Category Archives: Found on a skip or for the binmen

Influenced by Bob (sort of)

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It was funny old weather in SE23 yesterday, it started misty and kept like that for most of the day, followed by some sunshine at lunch and then by tea-time the mist had returned and it felt rather wintery.

At lunch we nipped out and did half an hour out in the back. We sowed some wildflower seeds in one of the raised beds and some veg in another and stuck some polythene on the top which we were going to throw out.

Earlier this week we saw on Facebook, Bob Flowerdew in his veg patch (that looked like the size of a normal back garden!). He was explaining that before the winter he put a load of organic material on the soil then slung some black covering over the patch. Over the winter it rotted away now leaving the beds a bit richer and weed-free rather then they would have been if he had just left them exposed.

We reckon that’s a great idea, but what would the neighbours think if half our garden was covered with a black tarpaulin (the likes of which goes over a car on bricks on a driveway). A few sheets of plastic over raised beds are enough for us. Hope all’s well in everyone’s garden and with any seeds that may be germinating! Pictures please.

Out with the fleece, newspapers and net curtains please

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Thanks to Debby H for the reminder to get the frost protection out this weekend as we’re in for a touch for frost. It’ll be wise to cover those plants that aren’t hardy or for those that think that spring has arrived what with this mild weather we’ve had of late.

Net curtains, horticultural fleece, plastic buckets or even newspapers can be used. Ideally, there should be some space between the plant and the outer protection, which can be as simple as a tent-like structure made from bamboo canes. That said, here are a few classic frost-protection contraptions we’ve used over the years. They don’t have to be smart, they just have to work! Send us your frost protections pictures, the more unusual the better.

Making mates in the garden

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We had a good load of things to do today but managed to get around an hour in the garden tidying up a bed near the house, pulling some old tomato plants out of the raised beds at the side and trimming a jasmine.

It was a bit cold but good to be out there doing something. Things we can tidy up now will be less things we have to do come the spring. We even made a mate in a Robin who was sitting very close to us for about half an hour (main pic).

We still have a Quick Fire chilli plant outside but sadly can’t find anywhere for it to be put inside over the winter so improvised with the terrarium we found in the street about ten years ago which is now on its last legs (above) but worth trying. And (below) a very odd shaped unripe tomato found on a plant that was being ripped out one of the raised beds that looks like a jelly baby to us! Anyone else been in the garden this weekend? one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com.

We’ve got a Barbara Hepworth in our garden (supposedly)

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Cheers to our mate Nic G across the pond for letting us know that the thing we found in the skip the other night is more than likely an example of sand-casting leftovers.

We’ve now got it as a sculpture at the bottom of the garden (just by the part under fence that is used as a cat/fox run) and with the sunlight on it this morning looks like a fox looking up at the sky.

We are hoping to pass it off as a mini-Barbara Hepworth next time Antiques Roadshow visits Catford and give the “specialists” some spiel about “Dame Barbara gifted it to my late father after he tidied up some flower beds in St Ives.”

We do think it looks similiar to a fox today. Who knows what it may look like at 3pm, sand casting leftovers perhaps? We do hope not.

Out with the bubble wrap, out with the bubble wrap!

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Sometimes it’s small things that make you think. We were just reading the “What to do in the garden in May” piece on Penny GoLightly’s excellent blog here. She mentioned “The month has started with a mini heatwave, but I’m not rushing to plant out most of my seedlings too soon” and we have a bit of a realisation and checked the weather forecast for SE23 and thought “Ahh, she has a point”.

Its looks likes there’s going to be a little bit of a change in temperature this weekend to say the least. From those glorious summer vibes to a humbling 13°C tomorrow. Funny enough we just found a pic (above) from May 17th 2020, look at those sophisticated forms of frost protection and thats in mid-May!

To be honest we did get a bit carried away and put a couple (and more to be honest) of tomato plants out and yes there are some chillies seedlings that have been repotted and left out overnight. We’ve even dismantled a cold frame (aka took the bricks off holding down the polythene and folded up said polythene and chucked it in the bin). Looks like all of that will have to change this evening, alongside the flip flops and shorts going back into the wardrobe.

We’ll be bringing the chillies in tonight just to be on the safe side as it may drop to 4° C and we have a massive roll of bubble wrap purchased initially for selling stuff on eBay that will come in very handy.

We feel a bit sorry for the bloke on Facebook the other week who put out all his 30 odd tomato plants saying there won’t be a frost. He may be alright, but it does seem a bit nippy in the evenings next week. Good luck and may the (frost) protection be with you and enjoy those rays of sun rays today as you may have to put the jumper back on tomorrow.

Redistribution of gardening wealth

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One of the best things about this gardening lark is when people pass on things and we’ve picked up all sort of stuff from out in the street or left on garden walls with a “Take me” note on it. We’ve found gardening tools, a very strange coatstand that works as support for climbing plants (here) and even our silver birch that is growing so tall now (here).

In the last week we’ve kindly been given some seeds (Cheers Debby H!) and the other night we happily received a couple of bags (pic above) of Russet Apples (Cheers Adrienne!) which we’ve never tasted before and were very pleasantly suprised when we had them with some frozen berries (found at the bottom of the freezer) with a sponge top.

So keep that circle-a-turning and if you’ve got something that you don’t need, pass it/them on!

Keep them peeled!

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To paraphase the man like Shaw Taylor on Police Five, “Keep ’em peeled”. In this day and age people chuck out stuff with a view to someone else using it, “recycling” is what they call it. From old vacuum cleaners to 1990’s inkjet printers, people are leaving stuff out on garden walls, skips and next to rubbish bins everywhere for other people to take advantage of (if you can find the right inner bag and plug socket for the vacuum cleaner or suss out that major fault with the printer).

You can be lucky though, like we were the other day. On our daily excercise stroll we saw a few Iceland bags full of neatly pruned Irises with lovely cleaned roots that looked like they had been washed. Of course we took a bag, and why not?

A lovely space in our garden was made for them by pulling up some lemon balm by the tree that has other Irises beside them and then given a good water. Not bad for free eh? Meanwhile we have a multimeter with testing leads on the printer and still can’t find the fault. Stick to gardening freebies!

I suppose you’d like to know how much it’s worth?

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After a text alert to Weeds HQ this week that records were dumped locally, we found a 1970’s shopping bag with rope handles with “Lanzarotte” enblazoned on it containing some LPs outside a garden wall down the road. No A&M God Save the Queens or Bullet Dubs in there but the record above stood out for us on the bizarre sleeve stakes. We’ll be bringing the battered 1970’s Lanzarote shopping bag with miscoloured thick rope handles next time BBC Antiques Roadshow hits the Horiman’s Museum and see what they think about that great piece of antiquity.

By the way our favourite specialist on The Antiques Roadshow is the glass expert Andy McConnell. And here’s something we didn’t know about him until we read about it this morning here: “A trained journalist, Andy spent 1972-76 in California, interviewing & touring the US with many of the greatest rock & folk bands. The theme continued into the early ‘80s when he produced promo videos at Island Records, for acts including Tears for Fears, Kid Creole & The Coconuts and Steve Winwood. Leaving Island in 1983, he production managed a black music series for Channel 4, Rockers Roadshow.” The above is one of the said shows which contains some great footage of Mikey Dread and others we’ve never seen before. Andy has gone up even more in our estimations now!

As for the Lanzarote bag we also found this great LP from Milt Raskin in it which has an excellent sleeve and is a nice bit of exotica well suited for this sunny summer. More on this LP here. DJ Frederick and Gerry Hectic, do you know this one?

Here’s to more sunshine!

A bit of improvisation

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The weather doesn’t look that great tonight, what with a forecast low of 4 degrees C. That’s the trouble with this time of year, we get a little bit of sunshine over a weekend and we think that the garden is under starters orders.

We’re a bit paranoid here, so we went out earlier and put what jam jars and a couple of plastic cloches that we had over some plants. We even improvised using those little plastic containers that glacé cherries come in, put over some small seed potato shoots. Let’s see how we get on with these tonight. Tomorrow isn’t looking good at 3 degrees C either so we reckon we’ll be putting them back on tomorrow too. It’s better to be safe than sorry as they say.

And just to add to the drama while we were out the back we were treated to a short hail storm. That’s all you need when you’re running about the garden at dusk covering random plants with glacé cherry containers and jam jars, what must the neighbours be thinking?