The fruits of our labour

We can’t believe that it’s July next week, how time flies (pic above: self-seeded poppy down the garden yesterday). It was just the other week we were thinking if there was going to be a frost or not so we could put those leggy tomato plants out. Gardening is all about patience and just getting on with it, the waiting game so to speak but we’re not very good at that. And talking of tomatoes we’ve got our first trusses of fruit developing on some of the plants we grew from seed (below). That weekly feed of comfrey liquid must be helping as well as sideshooting and a daily water.

The chilli pepper we were given the other week has now got fruits (below) and we were told by the patron of said plant that she started it off very early in January. We’ll be bringing the pot in this winter and see if we can keep it going next year. Peppers and chillies are perennials so we’re told, as it says here “...all peppers – that is sweet peppers and chilli peppers – are perennials, capable of living for several years. Peppers come from the tropics where there is no winter period.” The things you learn eh?It’s funny what with our “sow the seed willy nilly and forget we even sown them” method we still get suprised when something pops up like in the case of the oregano seedlings below. Yes it is in a pot with a plant label with “Oregano” written on it as clear as day but we’re still suprised. Perhaps we should have a colour coded spreadsheet with a map of the garden so we know when we sowed something and where. We reckon that would take the fun out of it though. Happy growing and may that spot of rain we had earlier today further boost up your garden’s growth!

Thursday night version excursion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx84OjVx-CQ

The other evening found a different cut of this fantastic cover version of the reggae classic “Queen of the minstrels” by Mr Day and we now love this happy snappy mix. It’s very soulful and upbeat with still a hint of the original in there. A tune and a very catchy one at that.

A view from one’s garden

Cheers to Rich R for sending a photo his daughter took from the middle of Bassenthwaite Lake. It’s looking towards Skiddaw a mountain (and once volcano) in the Lake District that is 931m/3054 feet high. As Rich tells us “It’s the mountain that dominates the view in our back garden” Wow that is some mountain and if you see that from your back garden that is something else! Excellent Rich and ta to your daughter for taking the photo.

Metal made for the garden

Cheers to Gerry Hectic for letting us know of a purchase made at that well known retail store Lldl recently. It’s a Bougainvillea Hybride and don’t look too bad!

It’s got a good heavy metal name too (below). Is there a Black Sabbath Rose by any chance or a GWAR geranium sitting in a garden centre as we write? More heavy rock plant names via the comments please.

Gardening connects us all again

We know the fish are feeding hence near the surface but the barley straw may be working in the pond. It’s been two weeks and we can see a little bit of difference as you could only see the tips of the fishes mouths before. We will keep you posted!

Big thanks to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv, Ukraine for the excellent picture of one big palm tree in the glasshouse of one of the two botanical gardens there. Wlad was saying his good friend Sergiy UT3UFD (whose banana plant we’ve featured here and here) loves going there and Wlad said the thing that he personally likes when he’s also there are the tall palm trees as they are “Perfect antenna masts” brilliant Wlad! Links to both botanical gardens here and here.

Great to hear from Gerry Hectic who sent a recent pic of his pond. He was saying the water levels have gotten a little low and weeds have seemed to taken over but “I thought I’d just heard a frog croak!” Great stuff on that Gerry!

We also heard from Rich R again from the Lake District who showed us his great garden with breathtaking views at the end of March here. The picture above which locals call fox and cubs are all over his garden. He was saying the flower which is in the family Asteraceae is native to alpine regions of central and southern Europe. There is a theory that they may have been brought over by the romans alongside other plants including some fig trees in the area that are very old now. His garden is next to a roman road and about 15 miles from the west end of Hadrians Wall. Who knows but it’s interesting stuff!

Well it’s the longest day today so happy solstice to one and all and thanks to our mates all over for sending us some great pictures. We are always interested in plant and gardening related pics so do send them over!

We heard it on the radio

Cheers to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing this chilled out piece of summer inspired balearica from John Beltran called La Hermosa Vista on his excellent Monday morning radio show “The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room” (all shows available here). If you want two hours containing some great tunes from chilled, funk, reggae, jazz and a lot more on a Monday morning you want to be tuning into IDA RadioTallinn from 9-11am UK time. Here’s this week’s show:

A little bit of give and take

And found yesterday outside a garden wall was this nice plant pot even though it was on the heavy side and took a bit of effort to take home. As soon as we got it in the garden we plonked in a smaller pot which has a potato plant growing in it and it looks like they were made for each other. Keep ’em peeled!

Crimson and clover

Here’s the audio from last night’s Imaginary Stations show on WRMI, a tribute to all things Hippie/Hippy called WHPY. Tune in and turn on to some mind blowing sounds from the Imaginary Stations crew including at 18.50 a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the wallies out there”. Here’s the tracklist:
Can – Vitamin C
Bongo Isaac, Itekted, Dread I Benji – Perfect Love and Peace Dub 1
Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines
Richie Havens – Going back to my roots

Greetings, tomato pickers

We must have a lot of time on our hands at the moment as we’re giving the tomato plants a weekly dose of comfrey liquid and as the plants aren’t of the bushy variety we’ve been religiously  sideshooting (aka pinching out) each plant (we’ve just noticed in this photo we missed one near at the top, damn!) We need to get out more, we really do!

All sideshooting is, is where the plant is trying to grow another stem, you nip it out so all the goodness goes into making the fruit. For God’s sake when you do it make sure you’re not nipping out the flower trusses. We’ve just looked online and it said it’s better using your fingers than a pair of secateurs as the plants form scar tissue better making less chance of any diseases forming. We can’t believe that fruit are actually forming now, God is it June already?

Talking of tomatoes here’s a brilliant Bob Flowerdew talk on tomatoes that contradicts what we’ve just said (he says don’t grow them on single cordons try two or three). We’ve put this video up a few times but it’s well worth watching.

We still would like to know what Bob Flowerdew’s top 10 all-time tunes are though. We reckon it may include some interesting stuff and possibly a bit of “More Yes, Genesis and Floyd”, not ‘alf pop pickers.

This one goes out to all plant givers and seed swappers

One thing’s for sure is that the whole idea of seed/plant swapping, finding stuff in the street and the idea of giving not to receive (but then someone gives you something out of the blue) is well up our street. It cheers up the garden for less pence and there’s a possibly that you’ll be growing stuff you’d never even think of growing. This morning we noticed some fruit on one of the chili peppers we were given the other week. We reckon the weekly dose of liquid plant feed helps and we were just thinking even the comfrey plant we made the feed out of was given to us by a mate earlier this year.

Sometimes you don’t have to look that far to find stuff. Once we awoke up to a lovely empty champagne box on our doorstep with no explanation here that is now looking a bit older with some mint in it by the pond.

Or the time when we found a silver birch seedling in a plastic bag in the street here when we were on the way to a mates. That was back in 2017 and it’s grown a fair bit since! And here’s the tree today.

A big shout to everyone who has swapped, given and received and all the tweeters that have put us in the direction of cheap seeds at the likes of Lldl and Ebay. We salute you and may your garden be abundant and we hope someone leaves a gardening gift on your doorstep, gives you a pot of something out of the blue or you walk past a garden wall that has something interesting with a “Take me” note on it. Big up the “Giving circle” or whatever it’s called.