h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks.

Good luck with that garden! I love collecting fresh veggies myself, but I don't get to do it these days.

Ripley's down, so I'll stop working on .

Hopefully this year I'll get to pick a fair amount of my cherries,it is a young tree so the crop is still very small and the birds rob me blind

Have you tried hanging aluminium pie plates in the branches?

This is how my granny in Memphis protected her figs.

No I haven't yet. Mainly there is a conflict of wanting birds to feel welcome in my garden just not on the cherry tree.

And last year I lost out by a half an hour or so, I have my eye in now, when it comes to playing chicken with the black birds

This year I think it would be a good idea, I have enough height with my buddlia, rose bushes, the fences and trees out back to give the birds fleeing space from any marauding kittens

and I think that they, the kittens would think the alumimuin things entertaining in their own right so hanging from a couple from low branches would be fun

The aluminium pie pans and glass jars in the veggie rows will discourage birds and wabbits from eating the produce, but shouldn't chase them away entirely. It just startles them and interrupts the munching.

I told my mom, 'You should share.' She replied, 'I don't mind sharing. I mind them going through and taking ONE BITE out of each tomato.'

I don't mind sharing either, and I put out seeds, and fat balls and fruit over the year

I object to the naughty blackbird ignoring the apple slices, which had perfectly accptable beforehand and eyeing up my prized 26 cherries till they were just nearly done and gobbing the lot while I was taking a shower and popping the washing on

it is just rude

It is, indeed.

That started us talking. My grandparents lived way out in the country in Tennessee. People there subsistence farmed for meat, eggs, and vegetables. But fruit and nuts turned them into gatherers.

Over the centuries, people had left old fields and abandoned farms. If you knew where the peach and apple trees were, the berry bushes, and the grape vines, you could gather fruit to your heart's content. And we did.

We don't so much have fruit tres to pick from, hedgerow berries, worlteberries that can be found on common ground

Cobnuts, sweet chestnut, maybe hazel, but we only find sweet chestnuts really

there is off course scrumping but as that is basically nicking apples we don't do that but if there is over hanging branches past the bounderies then you are allowed to pick an apple, pear or two

Our berries were blackberries and huckleberries.

The blackberry bushes were at 'the old home place'. This was an old field where my dad was born. The shack had long ago fallen down and been cannibalised for lumber. Every year, the place exploded in blackberries. We'd go pick and dodge the June bugs.

The huckleberries grew up on the higher slopes of the mountains. The men would drive up there, but refuse to take the kids on the grounds that 'it was snaky'.

Later, I got to pick huckleberries in Pennsylvania, where they were more accessible - but a couple of months later in the year. Also, I was older, and we chased all the snakes away.

Our nuts were pecans and hickory nuts. My mom's folks always sent us a big bag of pecans from the trees in Mississippi - they'd wait until somebody was driving up to Memphis, and send them.

Heah, Peanut---can you grow cauliflower in the UK? Or is it too rainy there? Does it grow in one season?

Hey Elektra, yes we can grow cauliflowers here and they do grow in a season so I am going to give it a go

I looked up huckleberries for some reason I thought they were like mulberries but they are what we would call whortleberries

We don't have the worry of snakes. Rather the opposite where we camp there are apparently adders and we always look out to see one but never have.

with them.

I wouldn't go near a place with adders. I will brave The Smokey Mountains for the scenery and make enough noise that the snakes go somewhere quieter to bask, but I wouldn't want to camp there.

Thanks

To be fair your snakes are more of a worry even our adders are shy and if you really annoy one most people just need to take an anti- histimine and treat the swelling

Hi Guys

I saw you got a another guide entry through Dmitri

I'm enjoying you meteorites in the and writing right made me think. About online communitions skills in general. I might be able cobble a sentance or two about that, when er, I can cobble a sentance together

Elektra, thank you for the comments in my journal, I appreciate them and your presence there

Thanks for the kind word about the meteorites, Peanut.

Whenever you feel like cobbling, we feel like reading.

Hello Dmitri and Elektra, how are you both, has the sun come for you yet?

The tardis in this week made me grin

Sarah-Jane to The Doctor- Oh yes, go on then describe it to me and what's the weather like?

We saw the bats in the front garden this weekend

no signs of any hedgehogs though

.

The sun is out,and my computer is down.

Communication will be sporadic.

I hope it is an easy fix like CCs

Me, too.

Hey there you fixed yet?