Early Risers.

[Tony_S]

35 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

Quite what would happen if the slugs were French and quite liked garlic he didn't say.

We used some concentrated garlic stuff on the hostas. Our slugs must have liked garlic too. Aditi’s main “bugbear” for flowers seems to be lily beetle. She really likes lilies so vigilance is required. The first year they appeared in Essex (they have been moving northwards) Aditi thought “what pretty beetles “. She doesn’t think that nowadays. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Tony_S

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Blowing a hooley outside at the moment but no sign of rain yet. Just spent an hour assembling the stock boxes. The actual assembly took minutes including the dry run but I had to wait between stages for the glue to dry. Tea has brewed so its be back later.

[simontaylor484]

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

 

Sadly yes, and it is not just gardeners who use the slug/hedgehog killer treatments. UK farmers seem to; by adding tens of thousands of tons of the stuff each year on arable fields. 

 

One of the worst offenders are people who grow oilseed rape which, if you research into details of pests and diseases, seems to be attacked by all and sundry creatures in the fields but especially flea beetles which cannot be eradicated without decimating other insect species as well. After reading biological articles I am surprised that the crop is allowed to be grown at all, especially just for its oil; when there are many other varieties of crops which can be used for cooking oil. 

 

Presumably, it is cheap to refine; and its high demand for nitrogen mean that global fertiliser companies are making a mint?

Oilseed is one of the main ingredients in biodiesel so i cant see its planting diminishing soon. Although i agree that it requires too many agro chemicals applied to it

[leopardml2341]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

It wanted double-time for working on a bank holiday 

A day in lieu surely?

 

But then they're normally on a different day

 

Weather here in South Derbyshire is diabolical, managed trip to boat and sorted indoor stuff. Cake and coffee not possible due to it p!ssing down and Covid rules.

 

I echo the thanks to @AY Mod for returning service to normal, whatever that means hereabouts

 

Due to not being able to partake in came and coffee earlier, I called into co-op on the way and the rest as they say is history........

 

Bit elusive in my local (small) branch though, took some finding.

 

Make the most of what remains of a miserable day folks. I'm off to make a cuppa.

Edited May 3, 2021 by leopardml2341

[jonny777]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

We used some concentrated garlic stuff on the hostas. Our slugs must have liked garlic too. Aditi’s main “bugbear” for flowers seems to be lily beetle. She really likes lilies so vigilance is required. The first year they appeared in Essex (they have been moving northwards) Aditi thought “what pretty beetles “. She doesn’t think that nowadays. 

 

Yes, I have also had big problems with lily beetles, so much so that I think all the expensive lily bulbs I invested in a few years ago have now given up the ghost. 

 

I even bought tiny ladybird larvae online last year, in order to combat greenfly on various plants. I don't know if they worked or not because a few days after their release I noticed a number of house sparrows picking the greenfly off the affected plants and they may have scoffed the ladybird larvae as well. 

 

That seemed to cut the aphid numbers, but by then much of the damage had been done. I understand that garden plants are an "all you can eat buffet" to most insect larvae, but sometimes the infestation just gets too much for my brain to cope with; after months of careful nurturing of plants to that stage. 

 

Currently, I have a seed tray with about 15 newly germinated cyclamen plants in it. They are tiny, just a 3mm diameter leaf on each stalk; and I know that within a few seconds something could come along and munch the lot. There is little I can do about it, but cross my fingers and hope. 

 

It is alright for the Monty Dons of this world with a £15000 BBC budget for seeds and greenhouses, but I only want a few of each plant. 

 

Sorry, depressing epistle over. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by jonny777

[Barry O]

Chuckinitdarn here....pah!

 

Ways of stopping slugs.. form a ring around the base of the plant you want to protect using some  cut tubing.. fill with beer.. lay salt on the edges of the tubing...... or just let some empty jam jars into the ground near the  plants.. add some cheap beer to the jars.. sit back..  (trialled and tested in Didcot where the slugs loved our Hostas). My late FiL used to pour salt on any slug he found.. does the slug no good at all!

 

Time  for a muga decaff

 

Baz

[New Haven Neil]

Our slug population seems to have diminished massively in recent years, not sure why but we do see hedgepigs around the garden so maybe their population is on the increase.  

 

As for oilseed rape that hadn't been seen here for a couple of years but I see a couple of fields full not far from us - and I can smell them too, it murders my hayfever.  We should be aware as railway enthusiasts that the oil from it was used for railway lamps - know as Colser oil, it is smokeless so cleaner.

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

We used some concentrated garlic stuff on the hostas. Our slugs must have liked garlic too. Aditi’s main “bugbear” for flowers seems to be lily beetle. She really likes lilies so vigilance is required. The first year they appeared in Essex (they have been moving northwards) Aditi thought “what pretty beetles “. She doesn’t think that nowadays. 

 

Oh dear. We got the darn things the other year. Horrible. The only nice thing about them is the noise they make when you squash them.

[PhilJ W]

When I lived in Romford I tried growing broad beans. The first year the blackfly massacred them then I was told to pinch out the tops of the plants and when I did so the blackfly infestation was far less and I got a better crop.

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

Thanks to AY for getting us back onboard and saving us from spending our time on less important things (gardening avoid, sorting out the recyc;ling not avoided).  The rain started about 10 minutes ago so the seaweed is obviously wearing out as it was due 3 hours ago, wind is here as a preluded and accompaniment.

 

Printers.  we need a new one and i am considering an Epson having had very little luck (or much else) with the current HP.  Does anyone have any experience - good, bad, or indifferent - with Epson printers please especially if used in conjunction with a Mac?

 

Little else of note and its lasagne,  currently under construction by the domestic deity, for dindins this evening.

 

Incidentally has anybody else come across these for where they live? -

https://oxfordshire.org/insights/local-insight-full-profile-for-didcot/

 

It seems to be the case in Oxfordshire that some sort of organisation is making them freely available as an online download and they make fascinating reading if you're interested in what is often semi-useless information.  For example in the town here the average road distance from any home to the nearest pub is 0.6km compared to an average of 0.7km for England.    5.7% of households here have three cars compared with the average for England of 5.5%

 

Enjoy the rest of your day everybody and stay safe.

[Barry O]

well that info on Didcot is fascinating.. things have changed since we left!  But if you don't have a car then there is a lot of shank's pony to get food etc...or to walk to the station to get a train out of there!

 

Baz

[New Haven Neil]

Rain finally stopped, 50mm.  Small flood in the garage, otherwise oK, but it sure did pee down.

[J. S. Bach]

25 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Afternoon all,

 ...snip... Printers.  we need a new one and i am considering an Epson having had very little luck (or much else) with the current HP.  Does anyone have any experience - good, bad, or indifferent - with Epson printers please especially if used in conjunction with a Mac? ...snip...

I once had an Epson ActionLaser 1000 (lost during my move) attached to a PC and it was as good as any.

[J. S. Bach]

Hmmm, I just realized that I should give Andy belated thanks for getting us back on track.

[Tony_S]

46 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

but I only want a few of each plant.

Aditi often only ends up with a few of each but they make her especially happy. We used to have a real problem with gooseberry sawfly. They didn’t go after the fruit but could strip a plant of its leaves. That was something we applied nematodes to. We had scale beetle on our olive trees and it seemed that picking them off by hand was the only method we could use but nematodes worked there as well. Garden birds do reasonably well from our pears as they don’t seem to mind codling moth larvae. We don’t mind sharing the fruit but do like some unmolested pears. We have used pheromone traps over the last two years. Though I wonder if one of our two trees will ever be the same after Aditi gave it a thorough pruning last year. 
Tony

[southern42]

28 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Snip...

 

Incidentally has anybody else come across these for where they live? -

https://oxfordshire.org/insights/local-insight-full-profile-for-didcot/

 

It seems to be the case in Oxfordshire that some sort of organisation is making them freely available as an online download and they make fascinating reading if you're interested in what is often semi-useless information.  For example in the town here the average road distance from any home to the nearest pub is 0.6km compared to an average of 0.7km for England.    5.7% of households here have three cars compared with the average for England of 5.5%

 

Enjoy the rest of your day everybody and stay safe.

 

You only have to go the bottom of our village to know how far it is from the nearest pub to here..  The direction road sign says: "1 mile."

[Tony_S]

36 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

with Epson printers please especially if used in conjunction with a Mac?

Are you going for one of the Epson “tank” versions. Allegedly the print cost is very low.

I nearly bought a Canon Megatank printer but they disappeared from sale. Probably all stuck in the Suez Canal. All our HP printers work with Macs, Windows and various tablets. The last Epson I bought with my own money was a FX80 dot matrix. Probably in the loft somewhere. 
Tony

[Ian Abel]

On 30/04/2021 at 22:58, iL Dottore said:

The above is not extol the US medical system or rubbish the NHS, far from it (and to be honest I think the system that we have in Switzerland is superior to both the US system and to the NHS in terms of cost, accessibility and outcomes), but to point out there is more to the eye wateringly astronomical health care costs in the US than meets the eye.

Whilst I agree with and understand most all of what you posted there are a couple of additions;

1) All my work in IT for the past 5+ years has been/is within the medical community and specifically Hospitals - the excess expenditures (even for ME!) is unbelievable.

2) "Eye watering" is also what I'd consider my annual Health Care Insurance premiums - scarily for excellent coverage - at $11,000 a year. Added to that my employer kicks in another 50% (around $5,500) as a "benefit to me" to reduce the cost from even more eye watering, if they didn't help out, to the "ONLY" $11,000 I pay!

3) Notwithstanding the premium, we (coverage is for both myself and the Mrs) also have an industry considered LOW deductible maximum of $3,000 per year per person, before coverage kicks in.

4) I'll not bother to include the costs of Dental and Eye Care insurance, since they are trifling sums compared to the basic health care  - but STILL cost me $$.

 

  While the percentage varies depending on procedures and whether the services are "in network" or "out of network", a decision made by the insurance company, NOT by my choice of doctor/location/services, eventually I have to pay some percentage of the costs involved. So my annual outlay is between $11,000 and $17,000, for starters.

 

I'd far rather see that sort of money, and hopefully FAR LESS per head if it was applied to ALL persons equally, for equal services on a national basis.

However, that sort of health care is referred to as "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" by those opposed to it  with the implication that it's a slipper slope towards communism is those peoples eyes!

 

[BSW01]

I use an Epson printer, I've had it for a few years now, it's given me sterling service. When it finally gives up the ghost, I'm thinking of getting a printer which is an INK TANK version next. 

 

PS. It works well with generic ink cartridges, but I find the ink quality a bit iffy, so I stick with genuine cartridges. These can be picked up quite cheaply from Ebay. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by BSW01

[jonny777]

I have an Epson printer and a couple of MacBook Pros. 

 

They work well together; when they work. My printer is old, so maybe they have changed now - but I found that I became a slave to the machine. If I wanted to print in plain black and the printer said the magenta ink had run out then no printing was allowed until I had changed the cartridge. 

 

If I tried to save money and buy generic cartridges, or refills; the printer would detect that and refuse to work. There was a lengthy workaround, but it meant going through boring processes for about 10 minutes, only to find that it would then say the yellow had run out and refuse to start. 

 

Even if it was not used for a couple of weeks, the ink would dry in the nozzles and the printer would refuse to work until the nozzle cleaning program had been run. The problem with that was nozzle cleaning would invariably use up a colour and the printer would still not start until I had replaced the relevant cartridge. 

 

And all this to print out a plain black text on a plain white sheet of paper. 

 

Life is too short for an Epson printer. 

[Ian Abel]

Moaning, late on parade.

 

Good weekend overall, nice weather with the warmest being Saturday.

Busy Saturday and the evening happy hour - hosted by us - was a lot of fun, though sadly one couple were there for their goodbyes, they are moving to Dallas to be closer to they kids.

Sunday, scheduled, one-way COVID separated tour of the min-Kew Gardens aka the Saint Paul Conservatory. Apparently "just in time" as the Sunken Garden exhibit will have all the spring flowers removed today and replaced with the summer plantings.

 

The Palm house had many orchids in bloom, my favorite of them all;

 

After that we went to a pop-up food vendor at a local brewery and obtained some excellent food and beer to have on the porch. Very enjoyable.

 

Little else to report for now.

 

Started out at 9 and partly overcast, 18 and partly cloudy the forecast for the day.

 

Take care and stay safe.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Ian Abel

[PhilJ W]

The rain has finally arrived and is now rattling on the windows but I'm smug and dry indoors with the curtains drawn and thats how its going to stay. Breaking news there's a massive fire at Platt's Eyot on the River Thames in a boatyard. IIRC thats the old Thorneycroft boatyard. Not that far from the Hill of Strawberries either.

[Gwiwer]

1 hour ago, BSW01 said:

I use an Epson printer, I've had it for a few years now, it's given me sterling service. 

 

It works well with generic ink cartridges, but I find the ink quality a bit iffy, so I stick with genuine cartridges

I had an Epson Stylus Photo RX510 for a few years.  It was one of those which had an inbuilt slide scanner and was so new off the boat when I bought it that it wasn't even listed.  It gave perfectly good service for enough years but eventually the drivers would no longer update to keep pace with the computer so it had to go.  If I still had it today I could scan my late father's slides at a  rate of knots and make a quick decision on whether any were worth enhancing electronically or indeed keeping at all.  I'm not sure how I am going to do that right now.  

 

The Epson would use generic inks but preferred its own.  The current Canon TS5050 will only use its own inks; generic ones to fit are easily obtained but the machine is smart enough to know the difference and refuses to use the cheap ones.   Some electronic identifier in Canon's own cartridges. perhaps, that the machine handshakes with?  

 

Evening all.  A lengthy session has seen work on the M-word project advance significantly.  Nuff said.  I leave this Ban Collar Day a satisfied man in that respect.  I also leave the weather to do its stuff outside where it is blowing a hoolie and persisterating down.  Let's say I am not at all looking forward to the morning shift at the House of Fun.  Getting there at all will be the first challenge.  

 

Until then ..... when the time comes sleep well and be safe.  

[leopardml2341]

Well, the rain has finally stopped with a big bang deluge and high winds. The sky is now mainly blue overhead, but still a bit cloudy to the west.

 

Not much else to report so I'll echo Rick; when the time comes sleep well and be safe. 

 

Until later or maybe tomorrow.......

[simontaylor484]

The Didcot information is quite interesting as i lived in Abingdon for 6 months although i worked for the firm a year longer.