Gardening thread

Hard to believe that RSPCA and Dogs Trust don't have any dogs that are incapable of jumping a 4 foot fence. That'd be a problem if we ever wanted to adopt as ours is a mixture of 2m and 1m fencing (our hounds either can't or don't want to jump it) and it'd be pretty expensive and inconvenient to upgrade the lower stuff.

Our Staffie was a real escape artist, we had a call from the shop cross the road a couple of times after she jump the 6 foot fence. We eventually worked out she was using the kids' sand pit but it was still a massive jump for a dog of her size. My GSD could probably get over the fence on one side, it's nominally 6 foot but we've got a decking area that makes it effectively 5 feet and then there are chairs. Fortunately, when the dog down the road barks his instinct is to try to run through the fence instead and it has stood up to the challenge (just, I had to do some repairs and stengthen it a bit!).

My daughter got her dog from Dogs Trust, he's got epilepsy and when he was having a load of seizures she got his medical history which had a report from a behaviourist saying he shouldn't be rehomed and she hadn't been told. After having various tests done that cost a fortune and showed he had a brain lesion they still refused to cover the cost of his treatment. He's a lovely dog and she wouldn't be without him but I wouldn't touch Dogs Trust with a bargepole if I was looking for a rescue.

Our very small and elderly cockapoo launches herself up to my wife's shoulder when she gets in the house from work. My GSD sometimes has to be lifted into the car because he's too lazy to jump (he's got a huge jump when it suits him though).

Dogs aren't quite in the same league - the dog charity recommendation of a 6 foot fence would keep all but the most agile hounds in I think. I'm see our garden as more of an open prison as they probably could escape if they really wanted but they dont seem to want to.

TBF, foxes will happily break through a larch lap fence. On scaling fences, I think it's more to do with climbing ability than jumping and you don't often see dogs stuck up trees the foxes I have seen clearing our fences do so considerably less gracefully.

Ours is the more solid (mostly closeboard and chunky picket type) stuff and we have haven't had any fox induced holes through or tunnels under since we had to done - famous last words. Doesn't stop them coming over the top like you say though but tbh we don't care - it's more about keeping the dogs in.

Actually no. We're in a village rather than the middle of nowhere and there are still bins around, though most people have the council issue tall wheelies that stop them getting to the rubbish. The bloke whose garden is just beyond the far end of ours has 2 acres and we know he has a good size fox den - we've seen them and the den itself as we had to go retrieve one of our dogs from his garden when he'd gone fox chasing before we had the fencing put in. And we still pick up the occasional fox turd from the garden.

Have to agree with you pep, only problem is the season is so short. One minute you've nothing then suddenly a glut. Used to do tomatoes and cucumbers and no matter how I tried to stagger them I still ended up with a massive glut. The only thing that I could stagger was lettuce.

Freezer? Excess fruit / tomatoes etc. Then use over the winter, e.g. add 1/2 dozen or so cherry tomatoes into a pasta sauce towards the end of cooking, so don't get tough skins residue but get the fllavours. Or per the courgette glut, turn them into bases for vege soups after the glut season ends.

On another (foxes) topic from above, thought foxes were smart enough to avoid huntin' shootin' fishin' tory gardens?

Six scones a year.

And you live in Devon.

O.

M.

G.

I ditched my greenhouse when the kids started toddling. Will be having another go when we downsize in a yr or so.