*Afterthoughts & Addenda* *Non-growing plants* - yesterday, the day before this video went live, I pulled up a weed in that little plot with the stunted plants and discovered a huge ants nest (the nest was huge, not the ants). I think that might be what was holding the plants back.
Add a little ground maze to the area the ants will clear out quick smart it's non toxic to you or the dog, I make lines with the ground maze. Replenish after heavy rain or if you see ants again.
If 'it' is a bright light it is not an it but a lady glow-worm, waiting for a gentleman to happen along. Only the males can fly, but they have only a little greenish light.
I'd love it if you did a video on footpaths. My mum wrote a couple of books of circular walks based on my town following footpaths she'd know since her childhood. She even managed to make sure at least one wasn't lost through disuse and persuaded land owners to repair and maintain stiles. I'm planning on writing another along with my sister.
There is a short path near me that went between two housing estates the local council put a fence with a gate across the path then padlocked the gate, they said it was for security reasons yet no one seems to know what the security problem is. The path being blocked means residents on either estate have to walk fithteen minuites to visit friends, family or get to shops either side.
I know what you mean about cucumbers suddenly tasting weird one day. When I was younger I used to eat tons of cucumbers at school, until one day they started tasting really weird and I couldn't stomach them anymore. My childhood mind blamed the shops for "making cucumbers wrong", and my mum thought I was crazy. But hearing that you went through the same thing as an adult makes me feel much less crazy.
yes, definitely something wrong with shop cucumbers. they've started tasting really weird. thought it was me at first but then i tried a more expensive waitrose cucumber and it tasted normal. the cheaper ones at asda taste garbage.
52:27 Predilections and contemplations - Moss. I love moss. When on a walk around the grounds I will stop in my tracks to bend down and stare at the world of moss: the little forest, the little garden, the little worlds, the different mosses with their miniscule blooms or bitty "trees" or tiny fields of verdant softness. I will spend quite a bit of time staring at moss. It makes me unreasonably happy. It stills my mind. Perhaps that is the "purpose" of such large onion/odd pumpkin/sumptuous moss fascinations. Next time I see an exceptionally hefty onion, I will think of Mr. Shrimp, and will think of the other viewer who adores pumpkins when fall is here and the gourds are about. :)
@@pheart2381 Hello, fellow moss lover. I don't know what I'd do if I ran across a hummock!! Where I live the tallest moss I've ever seen is a little lump on the ground. The moss only appears in small patches. Little oases of loveliness. Earlier in my moss love, I tried transplanting. It hurt my heart to fail as I did.
Has a acer palmatum tree that has been in the same pot for over ten years (guess it needs repotting soon) oh and a scots pine tree alongside it that seeded itself, anyway the soil is completely covered in moss and looks lovely most of the year though it goes a bit brown in the summer.
I don't usually have time to watch the longer videos in the morning, but sometimes I do skip ahead and watch comment positivity. As it turns out, positivity does rub off. Not the worst thing at the start of the day.
I really like the "being happy on purpose" philosophy. Taking the time to enjoy the things we like, and to savour the moments. Any time I find an exeptionally large onion or a girthy carrot now days, it makes me happy. Not because I find them particularly funny, but because it reminds that you like them, and that happiness can come from all sorts of things.
We may not have seen your smile, but we could definitely hear it. Thank you for sharing your glow worm sightings, even on screen there was something magical about it.
Some of the sea glass will have come from old fashioned crab pot floats. As a child (aeons ago!) I used to visit Lyme Regis regularly (coming from Devon) and we'd sometimes see the fishermen mending pots and replacing the glass floats that had been smashed in storms. They were often green or blue, standing out against the sea. Lyme Bay was a great place for edible crabs back in the 1960's!
"I'm gonna Shrimp that" could mean, "I'm gonna narrate my thoughts through this project while I figure it out." I feel the most "like shrimp" when I walk around nature and pount out plant I recognize.
Oh the glow worms are very amazing! Here in Michigan, US we will have fireflies, I have fields that strobe so brightly and almost in sequence like they copy each other! Thanks for sharing nature on your part of the world!
The first time I encountered fireflies it was so surreal. And it was during my first ftx in army bootcamp, which surely added to the emotional impact of the experience.
I have a 10 hour flight tomorrow and was looking at videos to download with RUclips premium on my phone and this pops up. Perfect! Can sleep the other 8 hours 🤣
Okay, I wasn't quite as prepared as I thought when it came to you finally spotting glowworm activity. I think I was almost as excited for you as you were about seeing them. 😂 I, too, had a goofy smile on my face because it was so obvious how happy you were. Congrats, and may this be the start of many more nights of glowworm mating rituals in the future!
"I'm gonna shrimp that" lol love it It means I am going to take a found bit of something seemingly insignificant and, through error and undaunted trial, transform it into something beautiful or delicious or funny.
Blossom-end rot is the bane of a tomato grower’s existence. I’m in the northeast United States, but here’s what I’ve discovered makes an impact on reducing the likelihood of it: 1) get plant types that are naturally resistant to it. That’s the most important thing. I grew San Marzano tomatoes last year and they were really susceptible to it while my Celebrities hardly experienced it at all. 2) tomato plants really do like more watering than I’ve realized. I have mine in well-draining pots (much like yours) and they really perform better when I absolutely soak them when I water them. I’ll mention that we’ve gotten a lot of sun here this summer. Additionally, good, moist soil allows the plant to be able to absorb the calcium in the soil better. 3) finally, providing calcium for potted plants is important, however, it’s more of a watering/absorption issue. This year, I planted the Celebrity variety and Early Girls (which are also resistant to blossom end rot), and I haven’t had a single incidence of it yet…knock on wood! I hope this helps!
The pumpkin comment reminded me that my mum has been known to walk around the house carrying a aubergine because she likes the way it fits into her hand and it's soft smoothness.
I love all these random stuff videos, always interesting (love all your other content too so probably not surprising) I particularly enjoyed the wildlife friends, glow worms and the creative genius use of artistic soft focus
Really loved the artistic flourish of the soft focus scene. Really symbolized the ambiguity of your cucumber issue. I hope the problem and solution becomes clear soon. :)
The glow worm footage was fantastic! Particularly the definition you managed to get of the segmentation! Just amazing. However... I do feel I need to reprimand you for showing such dark footage during your video. It meant I had to brush away all the dust from my laptop screen to be able to view it. I have been building that collection of dust for a such long time - it was even possible to see the outlines of the keys in it! The sacrifices I make for Atomic Shrimp videos! :)
Really enjoyed this video, I’ve never seen a glow worm they are quite amazing. I believe the screeching is a tawny owl, I hear them often where I live and it took me a while to correctly identify them. Keep up the fantastic work
I can't help but wonder if there isn't possibley some faint overlap in the aromatic compounds/VOCs that give old library books their smell and cucumbers their taste.
Thanks I really enjoyed your video.Those gloworms were magical.I remember seeing glowing fireflies in Whitstable when I was a kid more than half a century ago.Yes I too think that was a Tawny owl,ive seen them in the dark where I live,they fly really low to the ground,quite spooky.Have a good weekend.
Have you tried the cucumber variety that is popular in America to see if it also tastes strange? It's a larger diameter but shorter in length cucumber with smooth dark green thick skin, not bumpy (we tend to use those for pickles), not ridged. The majority of the ways I have seen them prepared is to skin them completely or in alternating sections end to end reducing the amount of skin but not removing it entirely.
Most produce in the UK tell you where it was grown on the packaging, usually down to the region. This is great for when you want to buy cheap potatoes, garlic, onions or anything else that you know will grow well in your area while still being as cheap as chips, especially compared to buying sets, seedlings and seeds online. My one caveat to this is that Sarpo Mira are hard to find in the big supermarkets and are particularly great at resisting slugs and blight which are problems towards Autumn and Winter and so I'll sometimes buy those as seed potatoes.
Great stuff as usual. Especially love your walks around the local area as I grew up in south Somerset and spent many happy times along the Dorset coast. A personal request, if you ever walk along the coastal wall between Bowleaze Cove and Weymouth please show a bit of it. I often travelled along it as a child when holidaying at BC, and my father used to patrol along it in the early part of WW2 (yes, I am that ancient 😀)
@8:00 - To be quite fair - all the veg in shops taste foul. My wife works for a Masonic Retirement Village that has it's own farmers market. That is the key to a lovely veg - or, in your case, a fantastic garden.
So many things put a smile on my face in this video - the snail was amazing, imagining your smile at seeing the glow worms, seeing your baby oak trees - just to name a few 😃
Correct uses of "Shrimp It": - Making food from unlikely ingredients - Pulling apart electronics - Opening Cans - Looking very closely at something - Taking on a wild DIY project - Telling a superb dad joke
When you were talking about the Nigerian diet and how tomatoes, spicy peppers, and onions are such a big part of it, I found myself wondering why, or how, since tomatoes and peppers are both American crops that didn't exist in Africa until Columbus brought them back to Europe and they spread throughout the old world. I wonder what it was about them that got them so heavily entrenched in the culinary culture.
We have had so much rain here the poles that are staking up my tomatoes are falling down. I've done my best to prop them up. I have had to start picking the tomatoes when they first start turning red or they will rot on the vine. I checked my potatoes and they are still small but I over planted them so, I'm pulling early. As I dig them up I'm planting my 5th set of green beans, with the prices of food right now a big pot of green beans with fresh potatoes and small pieces of bacon could last us a couple of days. We tilled up the whole back yard this year, and I have kept it busy growing. My okra didn't grow but that is o.k. can't afford the egg wash. We like fried okra but it's to expensive with the price of eggs. I just planted green onions and I hope that we have enough time for them to do their thing. Thanks for the video.
Hi Mike, and Jenny. Mike, another brilliant layed back long form video, I love these types of videos you do. Brightens up my week, especially as we've had awful rainy weather here in Dublin for over a month, so seeing your gorgeous garden and glow worm hunts and other random stuff is just a treat. 😊
Stuffing Mix. We grew up with not a lot of money to spare in the 50s & 60s, and one tea-time treat Mum used to make was a sort of cheese rissole, out of packet dried stuffing mix, rehydrated with boiling water, and grated cheese, about 3-4 to 1 ratio by rehydrated volume. She’d make this (not too wet) mixture into patties, roll in a little dry stuffing mix and fry in whatever fat we had to hand. Bacon fat or beef dripping made the best ones. Absolutely delicious! Bear in mind that cheese was a cheap ingredient in those days, and beef dripping was very cheap and readily available from any butcher. I still make them occasionally as a nostalgic treat. Similar to Glamorgan Sausage, as I found out later as an adult, but I like these better.
Hi Shrimp! Thanks so much for your videos, they helped me to feel like o could go outside during lockdowns, and after lockdown it helped me overcome my fear of going into nature. I’ve taken great joy in going hiking and identifying all the different plants around me. And I 100% understand what you’re saying about the cucumbers. They started tasting really weird a few years ago, and when I say that to people around me they look at me like I’m an insane person. Thank you so much, Jessica :)
Your videos have helped me recover from a particularly bad headache today (bad enough to switch on dark reader which is rare for me). Doing as little as possible and trying to relax works well but I find it very difficult to relax when all I can think about is whatever it is I'd rather be doing that day and I end up feeling frustrated that I can't do anything until the headache goes away. I find your videos give me something else to focus on while being calm enough to not aggravate the headache.
You should be prescribed as a mental and physical health tonic, you've helped so many people accept their preferences, try new hobbies and generally improved a lot of people's wellbeing, all by just sharing having the courage and wisdom to be yourself! ❤
The noise is an Owl- we get them in a wooded ravine near my home. It perches quite low on trees, signposts, etc. So it might sound like it's on the ground. I tip toed for 35 minutes one night trying to get close enough to see one but it would always playfully move just a bit further away when I got almost close enough to see it, but land again close enough that I can try to sneak towards it again! Then a fox turned up and both called out into the night together for 10 minutes- made me very happy.
I loved watching you sort and then mix up the glass again. It reminds me of my obsession with jigsaw puzzles- I love the process of putting them together, but once it is finished I immediately show my husband then take it apart and put it back in the box. Taking it apart is part of the enjoyment for me
@47:28 there are a multitude of uses for proper Karter borosilicate glassware in the kitchen. Among the uses are - placing a beaker directly on a burner to melt butter for popcorn, pouring boiling water in a beaker to make tea or such, and finally, to separate the fat from stock - I simply pour the hot stock in to beaker and place it in the freezer. The fat congeals in to a puck in short order, then I remove the fat using a spoon. It also helps to brush up on your metric measuring skills.
Lovely video! The glow worm section reminded me of David Attenborough in the wilds, I could hear the joy in your voice as you saw them. Also lovely walk to West Bay, it isn't a part of the world I know very well so it all looks good to me. You inspire me to get out and explore my local area more by foot if the rain ever stopped!
The gloworms were fantastic, I've never seen one in real life wow brilliant. I loved looking around your veggie plot ,yet another great video thanks for all your time so I get to see these things x
Usually I don't like to watch videos longer than half an hour but yours are always worth watching. Like some kind of "Reader's Digest" in video format 🙂
At the end of the harbour wall (near where you were at 1:13:15) is a stone circle. If you stand in the middle of it your voice gets echoed back to you in a really strange way but I couldn’t work out a good way of recording that for RUclips in the short time we were there with family.
You have a couple of issues with your tomatoes: Overcrowding being the biggest one. Could also be a condensation problem, as greenhouses are generally quite humid, and don't like sudden changes in temperature. Proper watering and adequate plant spacing, having well-drained floors, warming plants, moving air and venting moisture are ways to reduce humidity in greenhouses. The least expensive method is to keep the greenhouse dry, especially going into the night, when the temperature drops.
I have noticed this musty taste of cucumbers, too. Consequently, the cucumbers are salted to drain the water out before a salad is made. Aditional, I peel every cucumber and also cut the ends on both sides before using.
I have noticed that the plum tomato variety Roma have blossom end rot when the temperature is consistently too high. This happened earlier in the year before the rain set in. despite ample watering. Cheers
Very nice. I always enjoy the seaside videos; also the comment positivity ones. Footpaths: yes, please. Although, I really enjoy the shrimped food challenges. They stir up creativity. As food has become more and more processed, it's refreshing to see what can be done with basic ingredients. I'm sorry when you have a failure, but I think it's important for us to see because, otherwise, it might seem un-do-able for us (if you only had one success after another). I've been cooking for over 50 years and once in a while it simply comes out unpalatable.
Pumpkin shaped tomatoes seem more prone to rot. I have eaten the unrotten halves and they were fine. You can get teapot spout brushes that might be ok to clean a seperator spout. Mine is metal but Ive cleaned wine airlocks with them without breakage,gently of course.
I saw the thumbnail and thought this was a video about stuck pixels and I still wanted to watch it. It actually being about gloq worns is just an added bonus.
I saw a glow worm last month here in southeast Sweden where I live. It was around the same days in july when you found them, between the 10th-15th. That was the second time in my whole life that I've seen a glow worm. First time was when I were a SMALL BOY back in the early 90s, around 1990-1993 I believe. My dad found one and showed it to me.
Hello Mr Shrimp. Absolutely love your videos. I thought i was the only one that thought cucumbers tasted horrible! I use to love the taste of them until about 3 years ago. Tried eating them without the skin as i thought it was maybe something on it but didn't make any difference. You are right even the smell has changed too. For me it smells musky and also has that taste with a sour undertone and a weird after taste. Lovely seeing the you filming the glow worms too.
Don't know if anyone's mentioned but the snail I think is a white lipped snail, the lip colour refers to the very edge of the shell from which the snail's soft body emerges from. ❤🐌
Don't forget that you can eat green tomatoes. They are just like a milder flavour than red ones. I noticed that too with shop cucumber and can only eat them peeled. What variety is that you are growing? We are growing Lili F1, which is a bit prickly but after a wash and a brush down with the flat green scourer it is not prickly and doesn't taste bitter. Quite cheap at Wilko. Our gardeners delight are coming a bit late but just in time with the cucumbers for school holiday lunchtimes. They much prefer these than shop bought, so am glad we put 4 plants in this year. Think i might reduce to 2 next year as they do produce rather a lot and would rather my paste or cooking tomatoes more. I think each cherry plant can produce about at least 120 per plant. Even though i am London based, i have already topped some of my tomato plants as it just isn't the season for it and i want to save the tops from blight this year and over winter. Just like how i maintain my basil, i can let a sucker grow and cut it off and re root and exchange the plant, when it get too tall. Re that fat separator, i think @MarysNest has a good one she uses. They put geese in with chickens for the same reason and plus they are bloody noisy! Bridport looks lovely! Is there much to do for kids in the West bay area like a farm, that isn't a hotel or venue? They love KS2 geography and archaeology. Hubby wants to go to Brighton for a couple of nights but i have terrible memories of the stony beach as a kid and it's not that nice tbh. The only good things i remember was the cheap seafood stalls and fish and chips. I am not sure what it is now about mussels but for the past 15 years, i have had really bad allergic reactions to mussels and then recently to crab. Not sure if it was imported into these restaurants but even at home, i can't eat them any more but even when i met my hubby he and his mum said the same thing. I do love a seafood stall! I remember us coming back from my Dad's home town with bags of it! We all had a needle sitting around a table with a bowl de shelling winkles! lol I want to pass down that tradition some what and so they can taste fresh cockles and try whelks. Took me a few years and tries but whelks are ok and i like eels but not the jelly! Just watching this reminds me of my Dad and his father in law fishing at the end of the old Brighton pier and catching crabs. Is it just me or are there zero seashells on the beach these days? It is that bad that you are lucky just to see a slipper shell nowadays!? I remember my mum before she passed when i was 10, used to boil up the winkle shells and we would decorate tobacco boxes and turn them into jewellery boxes. It's amazing how people seem to not notice the signs about the cliffs. Even on the IOW, you can see the half eaten car parks and roads and from the beach there are just house parts, like just the chimney stacks just left. I remember a local there telling me how some people would go there to the beach and steal the slate tiles to reuse. Anyway, a great vlog (that tbh i started watching earlier and finished off now). I love that it was varied and not choppy from one thing to another seeing how much different stuff was discussed. Great stuff and best wishes!
I use a stack of car tyres for potatoes and carrots 1. The tyre walls hold water on 3 levels (3 tyres) 2. The black tyres absorb and maintain warmth. Very successful and a new take on recycling
The primary cause of blossom end rot is actually inconsistent watering. There is probably plenty of calcium in the growing medium, the plant is just unable to access it. Might be worth investing in a moisture meter (or stick your finger in the soil up to the knuckle).
I have had great tomatoes, but my zucchini produced only male flowers. I have tripped the water to 5 gal a day as I think there is too much Nitrogen in the soil. It is growing even more and showing no signs of too much water. I plucked all the male flowers and am waiting to see if I get females this month. I did have BER in one plant, a yellow variety. I upped its water and have not had any more issues.
I saw "BER" and thought beer battered zucchini male flowers and started thinking about lunch... came back re-read your comment and thought: huh! Ok. But I prefer it my way. 🤤
Mr. Shrimp. Maybe I can help. My wife and I grow 10,000 tomato plants from seed every year for the last 25 years. Over 375 varieties this year alone. Blossom end rot can be caused by a few things. #1 is indeed a calcium deficiency. #2 is inconsistent watering and #3 is the odds are Paste tomatoes tend to get blossom end rot more than regular tomatoes. My grown daughter lives in Portland Oregon in an apartment, so she isn't allowed to have a raised bed to grow things. She is on the ground floor so she had to use large pots to grow in. Half of her tomatoes last year got blossom end rot. They were all paste tomatoes and she did put in a handful of crushed egg shells in the hole when she planted them deep. You want to plant tomatoes at least half way down the stem. So she called my wife and told her about the blossom end rot problem and my wife had her put several handfuls of crushed egg shells all over the surface of the pot on the potting soil. It won't help the tomatoes that already had blossom end rot, but every new tomato that grew on those plants were free from the end rot. Also use a larger pot than you think you need for a tomato plant, plant flowers in the pot or around them in the beds to attract pollinating bugs. At least 8 hours of sun and consistent watering and things should go very well.
Many slugs do not touch living leaves, and only eat decomposed vegetative matter. Slugs get bad press and I have lost count of the number of people who have told me they hate slugs. I love them. I find them fascinating and beautiful. I try and record them in my garden and send the pics to the local expert. At work (organic garden) we do not use any pesticides or herbicides or chemicals at all and we've never had problems with slugs or snails eating crops. We find thrushes anvils dotted around (a big stone that a thrush will smash snails on to eat the snails leaving behind the shells)
Mike, Regarding food challenges, what about including Jenny in the prep by having a blind component: Jenny picks a category, such as protein, without telling you specifically what it is, you go buy cheap ingredients to fit that menu item then when you get home, she shows you what protein you are working with. Sort of a TV cooking challenge show meets Atomic Shrimp budget challenge.
About your garden cucumbers Hello Mr. Shrimp - normally I just view videos and don't comment, but rarely I will when I have something pertinent to say! A thought on the taste of the store bought ones - don't most veg and fruit get a wax coating of some kind for shipping to keep them fresh longer? maybe That has changed and only you can detect it (in your circle of contact). Would be more likely than the cukes changing as you say (unless gmo's have had a boon I don't know about across all cuke farms - results would surely vary, at least between M&S and Waitrose etc.) Just thinking outside the box - you're not going crazy, things like this happen to me and only me sometimes too. Always a hidden reason somewhere. Love all your videos. You set a high standard for RUclips, and brighten my days. Best to you and Mrs. Shrimp, and pup. Edit: I clicked resume and saw you'd tried another variety from the garden to find it had that "library book taste" and I thought I suppose it Could be your taste changed after covid - but it could also be (postulating a theory only here) your taste changed with age. All of a sudden? yep - one of my "me and only me" instances from the above paragraph, I used to be in the lucky genetic group who can taste cilantro, without the "soap" some detect and hate it like poison. It was so fragrant and distinct to me I used to make whole salads with it. Then went to buy some one day and - all gone. No soap, no cilantro flavor - nothing but bland greens. But when I've had it and my meal repeats on me occasionally I can taste the cilantro flavor in the hiccups! So I Know it's still there, and my tongue is the culprit. I think my gene switched off, but I'v never found another soul who Could taste cilantro and lost it Mid-life. Now and then I can pick it up if the cilantro is thoroughly crushed or cooked. Food for Though - sorry for the pun.
Hi saw this video and loved the pictures and video off the slow worms great stuff i do watch lot off your videos nd enjoy them greatly, i would call the thing with tomatoes blight and it normally happens when there either too wet or too dry in my opinion as its happened before but its solvable and easy cured by regular night watering only and temperature control so not in direct sunlight love too see more videos im having problems growing my peas at the moment and this video helped alot with thats mine just grow so far and then stopped and hasn't done much since think my watering is wrong or the compost isnt right but will keep trying
I remember my grandmother having some of the old blue medicine bottles in her medicine cabinet. I imagine they were something saved from her mother's medicine cabinet.
I'm not sure whether or not our US Robin's are even related to UK ones, but they are equally bold. Years ago a very young one git trapped on my enclosed porch..I inadvertently let my cat out. You'd be forgiven for being concerned about the bird. It couldn't even fly, but with wildly clacking beak it chased my terrified cat around in circles until I let cat into the house where he promptly dived fir safety under the bed. Congratulations on glow worm discoveries.
The glow worms are so cool! I love bioluminescence, such a neat phenomenon. We have fireflies here which come out at dusk and always fun to watch. Also went on a hike years ago and got to see foxfire, which is a glowing fungus! Nature is fascinating!
Regarding the tomatoes, blossom end rot can be a problem with watering. The calcium could be having a problem getting up into the plan because the water is inconsistently distributed in the soil - it dries out too much between watering. Planting tomatoes in the ground usually have less chance of drying. I think giving them enough soil for the roots to spread out also helps with the watering issue.
When you talked about how Robins don't get very old, that sent me on a Wikipedia search! Apparently their average life is 15 months long because a lot of young die. But after they reach a year old their chances increase and the tend to live between 4 to 4 years :3 The oldest recorded Robin apparently came from Poland and reached 17 years and 3 months!! Wild
Phew! I sort of admire them. But they are little fuzzy balls of fury. They barely tolerate their partner during mating season... but I love it when they are singing - even it is just "p***Ing against a tree to say it is your darn tree" (Sgt Angua on wolf howling, likely in Sir PTerry's "The Fifth Elephant"). European Robins are fearless. I saw them take on bigger birds to defend their nests. And did you know about the great tits and then killing other birds and even bats (heard that on tetzoo podcast). Little theropods...
Ah, a fellow Wikipedia rabbit-hole diver, nice to see it's not just me who went there. For other comment browsers, here's the relevant section: "Because of high mortality in the first year of life, a robin has an average life expectancy of 1.1 years; however, once past its first year, life expectancy increases. One robin has been recorded as reaching 19 years of age." While I do find it sad to hear they have such high mortality in the first year, it's also really heartwarming for me to hear how long they can live if they do survive beyond that point. It opens up the possibility of seeing the same individual robin visiting one's garden for several years, and even without getting into trying to "tame" the bird it can be a distant kind of cross-species friendship perhaps
Ahhh the beach glass was super nostalgic to me. When I was a child, me and my brother would find and collect them and makes small fake aquariums bottles(no fish tho). Maybe I should gather beach glass again
You were lucky to find so many glow worms, did you record them officially? I use iNaturalist app, it can also help identify nature as well. I only found one glow worm this year, last year there were 7 (all in or just outside our garden) there used to be dozens in the verge of the dissused main road 10 years ago, now hardly any. I visited West bay a few years ago and did go fossil hunting under those cliffs, had a wonderful ice cream from the little kiosk along the harbour basin. I must come back and explore the area again, that footpath looks "new" as it matures and more wildlife takes control it should become more interesting. As kids we always called the H balsam soap wort, the leaves would make soapy bubbles in the river, the seed pods were excellent weapons against annoying little brothers! Merry Christmas to you and your family, Mike.
49:00 _It's like you see recipies in your head_ I like this Idea of the son of the father of the main presenter as 'The One' just instantaneously interpereting isles of produce and tables of ingredients as all of their potential outcomes
For several months following having Covid, popcorn, for me, had the smell of cat poo, it was awful, thankfully it stopped smelling like that! So I totally understand the cucumber thing.
I read that on average robins don't live very long because of high mortality rates in the first year, but if they survive the first year then they can live to be several years old at least.
*Afterthoughts & Addenda*
*Non-growing plants* - yesterday, the day before this video went live, I pulled up a weed in that little plot with the stunted plants and discovered a huge ants nest (the nest was huge, not the ants). I think that might be what was holding the plants back.
Unlikely to have helped any.
Add a little ground maze to the area the ants will clear out quick smart it's non toxic to you or the dog, I make lines with the ground maze. Replenish after heavy rain or if you see ants again.
B&Q walk way solar light for the top of the bottle, they’re round and come on at night. Lmao snap spag 👍
I'm glad you don't have an infestation of ginorm-ants. Huge pests, they are.
If 'it' is a bright light it is not an it but a lady glow-worm, waiting for a gentleman to happen along. Only the males can fly, but they have only a little greenish light.
I'd love it if you did a video on footpaths. My mum wrote a couple of books of circular walks based on my town following footpaths she'd know since her childhood. She even managed to make sure at least one wasn't lost through disuse and persuaded land owners to repair and maintain stiles. I'm planning on writing another along with my sister.
this, i was just thinking to myself watching an earlier video wondering if mr. shrimp would ever do a video about uk's footpaths.
this and desire paths!!
There is a short path near me that went between two housing estates the local council put a fence with a gate across the path then padlocked the gate, they said it was for security reasons yet no one seems to know what the security problem is. The path being blocked means residents on either estate have to walk fithteen minuites to visit friends, family or get to shops either side.
I'd love this as well.
The path down to Soar Mill Cove in Devon is festooned with glow worms in the summer.
I know what you mean about cucumbers suddenly tasting weird one day. When I was younger I used to eat tons of cucumbers at school, until one day they started tasting really weird and I couldn't stomach them anymore. My childhood mind blamed the shops for "making cucumbers wrong", and my mum thought I was crazy. But hearing that you went through the same thing as an adult makes me feel much less crazy.
yes, definitely something wrong with shop cucumbers. they've started tasting really weird. thought it was me at first but then i tried a more expensive waitrose cucumber and it tasted normal. the cheaper ones at asda taste garbage.
An Atomic Shrimp video on a rainy Saturday morning.
This days prospects just improved.
I’m in the exact situation haha
An hour an a quarter to brighten up a rainy day in London Town......
It’s idyllic. Bed, the sound of rain outside, and Shrimps cosy content
52:27 Predilections and contemplations - Moss. I love moss. When on a walk around the grounds I will stop in my tracks to bend down and stare at the world of moss: the little forest, the little garden, the little worlds, the different mosses with their miniscule blooms or bitty "trees" or tiny fields of verdant softness. I will spend quite a bit of time staring at moss. It makes me unreasonably happy. It stills my mind. Perhaps that is the "purpose" of such large onion/odd pumpkin/sumptuous moss fascinations.
Next time I see an exceptionally hefty onion, I will think of Mr. Shrimp, and will think of the other viewer who adores pumpkins when fall is here and the gourds are about. :)
I used to annoy my mum by trying to set up moss gardens in fishtanks on my bedroom windowsill. Still love a nice green round hummock!
@@pheart2381 Hello, fellow moss lover. I don't know what I'd do if I ran across a hummock!! Where I live the tallest moss I've ever seen is a little lump on the ground. The moss only appears in small patches. Little oases of loveliness. Earlier in my moss love, I tried transplanting. It hurt my heart to fail as I did.
Has a acer palmatum tree that has been in the same pot for over ten years (guess it needs repotting soon) oh and a scots pine tree alongside it that seeded itself, anyway the soil is completely covered in moss and looks lovely most of the year though it goes a bit brown in the summer.
I don't usually have time to watch the longer videos in the morning, but sometimes I do skip ahead and watch comment positivity. As it turns out, positivity does rub off. Not the worst thing at the start of the day.
I really like the "being happy on purpose" philosophy. Taking the time to enjoy the things we like, and to savour the moments. Any time I find an exeptionally large onion or a girthy carrot now days, it makes me happy. Not because I find them particularly funny, but because it reminds that you like them, and that happiness can come from all sorts of things.
We may not have seen your smile, but we could definitely hear it. Thank you for sharing your glow worm sightings, even on screen there was something magical about it.
Some of the sea glass will have come from old fashioned crab pot floats. As a child (aeons ago!) I used to visit Lyme Regis regularly (coming from Devon) and we'd sometimes see the fishermen mending pots and replacing the glass floats that had been smashed in storms. They were often green or blue, standing out against the sea. Lyme Bay was a great place for edible crabs back in the 1960's!
"I'm gonna Shrimp that" could mean, "I'm gonna narrate my thoughts through this project while I figure it out."
I feel the most "like shrimp" when I walk around nature and pount out plant I recognize.
Fittingly, the automatic captions think there's applause during some of the glow worm section 👏
Oh the glow worms are very amazing! Here in Michigan, US we will have fireflies, I have fields that strobe so brightly and almost in sequence like they copy each other! Thanks for sharing nature on your part of the world!
The first time I encountered fireflies it was so surreal. And it was during my first ftx in army bootcamp, which surely added to the emotional impact of the experience.
Catching fireflies is a sweet childhood memory for me, from Ohio.
Stayed in West Bay once. Could hear the stormy waves pounding against the harbour gates all night.
I enjoyed the river & sea walks, thankyou.
Love those Michigan Fireflies.
Re the random noise in the dark. It is the sound of recently fledged tawny owls. They use the call to stay in contact. 🦉☺️
I have a 10 hour flight tomorrow and was looking at videos to download with RUclips premium on my phone and this pops up. Perfect! Can sleep the other 8 hours 🤣
Okay, I wasn't quite as prepared as I thought when it came to you finally spotting glowworm activity. I think I was almost as excited for you as you were about seeing them. 😂 I, too, had a goofy smile on my face because it was so obvious how happy you were. Congrats, and may this be the start of many more nights of glowworm mating rituals in the future!
"I'm gonna shrimp that" lol love it It means I am going to take a found bit of something seemingly insignificant and, through error and undaunted trial, transform it into something beautiful or delicious or funny.
Blossom-end rot is the bane of a tomato grower’s existence. I’m in the northeast United States, but here’s what I’ve discovered makes an impact on reducing the likelihood of it:
1) get plant types that are naturally resistant to it. That’s the most important thing. I grew San Marzano tomatoes last year and they were really susceptible to it while my Celebrities hardly experienced it at all.
2) tomato plants really do like more watering than I’ve realized. I have mine in well-draining pots (much like yours) and they really perform better when I absolutely soak them when I water them. I’ll mention that we’ve gotten a lot of sun here this summer. Additionally, good, moist soil allows the plant to be able to absorb the calcium in the soil better.
3) finally, providing calcium for potted plants is important, however, it’s more of a watering/absorption issue.
This year, I planted the Celebrity variety and Early Girls (which are also resistant to blossom end rot), and I haven’t had a single incidence of it yet…knock on wood! I hope this helps!
The pumpkin comment reminded me that my mum has been known to walk around the house carrying a aubergine because she likes the way it fits into her hand and it's soft smoothness.
I love all these random stuff videos, always interesting (love all your other content too so probably not surprising) I particularly enjoyed the wildlife friends, glow worms and the creative genius use of artistic soft focus
also I hope someone knows what the little animal noise/call was
@@martynehook590 To me, the answer is right under your comment... @DonnyOutdoors
Time for excited mumbling in the dark, as promised!
I mean... that pixel...
Really loved the artistic flourish of the soft focus scene. Really symbolized the ambiguity of your cucumber issue. I hope the problem and solution becomes clear soon. :)
Literally said "Yay!" when I saw you'd posted, thank you very much, love a bit of Atomic Shrimp on a Saturday morning!
Something relaxing about some AS and a cuppa to start the day
@lozziestardust01 and bonus, now I've seen a glow worm! And so pleased Mike found some, perseverance pays off 😊
The glow worm footage was fantastic! Particularly the definition you managed to get of the segmentation! Just amazing. However... I do feel I need to reprimand you for showing such dark footage during your video. It meant I had to brush away all the dust from my laptop screen to be able to view it. I have been building that collection of dust for a such long time - it was even possible to see the outlines of the keys in it! The sacrifices I make for Atomic Shrimp videos! :)
Haha! Same here with my telly’s screen
Really enjoyed this video, I’ve never seen a glow worm they are quite amazing. I believe the screeching is a tawny owl, I hear them often where I live and it took me a while to correctly identify them. Keep up the fantastic work
I can't help but wonder if there isn't possibley some faint overlap in the aromatic compounds/VOCs that give old library books their smell and cucumbers their taste.
I always put the smell of old library books down to the old librarians 😏😉
Thanks I really enjoyed your video.Those gloworms were magical.I remember seeing glowing fireflies in Whitstable when I was a kid more than half a century ago.Yes I too think that was a Tawny owl,ive seen them in the dark where I live,they fly really low to the ground,quite spooky.Have a good weekend.
Have you tried the cucumber variety that is popular in America to see if it also tastes strange? It's a larger diameter but shorter in length cucumber with smooth dark green thick skin, not bumpy (we tend to use those for pickles), not ridged. The majority of the ways I have seen them prepared is to skin them completely or in alternating sections end to end reducing the amount of skin but not removing it entirely.
Most produce in the UK tell you where it was grown on the packaging, usually down to the region. This is great for when you want to buy cheap potatoes, garlic, onions or anything else that you know will grow well in your area while still being as cheap as chips, especially compared to buying sets, seedlings and seeds online. My one caveat to this is that Sarpo Mira are hard to find in the big supermarkets and are particularly great at resisting slugs and blight which are problems towards Autumn and Winter and so I'll sometimes buy those as seed potatoes.
1 hour of shrimp on a beautiful Saturday eve! Oh is it Christmas already?!? 10/10 content mate. ❤
Great stuff as usual. Especially love your walks around the local area as I grew up in south Somerset and spent many happy times along the Dorset coast.
A personal request, if you ever walk along the coastal wall between Bowleaze Cove and Weymouth please show a bit of it. I often travelled along it as a child when holidaying at BC, and my father used to patrol along it in the early part of WW2 (yes, I am that ancient 😀)
Sounds like you should make a video, I bet you have stories to tell
@8:00 - To be quite fair - all the veg in shops taste foul. My wife works for a Masonic Retirement Village that has it's own farmers market. That is the key to a lovely veg - or, in your case, a fantastic garden.
So many things put a smile on my face in this video - the snail was amazing, imagining your smile at seeing the glow worms, seeing your baby oak trees - just to name a few 😃
Correct uses of "Shrimp It":
- Making food from unlikely ingredients
- Pulling apart electronics
- Opening Cans
- Looking very closely at something
- Taking on a wild DIY project
- Telling a superb dad joke
I love this series and how it has evolved over the years!
When you were talking about the Nigerian diet and how tomatoes, spicy peppers, and onions are such a big part of it, I found myself wondering why, or how, since tomatoes and peppers are both American crops that didn't exist in Africa until Columbus brought them back to Europe and they spread throughout the old world. I wonder what it was about them that got them so heavily entrenched in the culinary culture.
Hi Mike! The footpaths conversation also has another layer when you take into affect that Scotland has significantly differing rules to England 😊
A big series.
We have had so much rain here the poles that are staking up my tomatoes are falling down. I've done my best to prop them up. I have had to start picking the tomatoes when they first start turning red or they will rot on the vine. I checked my potatoes and they are still small but I over planted them so, I'm pulling early. As I dig them up I'm planting my 5th set of green beans, with the prices of food right now a big pot of green beans with fresh potatoes and small pieces of bacon could last us a couple of days. We tilled up the whole back yard this year, and I have kept it busy growing. My okra didn't grow but that is o.k. can't afford the egg wash. We like fried okra but it's to expensive with the price of eggs. I just planted green onions and I hope that we have enough time for them to do their thing. Thanks for the video.
Hi Mike, and Jenny.
Mike, another brilliant layed back long form video, I love these types of videos you do. Brightens up my week, especially as we've had awful rainy weather here in Dublin for over a month, so seeing your gorgeous garden and glow worm hunts and other random stuff is just a treat. 😊
Stuffing Mix. We grew up with not a lot of money to spare in the 50s & 60s, and one tea-time treat Mum used to make was a sort of cheese rissole, out of packet dried stuffing mix, rehydrated with boiling water, and grated cheese, about 3-4 to 1 ratio by rehydrated volume. She’d make this (not too wet) mixture into patties, roll in a little dry stuffing mix and fry in whatever fat we had to hand. Bacon fat or beef dripping made the best ones. Absolutely delicious! Bear in mind that cheese was a cheap ingredient in those days, and beef dripping was very cheap and readily available from any butcher.
I still make them occasionally as a nostalgic treat.
Similar to Glamorgan Sausage, as I found out later as an adult, but I like these better.
Hi Shrimp! Thanks so much for your videos, they helped me to feel like o could go outside during lockdowns, and after lockdown it helped me overcome my fear of going into nature. I’ve taken great joy in going hiking and identifying all the different plants around me.
And I 100% understand what you’re saying about the cucumbers. They started tasting really weird a few years ago, and when I say that to people around me they look at me like I’m an insane person.
Thank you so much, Jessica :)
Your videos have helped me recover from a particularly bad headache today (bad enough to switch on dark reader which is rare for me). Doing as little as possible and trying to relax works well but I find it very difficult to relax when all I can think about is whatever it is I'd rather be doing that day and I end up feeling frustrated that I can't do anything until the headache goes away. I find your videos give me something else to focus on while being calm enough to not aggravate the headache.
You should be prescribed as a mental and physical health tonic, you've helped so many people accept their preferences, try new hobbies and generally improved a lot of people's wellbeing, all by just sharing having the courage and wisdom to be yourself! ❤
The noise is an Owl- we get them in a wooded ravine near my home. It perches quite low on trees, signposts, etc. So it might sound like it's on the ground. I tip toed for 35 minutes one night trying to get close enough to see one but it would always playfully move just a bit further away when I got almost close enough to see it, but land again close enough that I can try to sneak towards it again! Then a fox turned up and both called out into the night together for 10 minutes- made me very happy.
I loved watching you sort and then mix up the glass again. It reminds me of my obsession with jigsaw puzzles- I love the process of putting them together, but once it is finished I immediately show my husband then take it apart and put it back in the box. Taking it apart is part of the enjoyment for me
@47:28 there are a multitude of uses for proper Karter borosilicate glassware in the kitchen. Among the uses are - placing a beaker directly on a burner to melt butter for popcorn, pouring boiling water in a beaker to make tea or such, and finally, to separate the fat from stock - I simply pour the hot stock in to beaker and place it in the freezer. The fat congeals in to a puck in short order, then I remove the fat using a spoon. It also helps to brush up on your metric measuring skills.
Yep: a bowl, a good bit of strategically concentrated absence of heat and time.
Lovely video! The glow worm section reminded me of David Attenborough in the wilds, I could hear the joy in your voice as you saw them. Also lovely walk to West Bay, it isn't a part of the world I know very well so it all looks good to me. You inspire me to get out and explore my local area more by foot if the rain ever stopped!
Yes, more on your footpaths, please. Also, what you pack for lunch, the average length of your treks and how Evie holds up. She seems quite spry.
A series.
Love these long videos full of different things, thank you, and I really would love a video on public footpaths, etc in the UK.
A serie.
The gloworms were fantastic, I've never seen one in real life wow brilliant.
I loved looking around your veggie plot ,yet another great video thanks for all your time so I get to see these things x
Usually I don't like to watch videos longer than half an hour but yours are always worth watching. Like some kind of "Reader's Digest" in video format 🙂
At the end of the harbour wall (near where you were at 1:13:15) is a stone circle. If you stand in the middle of it your voice gets echoed back to you in a really strange way but I couldn’t work out a good way of recording that for RUclips in the short time we were there with family.
Absolutely adore the wildlife friends segment ❤ would love to see more/see it become a regular thing 😊
You have a couple of issues with your tomatoes: Overcrowding being the biggest one. Could also be a condensation problem, as greenhouses are generally quite humid, and don't like sudden changes in temperature. Proper watering and adequate plant spacing, having well-drained floors, warming plants, moving air and venting moisture are ways to reduce humidity in greenhouses. The least expensive method is to keep the greenhouse dry, especially going into the night, when the temperature drops.
Parameters.
I wonder what your sea glass jar would look like with some of those micro led lights inside as well?
My cat really enjoyed the glow worm segment :)
We all did! 😻
I enjoy the garden update! Enjoy the fruits of your labor.
During the glow worm hunt I was admiring some of my Transformers collection behind me, reflecting off the black screen.
I have noticed this musty taste of cucumbers, too. Consequently, the cucumbers are salted to drain the water out before a salad is made. Aditional, I peel every cucumber and also cut the ends on both sides before using.
"i'm gonna shrimp that" is what you say when you find a new niche subject that interests you and you get stuck in trying to figure it out
I have noticed that the plum tomato variety Roma have blossom end rot when the temperature is consistently too high. This happened earlier in the year before the rain set in. despite ample watering. Cheers
Very nice. I always enjoy the seaside videos; also the comment positivity ones. Footpaths: yes, please. Although, I really enjoy the shrimped food challenges. They stir up creativity. As food has become more and more processed, it's refreshing to see what can be done with basic ingredients. I'm sorry when you have a failure, but I think it's important for us to see because, otherwise, it might seem un-do-able for us (if you only had one success after another). I've been cooking for over 50 years and once in a while it simply comes out unpalatable.
Dear Mike, Well done! Nobody I know has managed to photograph glow-worms at all.
Awesome video , thanks for the garden update.
Pumpkin shaped tomatoes seem more prone to rot. I have eaten the unrotten halves and they were fine.
You can get teapot spout brushes that might be ok to clean a seperator spout. Mine is metal but Ive cleaned wine airlocks with them without breakage,gently of course.
I saw the thumbnail and thought this was a video about stuck pixels and I still wanted to watch it. It actually being about gloq worns is just an added bonus.
I love your seaglass collection and thankyou for showing us the glow worms!
Love these compilation videos of all the interesting things you do. Thanks from me in New Zealand 😊
I saw a glow worm last month here in southeast Sweden where I live. It was around the same days in july when you found them, between the 10th-15th.
That was the second time in my whole life that I've seen a glow worm.
First time was when I were a SMALL BOY back in the early 90s, around 1990-1993 I believe. My dad found one and showed it to me.
30:30 The Merlin bird identification app says you listened to a Tawny Owl! I love playing around with the app, so much fun
Hello Mr Shrimp. Absolutely love your videos. I thought i was the only one that thought cucumbers tasted horrible! I use to love the taste of them until about 3 years ago. Tried eating them without the skin as i thought it was maybe something on it but didn't make any difference. You are right even the smell has changed too. For me it smells musky and also has that taste with a sour undertone and a weird after taste. Lovely seeing the you filming the glow worms too.
Don't know if anyone's mentioned but the snail I think is a white lipped snail, the lip colour refers to the very edge of the shell from which the snail's soft body emerges from. ❤🐌
Don't forget that you can eat green tomatoes. They are just like a milder flavour than red ones.
I noticed that too with shop cucumber and can only eat them peeled. What variety is that you are growing? We are growing Lili F1, which is a bit prickly but after a wash and a brush down with the flat green scourer it is not prickly and doesn't taste bitter. Quite cheap at Wilko.
Our gardeners delight are coming a bit late but just in time with the cucumbers for school holiday lunchtimes. They much prefer these than shop bought, so am glad we put 4 plants in this year. Think i might reduce to 2 next year as they do produce rather a lot and would rather my paste or cooking tomatoes more. I think each cherry plant can produce about at least 120 per plant.
Even though i am London based, i have already topped some of my tomato plants as it just isn't the season for it and i want to save the tops from blight this year and over winter. Just like how i maintain my basil, i can let a sucker grow and cut it off and re root and exchange the plant, when it get too tall.
Re that fat separator, i think @MarysNest has a good one she uses.
They put geese in with chickens for the same reason and plus they are bloody noisy!
Bridport looks lovely! Is there much to do for kids in the West bay area like a farm, that isn't a hotel or venue? They love KS2 geography and archaeology. Hubby wants to go to Brighton for a couple of nights but i have terrible memories of the stony beach as a kid and it's not that nice tbh.
The only good things i remember was the cheap seafood stalls and fish and chips. I am not sure what it is now about mussels but for the past 15 years, i have had really bad allergic reactions to mussels and then recently to crab. Not sure if it was imported into these restaurants but even at home, i can't eat them any more but even when i met my hubby he and his mum said the same thing.
I do love a seafood stall! I remember us coming back from my Dad's home town with bags of it! We all had a needle sitting around a table with a bowl de shelling winkles! lol I want to pass down that tradition some what and so they can taste fresh cockles and try whelks. Took me a few years and tries but whelks are ok and i like eels but not the jelly!
Just watching this reminds me of my Dad and his father in law fishing at the end of the old Brighton pier and catching crabs.
Is it just me or are there zero seashells on the beach these days? It is that bad that you are lucky just to see a slipper shell nowadays!?
I remember my mum before she passed when i was 10, used to boil up the winkle shells and we would decorate tobacco boxes and turn them into jewellery boxes.
It's amazing how people seem to not notice the signs about the cliffs. Even on the IOW, you can see the half eaten car parks and roads and from the beach there are just house parts, like just the chimney stacks just left. I remember a local there telling me how some people would go there to the beach and steal the slate tiles to reuse.
Anyway, a great vlog (that tbh i started watching earlier and finished off now). I love that it was varied and not choppy from one thing to another seeing how much different stuff was discussed.
Great stuff and best wishes!
I use a stack of car tyres for potatoes and carrots
1. The tyre walls hold water on 3 levels (3 tyres)
2. The black tyres absorb and maintain warmth.
Very successful and a new take on recycling
I saw some glow worms local to me recently. I had no idea they were around here, it was quite exciting.
The primary cause of blossom end rot is actually inconsistent watering. There is probably plenty of calcium in the growing medium, the plant is just unable to access it. Might be worth investing in a moisture meter (or stick your finger in the soil up to the knuckle).
I have had great tomatoes, but my zucchini produced only male flowers. I have tripped the water to 5 gal a day as I think there is too much Nitrogen in the soil. It is growing even more and showing no signs of too much water. I plucked all the male flowers and am waiting to see if I get females this month.
I did have BER in one plant, a yellow variety. I upped its water and have not had any more issues.
I saw "BER" and thought beer battered zucchini male flowers and started thinking about lunch... came back re-read your comment and thought: huh! Ok. But I prefer it my way. 🤤
"Just Kidding, I'm a very bad man" that gave me a laugh.
Mr. Shrimp. Maybe I can help. My wife and I grow 10,000 tomato plants from seed every year for the last 25 years. Over 375 varieties this year alone. Blossom end rot can be caused by a few things. #1 is indeed a calcium deficiency. #2 is inconsistent watering and #3 is the odds are Paste tomatoes tend to get blossom end rot more than regular tomatoes.
My grown daughter lives in Portland Oregon in an apartment, so she isn't allowed to have a raised bed to grow things. She is on the ground floor so she had to use large pots to grow in. Half of her tomatoes last year got blossom end rot. They were all paste tomatoes and she did put in a handful of crushed egg shells in the hole when she planted them deep. You want to plant tomatoes at least half way down the stem. So she called my wife and told her about the blossom end rot problem and my wife had her put several handfuls of crushed egg shells all over the surface of the pot on the potting soil. It won't help the tomatoes that already had blossom end rot, but every new tomato that grew on those plants were free from the end rot.
Also use a larger pot than you think you need for a tomato plant, plant flowers in the pot or around them in the beds to attract pollinating bugs. At least 8 hours of sun and consistent watering and things should go very well.
Many slugs do not touch living leaves, and only eat decomposed vegetative matter. Slugs get bad press and I have lost count of the number of people who have told me they hate slugs. I love them. I find them fascinating and beautiful. I try and record them in my garden and send the pics to the local expert.
At work (organic garden) we do not use any pesticides or herbicides or chemicals at all and we've never had problems with slugs or snails eating crops. We find thrushes anvils dotted around (a big stone that a thrush will smash snails on to eat the snails leaving behind the shells)
Blossom end for is due to watering. I have conducted experiments professionally with tomatoes and it is often due to water uptake.
So glad you found a glow worm, Mr Shrimp. I could see your disappointment in the dark on your previous unsuccessful expeditions.
Mike,
Regarding food challenges, what about including Jenny in the prep by having a blind component: Jenny picks a category, such as protein, without telling you specifically what it is, you go buy cheap ingredients to fit that menu item then when you get home, she shows you what protein you are working with.
Sort of a TV cooking challenge show meets Atomic Shrimp budget challenge.
About your garden cucumbers
Hello Mr. Shrimp - normally I just view videos and don't comment, but rarely I will when I have something pertinent to say!
A thought on the taste of the store bought ones - don't most veg and fruit get a wax coating of some kind for shipping to keep them fresh longer? maybe That has changed and only you can detect it (in your circle of contact). Would be more likely than the cukes changing as you say (unless gmo's have had a boon I don't know about across all cuke farms - results would surely vary, at least between M&S and Waitrose etc.) Just thinking outside the box - you're not going crazy, things like this happen to me and only me sometimes too. Always a hidden reason somewhere.
Love all your videos. You set a high standard for RUclips, and brighten my days. Best to you and Mrs. Shrimp, and pup.
Edit: I clicked resume and saw you'd tried another variety from the garden to find it had that "library book taste" and I thought I suppose it Could be your taste changed after covid - but it could also be (postulating a theory only here) your taste changed with age. All of a sudden? yep - one of my "me and only me" instances from the above paragraph, I used to be in the lucky genetic group who can taste cilantro, without the "soap" some detect and hate it like poison. It was so fragrant and distinct to me I used to make whole salads with it. Then went to buy some one day and - all gone. No soap, no cilantro flavor - nothing but bland greens. But when I've had it and my meal repeats on me occasionally I can taste the cilantro flavor in the hiccups! So I Know it's still there, and my tongue is the culprit. I think my gene switched off, but I'v never found another soul who Could taste cilantro and lost it Mid-life. Now and then I can pick it up if the cilantro is thoroughly crushed or cooked. Food for Though - sorry for the pun.
Hi saw this video and loved the pictures and video off the slow worms great stuff i do watch lot off your videos nd enjoy them greatly, i would call the thing with tomatoes blight and it normally happens when there either too wet or too dry in my opinion as its happened before but its solvable and easy cured by regular night watering only and temperature control so not in direct sunlight love too see more videos im having problems growing my peas at the moment and this video helped alot with thats mine just grow so far and then stopped and hasn't done much since think my watering is wrong or the compost isnt right but will keep trying
I remember my grandmother having some of the old blue medicine bottles in her medicine cabinet. I imagine they were something saved from her mother's medicine cabinet.
Water. I find the same with peppers around here- the hothouses over water to make weight (=$), and then what you get is a wattered down fruit.
I'm not sure whether or not our US Robin's are even related to UK ones, but they are equally bold. Years ago a very young one git trapped on my enclosed porch..I inadvertently let my cat out. You'd be forgiven for being concerned about the bird. It couldn't even fly, but with wildly clacking beak it chased my terrified cat around in circles until I let cat into the house where he promptly dived fir safety under the bed.
Congratulations on glow worm discoveries.
The glow worms are so cool! I love bioluminescence, such a neat phenomenon. We have fireflies here which come out at dusk and always fun to watch. Also went on a hike years ago and got to see foxfire, which is a glowing fungus! Nature is fascinating!
Most potting mixes won't lack enough calcium, but it's normally the problem is that there wasn't enough water to carry the calcium up to the tomatoes.
We add a couple tablespoons of epson salt to our tomatoes plant soil when and stopped blossom end rot.
Regarding the tomatoes, blossom end rot can be a problem with watering. The calcium could be having a problem getting up into the plan because the water is inconsistently distributed in the soil - it dries out too much between watering. Planting tomatoes in the ground usually have less chance of drying. I think giving them enough soil for the roots to spread out also helps with the watering issue.
When you talked about how Robins don't get very old, that sent me on a Wikipedia search! Apparently their average life is 15 months long because a lot of young die. But after they reach a year old their chances increase and the tend to live between 4 to 4 years :3 The oldest recorded Robin apparently came from Poland and reached 17 years and 3 months!! Wild
Phew! I sort of admire them. But they are little fuzzy balls of fury. They barely tolerate their partner during mating season... but I love it when they are singing - even it is just "p***Ing against a tree to say it is your darn tree" (Sgt Angua on wolf howling, likely in Sir PTerry's "The Fifth Elephant"). European Robins are fearless. I saw them take on bigger birds to defend their nests. And did you know about the great tits and then killing other birds and even bats (heard that on tetzoo podcast). Little theropods...
Ah, a fellow Wikipedia rabbit-hole diver, nice to see it's not just me who went there. For other comment browsers, here's the relevant section:
"Because of high mortality in the first year of life, a robin has an average life expectancy of 1.1 years; however, once past its first year, life expectancy increases. One robin has been recorded as reaching 19 years of age." While I do find it sad to hear they have such high mortality in the first year, it's also really heartwarming for me to hear how long they can live if they do survive beyond that point. It opens up the possibility of seeing the same individual robin visiting one's garden for several years, and even without getting into trying to "tame" the bird it can be a distant kind of cross-species friendship perhaps
Hi Mike. Thanks for the uplifting video. I was wondering if the bird like sound in your garden was a stoat, especially as it was near the ground.
Ahhh the beach glass was super nostalgic to me. When I was a child, me and my brother would find and collect them and makes small fake aquariums bottles(no fish tho). Maybe I should gather beach glass again
You were lucky to find so many glow worms, did you record them officially? I use iNaturalist app, it can also help identify nature as well. I only found one glow worm this year, last year there were 7 (all in or just outside our garden) there used to be dozens in the verge of the dissused main road 10 years ago, now hardly any.
I visited West bay a few years ago and did go fossil hunting under those cliffs, had a wonderful ice cream from the little kiosk along the harbour basin.
I must come back and explore the area again, that footpath looks "new" as it matures and more wildlife takes control it should become more interesting. As kids we always called the H balsam soap wort, the leaves would make soapy bubbles in the river, the seed pods were excellent weapons against annoying little brothers!
Merry Christmas to you and your family, Mike.
49:00 _It's like you see recipies in your head_
I like this Idea of the son of the father of the main presenter as 'The One' just instantaneously interpereting isles of produce and tables of ingredients as all of their potential outcomes
Do you have fireflies? Neat glow worms! Love these videos!
For several months following having Covid, popcorn, for me, had the smell of cat poo, it was awful, thankfully it stopped smelling like that! So I totally understand the cucumber thing.
I read that on average robins don't live very long because of high mortality rates in the first year, but if they survive the first year then they can live to be several years old at least.
So glad the acorns worked out. Think I remember them Bering planted