The Bluestocking - where women are women, and small furry animals are gerbils, quokkas, capybaras, or a red panda called Rosy

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome all to the Bluestocking Pub, a haven safe from harsh reality [mostly] full of good company, and excellent food and drink served by the most efficient team of gerbils in the hospitality industry.

Oh dear! Boily is not keen on fruit. Or any kind of vegetables, or salad. AI knows this. It is pure evil.

My gardening report:

after months of not being physically able to garden, I managed to plant out some little white ground cover plants [no idea what they are called] which I've been carefully keeping alive for ages. I was pleased they had not just survived but were in bloom, and very pretty.
I planted them yesterday, they looked lovely.
Overnight they were chewed up, right down to soil level.😡

End of gardening report😢

You were sustaining the local wildlife.

Yesterday I repotted or top dressed all my pelargoniums and penstemons. Today I planted seeds in trays. It's too dry to chuck the cornflower seeds in the garden- end of next week perhaps, when rain is forecast.

I'm sorry about your pretty white flowers, Marie (alyssum, maybe?). Local wildlife can be a bastard. Mind you, DM grew some spinach when I was a very small DC. The wildlife ate it before she got the chance to pick it. I rejoiced mightily.

I've been too busy to garden, so I'm quite relieved that it would be too dry to do anything. Also. I fell over on my arse earlier today and am quite sore. I will have a tremendous bruise within a few days.

Commiserations for the munched flowers and sore arse.

There is a chance the munched flowers might come back if they're given a bit of water in the morning. Everything is in 'grow' mode at the moment.

I saw a thread series about a Galleon (?) that looked as though it was infatuation with male pirates that has been going for some years. I thought it was about a TV show but I couldn't make head or tail of it.

This was in reference to the other pubs on MN.

Ah, now that's a positive thought, thank you Deano
And I'm a fan of the local wildlife normally,
Four seeds in a row:
One for the mouse,
One for the crow,
One to rot,
And one to grow.
and all that, but there are limits😑

I've been reminded that an evil bastard animal suspected of being a rabbit ate my Empress of India nasturtiums down to the ground just as the buds were about to open two years running ignoring all the other plants around them including other nice but not as special nasturtiums. Bastard animal.

Bastard.

I get that nasturtiums taste nice, but why choose those ones with their delicious dark leaves and what would I'm sure have been delicious red flowers if they'd been let open.

Gosh I was cross. Over it now, obviously.

Have some commas and use them as you see fit , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,.

Or, from my experience
Four seeds in a row
Woodies eat
Everything you sow.

Fat smug bastard pigeons who strut about just waiting...

And Deano, Empress of India nasturiums are beautiful when (if) they flower.

I’ve not tried that type of nasturtium, would they work in hanging baskets? That should foil the rabbits.

Are you sure, Errol? I wouldn't put it past rabbits to build themselves a little ladder to get at something tasty.

I worked one summer in a place with derelict farm buildings, and rabbits can certainly climb stairs, so I wouldn't trust them not to get ladders. Empress of India are more of a bush than a trailing nasturtium, so not the best in hanging baskets. A big pot would do, and if I can get some of the dark purple petunias that smell so lush the scarlet and purple and green would be fun together.

Bing seems to have developed a nasturtium.pansy hybrid.

Meanwhile, I have some plants of regular nasturtiums that I might risk planting out soon, and a big handful of seeds collected last year ready to sow.

That's a truly bizarre looking plant, Dean!

My friend and guru, the great Quaternary scientist G F Mitchel, once remarked rather bitterly after showing me round the vegetable garden he cultivated in retirement that he had decided that the greatest hero in literature was Mr McGregor.

A bizarre plant and a levitating rather than a hanging basket

second try

botanically slight more credible, but seem to be ill

Does look more like a nasturtium but a hungry and thirsty one.

Mitchell! two LLs v important, one of 19th century Ireland's nastier characters was a one-L Mitchel, no connection.

I specified not only nasturtium (admittedly ambiguous name) but also Tropaeolum and Empress of India. Now I must away and knit.

You'd think so, wouldn't you! But then again you think that by putting nuts in a hanging feeder only the little itsy bitsy birds would be able to reach them, right?
Wrong! This is a photo from my back garden.
A magpie making a tit of itself..😁

Can't you get bird feeders where the perches are on springs, so anything heavier than a thrush would get tipped off?

Though I suppose that might just encourage the magpies to go and eat everybody else's eggs and nestlings.

I s'pose I could, but now, part from hard crusts and soft crackers, which the magpies quickly finish off, I leave them to their own devices and let them sort out their own food, whatever or whoever that is!

Sorry egrets, you are now like sooo last year- the latest arrival in Ireland to cause a big stir is the hoopoe.
Only on the south coast so far, but I'm really looking forward to seeing one when they move northwards. We thought egrets were exotic, but hoopoes - wow!

Hoopoe? Huh. Gaudy...