#Streptocarpus are one of my top plants for indoors. Some can flower year-round! Check out this new variety, 'Lemon Sorbet' from Dibley's Nursery. Beauts!

#HamptonCourt #gardening

Love the flower idea. You know me. 😹♥️🌺

That looks lovely, where's that?

#ShadowTheCat monitoring one of our new acquisitions from #HamptonCourt, a perennial digitalis/foxglove.

It's a great game! I love how it's on so many platforms now. One of my all time favorites, for sure... Haven't played in a few years though.

#HamptonCourt #bonsai

... And inside the Floral Marquee, always top notch specimens. These #bonsai growers make their circuit around the Flower Shows every year, and this one is as usual, Gold medal standard.

I can't decide which #bonsai I prefer!

Every year the RHS creates a floral themed logo, here's this year's at #HamptonCourt Garden Festival. #gardening

Had a fantastic day at the Royal Horticultural Society Hampton Court Garden Festival today, I'll share some great finds in the upcoming days!

Or perhaps to stop thinking about phone numbers as the de facto method of identity management and communications... I haven't paid for long distance calling in years, with VOIP being now so prevalent.

That's an impressively long list!

We also cut some apples early to promote quality, as mentioned in an earlier post. This inevitably results in a bunch of sour, small and hard apples. Not so great for snacking, but great cooked.

We try not to let anything go to waste here. These things tasted amazing in the end!

Update: the 1st thing I did this season - make cherry and apple crumble tarts from the windfall apples. Every season, some fruits don't make the cut and the trees drop them to focus their energy on others. They're not great to eat, but can bake well.

@Bevan, is this normal?

https://i.snag.gy/cO3du8.jpg

This last weekend at the #allotment, the espalier Falstaff #apple continues to ripen.

I've taken off every 3rd or 4th apple in each cluster to encourage larger and better quality fruit.

Added a stake: it leans into the direction of the prevailing wind to reduce swaying.

Likewise, I understand your POV too. We might disagree, but there's no right answer for sure.

My top requirement is for good, functional, productive platforms. Google's profiling is actually a small consideration to me, compared to the value received. Profiling != Control IMHO.

... and calendars, photos, tasks, notes, lists, etc...? Single platforms do have value for myself and enterprises for consistency. I'm moving away from point solutions like Spark these years. I find Google is great for this; I personally don't have a reason to change.

Meep! 🐧

Welcome to Peepeth!

That'd be sufficient if I wanted and could afford an Apple, and if it was my only device I used the reminders on... 😸 It's tricky and we're just talking about reminders, a really basic function!

Indeed, it's definitely not the case! It's good to be aware of possibly nefarious uses of our data.

For me, I get so many benefits from profiling, that it outweighs other concerns. My everyday habits *depend* on some profiling (i.e., emails automatically into calendar). Tricky!

That is fantastic, if that's your goal. Often people feel they are hindered when trying to avoid tracking.

I'm aware of who's tracking what, and I allow what I'm OK with. I don't think everyone needs to be the same.

Do you feel everyone should have the same policy on #privacy?

Of course, having said that, I do expect stuff like synced data to be encrypted securely with a password that only I know!

But I think each person's view on what is acceptable privacy is different: there's no wrong answer. It's always an interesting discussion to compare.

I used Minefield (their nightly branch) many years ago.

I think browsers are a personal choice, and most users don't always prefer privacy first (myself included!) Example: I love and rely on Google's profiling of me and my data. It increases my productivity. Many may disagree.

I like having my profile, settings and apps synced across devices; the Chrome extensions that I use are compatible with Opera as it's Blink; and of course, the built-in crypto wallet. I've not used Firefox in earnest for 10 or 15 years.

We cloned this #rose from a cutting last season. It's rooted over the months, got new foliage, and here's its first flower ever! How exciting! #gardening

I'll second that! I'm using Opera (developer build) here on mobile and desktops. It uses chrome's rendering engine and its extensions. Switched to Opera this year for Peepeth and haven't looked back. 🌐🐧

Not this season, it's its first year! Generally I don't stress about getting fruit trees to produce until the 3rd season. Until then, it's all pruning and training to encourage a good strong form for the future.

#gardening #allotment

That is really interesting. Only just last night I was discussing how I don't like gardens designed with sharp lines and angles, I prefer contours. It's very subjective, but this goes a ways to explain why perhaps we have these individual preferences... very cool!

Time for a haircut for this young #apricot tree... reduced by about a third. All lateral shoots trimmed to just a few nodes.

We like to promote bushy, smallish growth in the allotment. Most of our trees are on dwarfing #rootstocks.

Beautiful! That looks huge! 🌵

Ahoy! What an adorable friend. What's his name? 😻

#Blackberry flower at the #allotment. Finally fruiting, in its third season! 🍓🐧

Lots of tidy up pruning today, their thorns really shredded up my hands... let's hope it was all worthwhile. 😹

Fantastic! Can't wait to see insights in action! 🤟

Assorted #Poppies growing, hybridising and self-seeding at our #allotment. The double flowered ones are amazing, haven't seen those before, perhaps new unique hybrids? How cool! 😻🐧🔀

Thanks @Bevan! The frame is just made from bamboo rods lashed together with rope. I'm hoping they'll last the season.

We're growing a few varieties of apples. These are Falstaff Red Apples, so we'll eat them as well as cook with them!

I can't quite see the centre, maybe you could share a specific picture of that?

Perhaps you could prune off some branches this autumn: reduce the weight, let in more air and light. The fruits will ripen better anyways. I like 'goblet' shaped pruning--keeps the centre open.

Welcome, #4897 to the future! 😹

How large is your fig tree?

I've seen some magnificent 'T' bars used to prop up older trees. Especially on my travels to #Japan, they use them to promote the natural wonkiness of each tree... it's a splendid thing.

Created an espalier frame for an apple tree today at the #allotment. The weight of too many apples was causing it to bend and flop. This should hold it steady and give better light to improve the crop. #gardening

Hard drive failure... is there a more annoying #fail. Sigh.😭

I am so used to cameras from all angles, in and around #London. It does feel invasive at first, but to be fair, the amount of criminals caught using #CCTV cameras does make me somewhat "OK" with them.

I'm not sure what could be used in lieu. #privacy

I'd echo that. Prague is awesome, and cheap; too bad I'm not there now to meet up... Tho any excuse to go to Prague is always a good one! 😹

Yeah, like many products, the key to success isn't so much its features, as its widespread adoption. Keybase has been pretty reliable for me over the years, to be fair. But good luck convincing others to use it!

Been using it for years, over here. Great for proof of identity. Average/fairly usable for file sharing, instant messaging, and its other collaboration features. Sluggish desktop clients.

Really cool. Hope you share more pixel art. I used to draw ANSI block art in the dial-up BBS days. It's great to see low resolution #artwork today.

It's from some olive oil during pan frying. Olive oil, sea salt and crushed black pepper is all we added here.

... And here they are again, cooked! 😻

#mangetout

... Yeah. Let's jump through 1000 flaming hoops--anything, to avoid adding to the official employee count. 🙄

Quite frankly the entire industry is a fucking farce. I am glad to be away from it, at least for the time being.

They are similar to sugar snaps, but have a milder flavour. Sugar snaps are much sweeter, and I think they're crunchier too! Mangetout are a bit softer, thinner. They are similar, though. You can probably prepare them in many of the same dishes.

It does, they've got more flavour when raw. But we prefer them slightly cooked. Depending on whether you like it sweet and very crunchy, you can eat them raw.

Slightly sweet and still crunchy if not overcooked.