Category Archives: beanpole of the month

Looking down on us all

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Inspired after seeing Peter B’s sunflowers in the last post here’s one of ours, the giant version off ebay that is still hanging in there. Thanks to some gardening wire and an assortment of garden canes it still stands. Just.

And here’s a couple of helianthus related tunes. The first is opening needle progress with Sunflower and the second Metamatics with the rather apt Giant Sunflowers Swaying In The Wind. Trouble is when that giant sunflower (above) sways, the canes come away and the damn thing droops!

 

 

Spring must be here!

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Thanks to Mike G and his partner Julia for sending us some recent pictures of their garden from just outside Coventry and great pics they are! Top image features the great flowers of bleeding heart and also grape hyacinths.

Love the picture below, look at that clematis go! The clematis in our garden is nowhere as prolific. Ours has flowered poorly over the last couple of years so we used a tip heard on Gardeners Question Time a few years ago. Within earshot of the plant we said “If we don’t see any improvement in that clematis next year, we’re pulling it and sticking it on the compost heap as it’s the best thing for it”. It’s not a nice thing to do but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind and funnily enough the GQT tip may be working. If it flowers as half as good as their one below we’ll be more than happy!Their peas look great especially so early in the season and we look forward to see how they get on. We don’t have much luck with peas, we know the trick may be all about keeping them well watered but these below look well healthy.

We had to look this plant below up on the web and used Plant.id here which is telling us it’s a spring starflower (Ipheion uniflorum). Whatever it is, it’s a striking flower!
So cheers Mike and Julia for sending in the pictures of your great garden and do let us know how things are going later this season!

 

Dada gardening

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Tired of slugs and snails decimating tender stuff in the garden we thought of a daft idea, we wired a pot of Basil atop the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago and going to see how it work. We even stuck an old jam jar over it to give it a bit more warmth in the night. We’re not sure if it will deter slugs or snails and also even if it’s a good idea or not but you have to try sometimes. That’s the hat stand that already has a couple of seed potatoes in some old shopping bags on it. We may even run some climbing beans up it too. A bit unconventional but why not? It’ll make good use of space.

Also the Lemon Verbena in a pot that we thought was a goner is starting to sprout. It was a good thing we didn’t give up on it and threw it in the bin like we were going to. It’s an interesting plant and we got the idea off another Dub Gardener Haji Mike in Cypus a few years ago here after he mentioned it on a Facebook post. It makes a wonderful refreshing tea and there’s lots of recipes online on how you can use it too. Here’s a great tune from Mike from a few years ago.

The time has flew by this year, it’s nearly June and things are starting to crack on in the garden. Can we have more sunshine please?

There’s more on the way!

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A big thanks to our good gardening mate Gerry Hectic for sending us pictures of the story so far in his garden. Loving the runner beans in the pot with a trolley from Aldi at the bottom so it can be moved around to catch the maximum of sunlight. Our other good friend Phil Harmony in Berlin used to also use that idea on his balcony for his veg growing. As The Merton Parkas used to sing “You need wheels”.

The peas and tomatoes look great too! Just water them daily and add a weekly feed, all will hopefully be grand! More pics of your progress in a few weeks please Gerry!

They’re on their way!

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Now some of the flowers have dropped off the tomato plants we’ve been giving them and other fruiting plants a weekly feed of comfrey liquid. We’re also been giving the tomatoes some support with canes and garden wire as in a few week’s time some of the fruit will get heavy.

We’ve been using the home-made feed sparingly as we haven’t been getting that many comfrey leaves to make the liquid out of. We usually try and pass the feed on as it’s brilliant stuff but up until now have just about enough for ourselves. Fingers crossed we get a splurge of comfrey leaf growth soon.

The zucchini/courgette we planted in a in a pot is starting to flower now too and the climbing beans plants we got from Shannon’s are setting fruit on one of the three runner bean cane tripods we put in. As for the other two tripods, one went for a burton through underwater and the other one has been overun with blackfly. It’s strange as there’re only a couple of feet apart from each other.

So keep on with the watering through this dry spell and get some plant feed to your vegetables to get the best out of the plants cropping wise.

And while we’re on beanpoles here something brilliant bean support-wise from a few years ago from Vic Godard from The Subway Sect’s Dad’s garden. It’s a 16 caner with a nice tying system at the top and it really looks the part!

Sunflowers, snails, slugs and squirrels

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The weather has been a bit changeable of late to say the least. Some of the sunflowers have been attacked by snails, slugs or squirrels but there are some that have out outmaneuvered them like the one next to the garage (above). It’s so tall nothing can climb it without a bit of work and is a little way out from the garage roof so the squirrels can’t even reach it from on high. This one above is at least a ridiculous 10 feet or more! We’re going to try and save some seed and if anyone fancies a swap for something just as crazy we’ll be game. We go for anything labelled as “Giant” “Rare” or “Out of this world” so if you have anything to exchange, drop us a message via comments!

Another thing with this changeable weather is it is a breeding ground for slugs and these are the gits (above) we have to contend with in SE23. They’re sturdy old things and we think they’d return if we collected them all in a bag and slung them up the local park. These are not common or garden slugs these are south London slugs and they mean business!

At least the pond has been loving this present weather even though we haven’t. The fish and plants seem happy with the rising waterline and if you stand still for long enough you’ll see mini-frogs jumping about in the areas around it. Let’s hope they gang up all together and teach those damn slugs a lesson!

You know that you’re gardening during lockdown when…

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…you’re putting runner beans supports in (on the 2nd of April) and you’ve carefully put three wire rings on each one, all made to exactly the same size and put at the same height. Talk about having too much time on your hands!

We even ripped up some comfrey leaves and mixed them in just below the surface, hopefully that’ll add something to the soil.

Keeping it short and sweet

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Little and often is an apt saying when it comes to gardening. The job for today was to tidy up the bed at the bottom of the garden that had gone a bit haywire (above). There was a fair bit of weeding to do and pulling up of dead Nasturtiums that were left to their own devices followed by a good old forking over. It looks like a proper vegetable bed now (below) rather than a bombsite!
In the process we found a couple of spuds that were missed when we initially harvested them in the autumn and also found a few dried out pods of some heirloom French climbing beans we bought at the Roots and Shoots Potato Day earlier this year. That’s one less packet of seeds we’ll have to purchase then!

Talking of Potato Days and Roots and Shoots here’s the next event in a few weeks time and one well worth going to!
London Potato Fair/Roots & Shoots Potato Day
9th and 10th February 2019 11.00am-2.30pm
Roots & Shoots 
Walnut Tree Walk
Lambeth, SE11 6DN
http://www.roots&shoots.org
FREE ADMISSION
More details on this and more such like events (all across the UK) at this site here.

And here’s a festive treat from The Groove Thief from KGNU Community Radio’s “Dub Palace” show. The mix includes some heavyweight bass from RSD, Prophet, Johnny Clarke and our very own Madtone with “Compost your mind”. 

A happy and prosperous 2019 to one and all from us at Weeds!

Bean pole idea of the week

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The other week we went over to an open garden event in Blackheath and had a lovely afternoon in some fantastic surroundings and even dipped a hand into our pockets at the plant sale there. While in the veg garden this bean pole idea (above) caught our eye. We very much doubt that the rusty looking metal things that are holding the bamboo canes in place have anything to do with garden centres (they’re probably something off a building site or in a steel-fixers toolkit) but we could be wrong. It’s a great idea though! If you know what they are actually are (and if you can buy them at garden centres) answers on a postcard please.

And two other good ideas if you’re thinking of picking up some tunes this weekend. The first the Aimes mix of Cloud Nine by Joe Morris and the next a belter from yesteryear from the excellent Johnny Clarke called Blood Dunza/Dub Dunza. May the sun reign this weekend and while we’re asleep we get a bit of rain.

November spawned a monster

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A few photos of the state of play in the Weeds garden at the moment. There’s fun and frolics in the pond with the goldfish and this year’s batch of tadpoles and it’s not looking too murky in there at the moment. There’s no sign of that thieving Lewisham heron either thanks to the folks at Shannon’s for telling us to put pea netting over the top of the pond (with a few escape routes dotted about for the local mini-wildlife).

The poppies are doing their thing too. Any seed heads that form we dry out and distribute around the garden so they’ll come back next summer.

The vegetable bed at the bottom of the garden has moved on since last month. The spuds are on their way, the alderman peas are starting to grow and we’re finally seeing the runner beans germinate. And about time too!