Polytunnel business

The polytunnel is now up and we are in business! There’s nowt much in there now apart from some assorted chillies, a few different types of tomatoes and some freshly sown spinach but we’re sure that’ll change in a week or so.

It took us a good morning and a bit of “That isn’t the right piece, where’s 5B?”, the thing falling apart and it looking like a skeleton of a whale on the lawn, and parts moving when they weren’t supposed to but we got there in the end. After a good tighten up, the frame was put into place (above). Thanks to Alan C for lots of tips, especially this great one: “I put a layer of woodchip under mine but some use wood strips or gravel/stones. This gives a nice evenly flat base and slows the frame rusting – the woodchip quickly dries out and separates the poles from the soil.”

As soon as we put the cover on we dug a little trench and tucked the excess of the cover into the ground and put broken concrete slabs, bricks and whathaveyou to weigh it down and then backfilled with soil and more woodchip so it is hopefully stays put in the wind.

As we said there’s not much in there at the moment but we’ll update you. Cheers to Alan C again for his tips and advice. Big up all Polytunnel crew!

 

 

Please don’t take our sunlight away

Thanks to Debby H for this great (inverted) image of the partial eclipse last night taken in north London at the maximum at 7.13 pm. What an excellent photograph!

And here’s two eclipse related tracks, the first from the The Eclipse Band with a very aptly titled Daylight Robbery. And another, from DNN called Eclipse Dub.

More marvellous business on the street

On our travels this morning, we passed a plant we’ve seen a good few times. It finally clicked, it’s actually a Marvel of Peru, and a huge one at that, can you believe it? We didn’t know they can get so big!

 

Standing stones in a yard sale style

Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore, for sending us the flyer for his yard sale that was on Saturday that featured some standing stones “Callanish Stones I think..” There’s some great standing stone coincidence vibes going on. Cheers Justin!

Tomato fruit puller. Puller, puller

Whilst researching a future post, we found this great variety of tomato from Seed Spring Seeds (website here).

As it says in the blurb on the site:
A Romanian tomato producing large, roughly heart-shaped fruit that weigh an average of 365g and measure about 8.5cm in diameter. Captain Beefheart’s big taste is combined with a juicy flesh, tender skin and few seeds, making it one of the best large-fruited tomatoes you are likely to encounter. The plants are good growers and will produce fruit well into the autumn.

A pepper called Frank Zappa anyone?

The above is a fantastic Beefheart tune as played on the excellent Andrew Weatherall – Live at Antenna Studios mixtape here.

It all seems to have started up north

A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).

It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.

Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.

As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).

The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!

Waiting in the (roots) garden

The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA radio is a wonderful mix up business of a Monday morning radio show and as you know, we love it here. This week’s show is a bit of a first, and features a great interview with Rakesh Rootsman Rak and a lovely reggae selection featuring Ernest Ranglin, The Twinkle Brothers, Aswad, I-Natural, Culture, Prince Lincoln and The Royal Rasses, The Natural Ites and more.

In the interview there’s talk of Rootsman Rak’s work which involves growing food, forest gardens, working with nature, permaculture and (as Gerry Hectic mentioned on his Facebook) “ethical gardening ideas”. Well worth tuning in and having a listen. Do have a look at Rootsman Rak’s site here and bit more about him here.

Cheers for The Rhythm Doctor for having some gardening reggae business on his show and Gerry Hectic for letting us know about it this morning.

(Is there) a change on its way?

This afternoon we walked briskly down to the compost heap (to deposit a few teabags) as it was a bit on the parky side. Earlier we didn’t take off the protective plastic covering the raised beds as we have been doing for the past few mornings as we don’t think the just germinated seedlings would have appreciated it. We even had a hail storm at 3pm!

Looking at www.lastfrostdate.co.uk we are still not out of the danger zone yet so there won’t be anything tender going in the garden for a few weeks yet!

 

News from ‘om

The other day we saw a great space saving device on Facebook; someone had put their seed trays on a shoe rack. Unfortunately, we haven’t got a shoe rack on hand, and the kitchen window is well full. We found this rack thing in the street a few months ago knowing it will come in handy soon, and it did! It’s holding up some Moneymaker tomatoes and some marvel of Peru seedlings. Below are a few different varieties of basil which we sowed today.

We’re trying to find time to tidy up the wild bit and going to fill the now weed-free area around the penstemons and love-in-a-mist with some wildflower seeds. The window frame that once had glass in it is now used to shield some plastic seed covers so they don’t blow away. Waste not, want not, part 33!