The first rule of garden club is...!?!

[Lexilicious]

hoping Humph's Happy Osteospermumsnet chums will find this... la la la... I'm uite used to being betty no mates though...

Come on in and have a seat/kneeler/foam pad and a virtual , anyone who wants to idly chat about what they've been dreaming of planting, actually planting, buying without a care for having a place for it, propagating, harvesting, hacking and chopping...

Great to see you here again, Jacksmania.

Ugh. I had hoped to spend this afternoon gardening, but find i have to go to John Lewis [well-known UK department store] to buy a new oven, as ours has just expired. It's the third domestic fatality this week, after the clutch on the car and the boiler.

::rocks gently in the corner of the potting shed::

(((((((Maud))))))))
:(
I feel your pain. We had to buy a new boiler and refrigerator in shirt order upon moving in as the ones the previous owners had were on their last legs.
:(

How late could I safely leave doing my bulb planters, do you think?
We've had such a mild autumn so far. The last few nights have been near freezing (woke up to beautiful frosty roofs) but the forecast says its supposed to warm up a bit again.
We've no idea what to expect of this winter.

Oh, and what's oca?

ICS is a tuber, that you can cook and serve a la potatoes. I'm looking forward to harvesting mine soon.

It's tulip planting season in the UK now - others could have been planted last month - but I've always (so far) got away with late planting (often because I've discovered forgotten packs of bulbs ganging around in the kitchen. Oops.

Oca is a tuber. Damn that autocorrect.

I love that description, "they sit in the soil and sort of glow" :)

Perhaps I'll harvest mine at the weekend, then. I won't have many, as I never planted them out so there will only be a potful (at best).

Mine were in a pot too Maud

Do they need lots of sun? If not I might try planting some.

I don't think so, but I'll know more once I've emptied the pot!

Started to clear the borders a bit now. Weeded the crab apple walk, I am really looking forward to seeing the snowdrops we put in this year come up again , we have put in primroses from MIL's garden that originally came from her parent's garden and we have moved a lot of hellebores from the bottom border. DH weeded the cottage borders too, they are still looking nice. The iris are starting to sprout.

Next I need to clear the front garden and move the plants around a bit. Once I get all the dead cosmos out I can see what I need to do better. I have been pondering the herb beds too, I really need to get all the geraniums out of there and just have actual herbs growing. Ones that slugs won't eat.

DH has put stakes in where we want to put the silver birches. I think they are too close together, but we have plenty of time to discuss it as i think we are going to have to weedkiller the grass. It is infested with couch grass in that bit.

We have failed to dig up the enormous catmint that overran the rose walk last year. I want to get it out but he is reluctant, even though it meant it was completely impassable last year and I got soaking wet every time I tried to smell a rose.

Your garden makes mine feel so inadequate, Humphrey! Still, I'm hoping to do some weeding and tidying tomorrow, if it's dry. There are a couple of things to plant too, including my newest hellebore. I do love hellebores!

Don't say that! I aspire to your knowledge and plantswomanship! (I just made up a word)

You are very kind but, likewise, I aspire to your acreage!

We have gone and fallen in love with the bloody pigs we are supposed to be eating. I fear we will now be feeding some rather hungry pets for the next ten years

Oh dear. You're broken the cardinal rule of keeping livestock. Still, pet pigs are very cute.

mmm. The problem was they are so bloody small we kept waiting until they were big enough to be worth slaughtering. It never happened.
We are doing the largest one, she is going soon. I can't look her in the eye

And we will breed from the other two (with an enormous boar!) to make sure we have a supply of bacon next year

Be brave, Humphrey and think of the bacon.

No doubt I will do the usual and cravenly make DH drive them to slaughter

That's shamefully sexist and exactly what I would do in your shoes.

I refused to whisk the blood for the black pudding too.

Seems eminently sensible and reasonable to me! It's strange, isn't it, how disconcerting and off-putting the practical details of eating meat can be and yet I couldn't (quite) give it up.

My first job was making black puddings.
And cutting up boiled pigs' heads to make brawn. The muscle behind the eye is quite big and tasty. The brains are surprisingly small, possibly because they've been boiled.