the two together as best as possible.
It's not perfect, but it was the best I could do.
Next will be two small areas where you come out the back door, and a place for a few agapanthus - a compact deep mauve variety called "Bingo Blue" :)
oh, it does look very nice, I like the shaded area with all the little pots. :)
Thank you, :)
I'm happy with how it turned out and are still trying different types of shade/semi shade plants as not all like the location.
The Clivias in the large black pots seem to be doing well, but I have to be careful not to over water them as it will rot the roots and you can easily kill them with kindness.
But best of all it stops the blackbirds from making a mess every day all over the path - before the pots I had to sweep the path every day or two - there was leaf litter everywhere.
How do you water or those pots? With a garden hose or watering can?
When I'm watering the small pots in this section I use a watering can as it only takes a few goes to get the job done - five minutes or so
However, when the Clivias need to be done as well I use a hose with one of the attachments that have a big round head that you can dial into a variety of sprays.
When the whole garden needs to be done (all in pots) - vegi garden, fruit trees, etc which is about about once a week, I use the hose and it takes about 30 minutes which is fine as I find it relaxing.
It will take some time to get everything how I like it and work out the best locations for my new plants - what they are suppose to like and how they fit into my garden is another thing altogether. ::)
The Clivias in particular will take years before I know how the spread of colours fall into place, and how they meet the eye. ;D
Attached is a photo of a few of the flower colours you can buy, and as time goes by I'm trying to add to what colours I already have - I'm even growing some from seed but it takes five years from seed to flowering plant.
:) very pretty.
they are lovely, unfortunately they are poisonous to cats so can't have them in my garden
Lucky I don't have a cat or dog - I've had them in the past, but not now, they're long gone, indeed as the years have passed by so have the chickens, goats and pheasants,
I watched Abandon's Thanksgiving clip and wondered if next year it will take on an extra meaning, not only for the United States but for the whole world.
Trump was convicted and sent to prison.
American democracy was saved.
The rise of fascism in the US was stopped.
The world was saved from another wanna-be tyrant
And millions of people who he planned to round up and imprison in concentration camps were saved.
The prospect of a new terror and the prospect of salvation.
I watched a news clip the other day from MSNBC and it included an interview from a man/monster called Mike Davis who aspires to be attorney general in a new Trump administration - he said they were going to round up critics in the media and put them in gulags - gulags, its hard to believe he even used the word. Worse still, he said they planed to use the Nazi practise of going back to a person grandparents to determine who would be rounded up and who would not.
I try to be observant, and try to listen to my intuition - stopping Trump would be like stopping Hitler at Munich.
And while such comments would have once been called alarmist, today mine is simply another voice among so many others sounding the alarm - a firestorm is coming and it needs to be stopped.
You should watch the whole clip - with the point I raised starting about two minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NFj3RWOHM
PS Please forgive my un-Banished comments, but some things need to be said and heads need to be pulled out of the sand.
First Rain. Then snow. Then storm and snow. Then again rain. Then a very cold wind. Then ice droplets and some snow again. Then snow, wind, rain, storm and icy hail all together.
Then all of a sudden no storm anymore. Only rain.
Then finally I was home.
(I used the bycicle today to go to the city).
Sitting here on a warm Spring morning where it's 22C inside the house and the temperature is forecast to reach a high of 33C, my thoughts revolve around getting outside to work on laying a small section of paving before it gets to hot - then back inside to avoid the worst of the heat.
Images of the type of winter you are describing are, for me, only seen on the news.
And while I can understand what life is like during such weather, the closest I have ever come to living in such cold was years ago when I spent two months in Sweden during what was at the time a mild winter.
Stay warm, stay dry, stay safe.