Category Archives: Dahlias

Can’t wait, won’t wait, will try

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Patience, that’s what you need when it comes to this gardening lark. Sadly we haven’t got any.

This week we took the dahlia tubers straight out from under the stairs (where they’ve been hibernating since late autumn) and into the ground even though there’s still a chance of frost. We also left a couple of them in the garden from last season as we couldn’t be bothered to dig them out. Why do we do these things when we know we shouldn’t?

We have got protection for them and the other plants that don’t do well when it comes to frosts though. There’s the seed potatoes under the black membrane that was used under the decking and lots of DIY plastic/wood contraptions (don’t throw out your jam jars!) over vegetable seedlings that are germinating so it ain’t that bad.

All the gardening books tell you to be aware of late frosts, they also tell you that runner beans seeds don’t like sitting in cold soils and “for god’s sake don’t put out your tomato plants out early as they’ll suffer if it gets cold” but we still do it (we’ve a couple of tomato seedlings in the ground at the moment we’re ashamed to say.) It goes like this, we see a period of lovely sunshine so the hoe is taken out from its winter hiding place and then it’s all systems go after that. We don’t think this lockdown has helped in holding back either.

Talking of lockdowns, there’s a new gardening-related game developing here. At least once a week on our (very) regular visits to the compost heap a gloved hand will be thrust into the mass of rotting vegetables, old ripped up leccy bills and single tea bags to “feel the heat”. That’s not normal behaviour is it? Early signs of “lockdown lunacy” perhaps?

What? The sun is shining again?

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A massive thanks to all at the Thompson and Morgan gardening blog for the box of Beneficial Flower seeds containing all sorts of great stuff for bees and pollinators including cornflower, cosmos, dill, foxglove, catmint and wild poppy. After the last frost (have a look at this site here for estimated dates) we’ll be sowing them in the bed at the bottom of the garden. We’ll even mix some of the other box we got from the pound shop (nowhere as good as the T&M box but it was a quid!) the other week for added effect! Cheers again T&M, we’ll keep you posted!

Prompted by the person who said to us the other month: “Why don’t you write a blog and keep track of what you planted where and when”, yesterday we sowed a row of golden acre cabbages and a row of red salad bowl lettuce (both from the free seeds from Kitchen Garden Magazine). It may be a bit early but they are sown under glass. This bit of window was found in a skip many many moons ago and is still in use at Weeds HQ. Waste not want not!

And to celebrate the sun coming out again here’s a belter of a tune that’ll if all goes well will be getting an airing later this month on the next episode of Free Radio Skybird as part of a mix called “Radio Fanatics of the world unite”. The tune is from Yemanjo & Monarch Duo called Roma (Yemanjo remix) on Jumpsuit Records. Any record label that describes itself as a “curation project of The Polish Ambassador and his cohort of scientists, spirit animals and vibe consultants” is alright by us! May the sun shine on all day.

What? Dahlias on a draining board?

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The dahlia experts out there are probably “tut tutting” at the picture above but Friday we gave the tubers (we only took out the ground the other week and will be putting them back in a short while) a little wash and brush up as the mud that was on them when we dug them up had still not dried out and some parts were looking rotten.

We know we should’ve taken them out a lot earlier but sometimes that’s the way it goes. We took off the rotting parts and dried them out in the sun the best we could and now they’re back under the stairs for a few weeks. We’ll inspect them on a regular basis and see how we go, fingers crossed we don’t lose any as we love a dahlia here. Next time we’ll pull them out in the autumn after the first frost like you’re supposed to!

And the best named dahlia of the week goes to…

A message to all potato fans!

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Thanks to Mick Matthews of the Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group for letting us know of their 11th Potato Day on Saturday 1st February 2020 at All Saints Church, Market Square, Huntingdon PE29 3NR from 10-30 am till 1pm. FREE admission. All welcome!

• 50 varieties of seed potato + onion sets and shallots plus Dahlias

Potatoes from £1-30 a kilo £1-00 for members. You can buy as many or as few as you like, it’s an excellent opportunity to try something different or a good value way to get enough for a whole row. There’s refreshments on sale and crafts and other stalls. It sounds great, so if you’re about that area on the 1st February, go in and have a look!

The end is nigh (sort of, until next year)

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We’ve sadly not been out in the back garden for a good while mainly due to the bad weather and also been busy elsewhere (rediscovering the joy of building crystal sets, contributing to Free Radio Skybird and DIY jobs indoors). We’ve missed being out in the garden! Yesterday was cold but the sun came out after a well misty start and it gave us an opportunity to see what’s what!

The lawn we sowed after pulling up some of the rubbish 1980’s crazy paving in the August bank holiday has taken really well and it’s had a couple of cuts with a flymo and it’s looking good (above: before, during and after). The Dahlias to the left of the lawn don’t seem to have gone black yet (have we actually had a hard frost yet or are the plants getting a bit more tolerant?) but very soon we’ll be digging them up and drying them out for keeping indoors all ready for next year.

The veg bed at the bottom of the garden is looking a bit sorry for itself like an allotment that’s been forgotten about but an hour or two spent pulling up the Nasturtiums and a fork over should do the trick. The Cardoons down there that did so well this year (below) have now died down and the local Parakeets are using the dry heads as food but lo and behold there’s more greenery appearing at the bottom. Brilliant stuff, a plant and a half!And right by the house and up against next door’s extension (so getting the benefit of the heat) are the Garlic we bought back in September here (alongside some succulents and a Egyptian Walking Onion or two) stuck in the great South Suburban storage box we found in a skip up the road. Roll on spring. Please!

We’ve just had a look on the web for any mentions of London based seed swaps, free seeds, garden give-a-ways to cheer us up at this time of year, nothing as yet. But there’s news of a couple of Potato Days that are worth going to:

London Potato Fair
Sunday 9th February 2020
11.00am-2.30pm
Roots & Shoots,
Walnut Tree Walk,
Lambeth SE11 6DN
http://www.rootsandshoots.org.uk
Free Admission.

Potato Day and Seed Fair
Sunday 1st March 2020
11.00am-4.00pm
Garden Museum,
5 Lambeth Palace Road,
London SE1 7LB
Free Admission to the Potato Day.

Those lovable spiky tops

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The dahlias in the back garden are still going strong, here they are this morning before the rain fell. We’ve had a few vases worth of them this year and there’s still no sign of frosts yet. These spikey orange/red ones were originally bought as one tuber from Shannon’s. Apart from once when they were left in the ground, they were mainly dug up after the first frosts, cleaned up and put under the stairs most winters until this spring where they were divided up and put back into various areas in the garden.

A big thanks to our good mate Andy for his top gardening tips including telling us about the excellent Adam The Gardener series years ago whose top tip for dahlias is shown above. Divide your tubers and get more for your money!

And whilst looking through our old blog posts about the ‘umble dahlia we found this brilliant Earl Gateshead Big Youth podcast. Tune in and turn on!

Don’t step on the cracks

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A trip down the garden path tonight produced this trio of pics. Above: The fiver’s worth of water lily we bought from the Lewisham pet shop (whose website’s by-line is “For all your reptile needs”) a few years ago has gone mad this summer. We counted nearly 7 flowers on it the other day. The fish are using it as shade during the sunny periods and the tadpoles as mini swimming pools. The pond need a bit of thinning out this weekend as it would be nice to give the inhabitants more room. We now get our fish food via ebay, and you get double or treble of the volume of food for the price compared to what you get in those supermarket tubs.

The pink flowers shown above don’t look like much and as a plant it’s a bit on the scrappy side but disregard that and grow night scented stock for it’s evening smell!

And somewhere in the middle of the tomatoes and broad beans growing against the garage wall and the dahlias is the Thompson & Morgan trial spaghetti squash. We reckon it’ll outgrow the space in no time!

And finally a dubbed out one for the warm night we’ll be getting tonight (where it’ll be hard to sleep even with the windows are open!), it’s from Masis called Unearthed Dub  and it’s the Frenk Dublin mix. Tune!

Seek, and ye shall find my friend

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We weren’t feeling too hot over the xmas and new year period as another damn cold/flu struck, but as the garden was looking a bit on the neglected side an hour or so had to be designated to a bit of outdoor tidying up. This one was for the bed next to the garage that  earlier this year contained tomatoes, sweet peas and dahlias amongst other things (past posts about said plants in all their glory are in the links).

We dug up all the dahlia tubers carefully (some of them are the size of big spuds!) which are now drying out under the stairs even though last year we took a chance and left them in and they did wonderful this summer (post here). More on lifting the tubers here.

We even replanted a silver birch (one we found a couple of years ago in a Tesco’s bag with a note that said “Take me” on it outside a house locally see post here) that was originally by the pond but hopefully it will do better at the end of the bed. We’ll be probably moving it again as it’s so near the old garage wall but let’s see.

And as protection from forthcoming cold weather we stuck one of the plastic mini-cloches from another find, which followed the same pattern as before; left outside a house with a note with “Take me” on it (post here) over the Foxtail Lily that’s started to sprout a bit prematurely.

So wrap up warm, happy gardening and keep em peeled as Shaw Taylor used to say.

Tuber, tuber, tuber

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We usually lift our Dahlia tubers in the autumn and stick them under the stairs in a paper bag to dry out and then return them to the ground in the spring but this year we didn’t and feared for the worst. We shouldn’t have as the two plants are giving us a spectacular display this year.

We’ve had a bit of blackfly on them but they’ve now seemed to vanish. We’ve given them a bit of TLC in the form of regular watering and a weekly feed of comfrey liquid and loving the results. All from a couple of tubers bought in Shannon’s a few years ago! Anyone out there got any nice varieties we can show on Weeds? Pictures please…