1. The tom has reached 7' & you want to train it along a horizontal. We know - be careful. So it snaps ,with 2 trusses on it.
2. You are once again too gentle tying in your cus. At 5', laden, the plant slips down the cane & snaps. Must remember to use the green poles with knobs on.
3. The odd job man, as a favour, rotovates that weedfree patch with nothing in it. Except your 2 year old asparagus grown from seed & due to crop that year - many years ago, so I can now laugh about it.
4. Tidying up the escallonia - that 'dead branch' was the main trunk. = Tim
Boy those are bad - I would be more than "bugged". Mine are minor in comparison:
Spending two hours watering the garden with a watering can only to have it rain a short while afterwards.
My husband helping with the weeding and pulling up new seedlings instead. (He is getting better now, and asks when he's not sure)
Slugs
The cat c**ping on my lettuce seedlings (yes I'm still cross about that one)
That's about it at the mo.
Tim, dont tell me all that happened this year :o I wouldnt just be bugged I would be in a straight jacket ;)
So what bugs me?
Puppy chewing through several shrubs. >:(
Puppy chewing through several raspberry canes. >:(
Puppy digging in the borders to find the latest mole to appear.(where is the mole trap) >:(
The wind blowing over a new 3 tier basket all planted up and being cultivated ready for eldest daughters wedding day, and puppy chewing the contents. :'(
Apart from that I am fine :-\
Tim, I cringe everytime I think about your poor asparagus bed.
Well apart from having no garden or lottie (mostly my own fault, and fixable) what really bugs me is aphids, they get all over everything and squishing them makes me feel a bit creepy.
Watering, Plocket? - may have been a chore, but it will have made the most of the rain by starting the capillary action - if you know what I mean. = Tim
>:(Finding cat poo in the middle of newly sown veggie seeds, despite having placed a barricade of string and sticks, more string and sticks.
They must enjoy the assault course and think 'I'll show her!'
Having to restake plants I thought were well staked after a wind.
Nettles, couch grass, thistles now in my garden from next doors 'forgotten' bit of land.
Any one who complains they can't easily get round the garden because of all the plants encroaching on the paths etc. I mean, just be careful!
Getting hold of coveted seeds and waiting...waiting...waiting for them to come up...don't hold your breath.
>:( >:( >:(Having my non gardening in laws visit when I'm not in, to do some work to the house with my n.g.o.h (I know, I am grateful) and having them tread all over the echinops that was about to flower for the first time, cutting a branch off the buddleia because it was 'in the way' and then seeing the butterflies flutter round it on the floor. They never touched it again though......
Tim - It was hard work though, and I had thought of using the hose but decided to be good. The wilting plants had recovered before the rain so it can only have helped. Did you manage to rescue any of your asparagus?
Mimi - I know you have been working so hard on the flowers for the wedding - can the basket be rescued? How long is it now until the wedding? (Cute to have a puppy though!)
Kerry - dammed cats! Fingers crossed for your coveted seeds.....
Yesterday my 5 year old son picked his first courgette grown by him from seed. Very rewarding for him, he even chopped it up, cooked it and ate it all by himself. Whilst I was in the kitchen helping him cook his lovely home grown veg, my 3 year old daughter decided to copy and pick all her tomatoes and my green pepper which are still little and not yet ripe! She sweetly came into the kitchen, arms full with baby tomatoes and the little pepper, big smile on her face and so proud that she too had grown some veg and had picked it. What could I say, there'll be another summer next year to try again!
When I have 'work turn' at the lottie complex (everybody twice a season) and my chore is to operate the shredder (which I always hope to be assigned to, ear protectors and goggles on and singing loud over the noise of the machine hahaha but it's usually men that get to play with it). There is a hedged in area at the complex, called the bees bush, where everybody can deposit their choppable stuff and only that.
You should see the junk people throw there, from torn plastic sheeting to giant rootballs, from broken bricks to rotten planks and lengths of old plastic tie-up rope that tangles everything up, you name it, it gets thrown there. Every year it's written up in our 'green book' from the club, there is a sign at the entrance of the bee's bush. It is so bad that every now and then a trailer has to be hired to cart other people's junk to the dump. We don't even own a car and take all our junk out on bicycles and to know other people with a car don't even bother and leave it for others to clean up. Shame on them! Now, that really bugs me.
Asparagus? No! = Tim
Mimi -give the dog to Kerry ;D
Tim -thanks for reminding me about the cucumber, one of mine did that last year, although I got away without it snapping.
Having the wire supporting all my greenhouse tomatoes snap wasn't good -I now use canes.
The old lawnmower used to bug the h*ll out of me -loud, smelly and stopped every five minutes -taking 10 to restart it. It's now gone to 2-stroke heaven.
Bl**dy slugs.
Jeremy
The wind. It's windy today and I rescued loads of potted mallows and other stuff that was ready to sell for charity. It's all way too battered now. My reedmace is doing its stuff so I think I'll put bunches of 'bullrushes' out instead. Can't see the purpose of wind.
Not a lot annoys me in the garden as im a relaxed chappie anyway,but...
1)Sycamore leaves from trees that surround the estate i live.I hate them and always fill about 10 bin bags of them every year.
2)Slugs/snails,but since the birdies and frogs have discovered them in my garden-i perhaps spot one per week! Not bad going since i used to be overun with them.
3)Neighbour-he is currently building a shed attached to MY fence which looks like something from a shanty town.His last effort collapsed and destroyed MY fence and wouldnt meet me halfway with material costs even though i was doing the donkey work.Honestly,if you saw it you would presume it was being taken down and not put up!!!
And thats about it!
I think the 3 main ones are
1)The wind - and there's lots of it where I am and I refuse to only grow things less than a foot high!
2)The fact that I've found nettles and bindweed in the garden over the last couple of months despite there being none here when we moved in three years ago! Did I bring them in with something unwittingly? And I thought I had enough with the horsetail!
3)I've got really good neighbours and I'm really lucky but I wish that they didn't have three sets of drum kits between them. Sometimes it can be very difficult to find a little peace out there at a weekend.
Mainly though, I'm a happy chap in the garden and happier each year as things get better.
All best, Iain
on each side of my plots, there are two women who NEVER do a hand's turn of work on their plot. Because it is so cheap, they have kept hold of the plots for the last two years without using them, not even to visit. The rules of our plots state that if there is ANY sign of cultivation, the plotholder cannot be evicted despite a three year waiting list. Both of these women have simply turned over a bit of earth by the paths on their plots. I think they are unutterably selfish and greedy and lazy - one of them gets her son to rotavate and does nothing else except try to get other people to dig and plant for her, despite having no intention of even trying to do anything. These plot-holders make me grind my teeth. Oh yeah, and the million dandelion seeds drift all over my plots all summer. gah! rage >:( probably shouldn't have got started on this!
cheers, suzy
For Jesseveve - I just had to answer your post - your wee ones sound so sweet. And you're right - there'll be other times for tomatoes etc, but your 'wee ones' will be 'big ones' before you can blink - my baby's in final year at Uni and I can still see her running round the garden at 3 years old shouting 'I've been pollinated' when a bee came too close - them were the days :)
A three year waiting list Campenula? There must be a shortage of allotments there. Why on earth do these women keep their lottie? Because it's cheap...........that isn't a reason at all.
That would bug me a lot, knowing there's people waiting for a lottie.
CATS AND BL..DY MAGPIES!!!!!!!!!!! GGGGGRRRRRRR!!!!!!
A cat has just killed TWO of my baby fieldmice and a magpie flew off with one this morning!!! They only left the nest today poor wee things. There's not going to be any left at this rate. :'( :'( >:(
Eileen.
Nurturing what I thought was globe artichokes, to later enjoy the flowers of the foxglove. :-\
Pruning some branches from our willow and sweeping all of the sun burnt leaves from the lawn, then the gales swept through bringing down branches and more leaves to keep me occupied. >:(
Sowing trays of seeds, putting them under shading in the greenhouse, to watch the shading come crashing down taking all the trays with it. :'(
Spending hours filling the pond within an inch of the top, then watching the rain pouring for days on end, and seeing the water spilling out of the pond onto our already soaked lawn! :(
Receiving lots of packets of seeds from the RHS, sowing them in trays, labelling them carefully, then go into the house, start washing up, and watch baby son go into greenhouse and retrieve all of the plant labels for me. Bless him!
Getting down on my hands and knees in the undergrowth to pull out those weeds, and putting my knee right in a pile of wet, smelly cat poo! >:( >:( >:(
3 things I get angry about:
RAIN >:( this most be one of the wettest years ever! I've got hundred of little plants I lovingly raised from seeds just sitting in the greenhouse, waiting for their chance to sprout outside.
SLUGS & SNAILS :'( the most annoying creatures ever!!! They ate my delphiniums down to the ground, and have now discovered that if they chew through the young sunflowers' stems, they can topple them and eat them. BAH!
MIDGES >:( >:( >:( If it rains all day and then clears up by evening, just when you think you can actually DO something in your garden, you're EATEN ALIVE by ferocious gnats (trembling with rage!!!)
Rain & midges?? That's the price you pay for living in such a beatiful country!!
Down here we've been desperately short of rain this year. = Tim
oh YES - the midges or even worse the CLEGS (horseflies?) - I end up with lumps the size of walnuts itchy and sore for days
Mostly I think I get teed off at myself for never wanting to throw anything flower related away so planting spare stuff and forgetting where I planted it - still I keep getting surprises. Never admit that I bug myself tho!!
Tightly sealed plastic bags full of rotting slimy, broken glass and tin cans etc, buried in the garden for me to dig up and invariably put the spade through so it all spills out!
This REEELY bugs me .= Tim
(Should have included the torn stem at the top. btw - there were 63 tomatoes).