Heatwave Lucifer

[Minorcafan]

Yes, one needs access to a teenager when embarking on a new phone or laptop. Every time my youngest granddaughter comes to stay, she does effortless things with my laptop that I never knew existed. Trouble is, I can't usually remember how to do them once she goes home and I have to ring her up for another tutorial.

Get her to write it all down

 

[LadyA]

There's no sign of any heatwave here at the moment! It's like November out there today! Dark skies, howling wind and rain.

My veg garden failed almost completely this year, for some reason, except for the bean family. They all did ok. But from an entire pack of parsnip seeds, I have FOUR parsnips! And from 2 whole packs of carrots, I have maybe a dozen carrots! I replanted carrots twice, and then gave up. Not sure what the deal was with the garden. I was watering in the dry spells, but it just didn't seem to do much good! Weird.

I remember hearing that in histories from Medieval times, there were always references to people dying from "the bloody flux", and it was thought for years that this was some sort of virus or illness. It was only in the 20th century, when more work was being done in Africa with the victims of famine, that it was realised that "the bloody flux" was in fact the last stage of starvation, when basically, the insides broke down and came out in a bloody diarrhoea! There is no recovering from that. And this was so common in Medieval Europe, Britain and Ireland, that they thought it was a virus! Apparently, on average, one in four harvests failed, but around the Middle Ages, there was a succession of years where the weather was bad and the crops failed or never got planted, and there was famine. Entire communities were wiped off the map.

 

[bigyetiman]

Thanks for that info LadyA have often seen the term "bloody flux" and never looked it up, wrongly thinking it was something to do with cholera/typhoid or something of that ilk.
Not a good year for our vegetable plot either, not helped in part by the influx of squirrels. Which have now been dealt with

 

[dinosaw]

Well the bushy tailed scum won't be getting their hands on this little lot this year, beat them to it for a change, probably all the soft fruit that is about keeping them busy.

 

[LadyA]

Do you know, I have loads of hazel/cob nut trees, and I never get any nuts from them. And there are no squirrels around here. I've had maybe a handful of nuts over the years. I think maybe the problem is that I don't think to look for them in time!!

No heatwave here! Autumn is definitely here!! Trees turning. Today is like November. Dark, chilly and windy with the threat of heavy rain.

 

[dinosaw]

They're quite hard to find anyway, they hide themselves under the leaves. You can cut a branch off a hazel which you think has no nuts on it and then turn it over and it's got loads of them.

 

[Minorcafan]

Will they continue to ripen once off the tree?

 

[dinosaw]

Hopefully yes, they have before but I've only ever done it with a few, half of which turned out to be empty. They are in a box on the windowsill at the mo and are starting to brown. The nuts when you get them are much smaller than the ones you buy in the shops.

 

[Icemaiden]

Lady A: If you're crops are struggling, it sounds as though you need some ex-batts to make you more compost

 

[Minorcafan]

Hopefully yes, they have before but I've only ever done it with a few, half of which turned out to be empty. They are in a box on the windowsill at the mo and are starting to brown. The nuts when you get them are much smaller than the ones you buy in the shops.

Going to collect some green ones now

 

[dinosaw]

Happy hunting. Try to keep them in a dark place, preferably warm and dry.

 

[Margaid]

I like them when they're "wet". Once they've turned colour I always found that if they came out of the little cap easily there would be a nut, if they wouldn't then the shell would be empty. We used to get loads off our bush and so did the squirrels - we found a hoard in the corner of the coal bunker one year when we cleared it out. They must have been put there in the autumn before we ordered the winter fuel. They used to bury single nuts in the lawn which was quite amusing to watch.

 

[dinosaw]

They taste a bit pea like when "wet" don't they. The holes have started appearing in our grass now as the squirrels start to dig their holes, they have beaten me to most of the walnuts yet again. I didn't know you could buy them unripe but they are on sale online at £6.99 per 500g online, some of them looking a lot greener looking than mine. I will have to try that method for seeing if they are empty or not.