I’ve just seen an advert on the telly about the Daily Mirror’s free seed offer which starts tomorrow. All you have to do is send one token from the newspaper per packet plus some cash to cover the postage. They have a selection from a wide variety of seeds including herbs, flowers and vegetables, not bad for a price of a paper eh? The seeds you get probably haven’t got the exotic packaging like the russian perennial pea I got off ebay the other day (above) but I reckon they have more seeds per pack than the eight I got in mine!
Keep those eyes peeled for a copy of a discarded Daily Mirror on the train and bus to and from work next week. Me, I’ll be scouring those empty carriages!
I opened the compost bin I started just over a year ago this morning and it is looking mighty fine! The kitchen/plant waste has near enough rotted except for a few eggshells and the odd large potato. I’ve made a mental note to cut up the kitchen waste finer and to crush the eggshells even more from now on. If you look closely at the contents you’ll also see a nice blue biro. How the hell did that get in there? How long will that take to rot do you think?
Rereading Jane Perrone’s book this week I could really relate to the section about making compost where she writes “I’ve been known to secrete used tea bags in my pocket to take back for my own ever-hungry compost pile.” Tea bags never get wasted in our house, after a brew they either get chucked on the compost heap or the worms have them.
Talking about worms here’s how the wormery is progressing in the garage. It’s taken a lot longer than I thought (I started it early last summer) but I’ve got a big jar of liquid plant feed out of it and there’s also a good bit of compost underneath the rotting veg, sprouting onions, killer sized slugs and mouldy bread.
Also this week I started off some seeds on the kitchen windowsill, Cabbages (goldenacre) and Foxgloves (pam’s choice) and sometime soon will get those tomatoes seeds out of the packet. That’s good for me as I sowed them just after xmas last year. Patience dear boy!
Jazzmin Tutum – Share the flame – Universal Egg A big shout to the dub poetess Jazzmin Tutum on her excellent new release on Zion Train’s Universal Egg Records called “Share the flame“. A great mix of bass heavy collaborations with Neil Perch (who also produces the tracks), Brain Damage, Hey o Hansen, Ralf Freudenberger and yours truly (Madtone). Respect to Jazzmin for working with “Calling live on channel” and “Message from Madtone”! A big thanks goes out to our good friend Dr Strangedub from KFAI’s excellent Echo Chamber for linking us up!
A big thanks goes out to Jane Perrone for sending us a copy of her excellent book “The Allotment Keeper’s Handbook – A down-to-earth guide to growing your own food”. She also writes a great blog called Horticultural which is running a couple of competitions at the moment (There’s a chance to get a anti-slug T shirt and some free gardening books until midnight on February 18th 2013) and there’s also a link to a great idea called “Seedy Penpals”.
Talking of competitions Weeds up to me knees now has it’s first, thanks to Jane! We have a copy of the aforementioned allotment book to give away which is well worth having for novice and experienced gardener alike. All you have to do is send an email to onedeckpete@gmail.com with “I’d love a copy of that book” in the subject header with your name and mailing address in the body text and we’ll pick one lucky person after the closing date on 28th February 2013. All are invited (UK and worldwide) to enter!
Any ideas on the fungi that is attempting to take over our ornamental Cherry in the back garden? Any hints on how this can be sorted? Answers on a postcard please…
And talking of Cherries… (this youtube clip name checks the excellent Echo Chamber radio show on KFAI!)
As requested by lewisham gardens (a great blog by the way!) here’s the few seeds I swapped yesterday. The potatoes are chitting in an egg box in the back room, the daffs are in the front garden and the raspberry canes are getting a soaking as we speak! Big up the potato fair and seedswap!
I’ve just come back from the Potato Fair and Seedy Sunday at Sydenham Girls School and it was great! It was £2 to get in, all seed potatoes were 15p each and I spent just under a tenner. For that, I got 3 Raspberry canes (£4.50), 10 tubers of Orla earlies and 10 Sarpo Mira (£3) and a bag of 10 Daffodil bulbs (£1.50).
The atmosphere was well friendly and there was free advice galore too. I learnt a great tip from Colin from Thompson & Morgan who told me his grandad used to say you can plant potatoes in the ground if you can put your whole hand into the soil and leave it in there comfortably for ten seconds. That would prove that the soil is warm enough, brilliant!
As for the swapping it’s a great idea. Just bring what you have and exchange for what they have on offer. I swapped five packets of veg seeds (Kale, Cauliflower and the like) and got in return Baby Leek, Borage, Chamomile, Foxglove and Scabiosa. Excellent! There was a girl there who had two A4 typed out sheets worth of seeds to swap, all of them painstakingly put in tiny packets in her bag, how great is that?
The London Charity Potato Fair and Seed Exchange
Sunday 27th January 2013
11.00am-3.00pm
Sydenham School
Dartmouth Road
Forest Hill
London SE26 4RD
A last minute news flash about a seed swap event a stones throw from the weeds up to me knees HQ tomorrow. It looks a great day out and I’ll definitely be wandering up there if the weathers okay and I have a spare tenner in me pocket.
As it says about the event on the web: At all these events in addition to a huge range of seed potatoes, there will be our Heritage and Heirloom seeds, onion sets, shallots and garlic bulbs, fruit trees, soft fruit and other edible plants such as rhubarb and asparagus.
If you’re up there I’ll be the one trying to do deals with the stallholders with bags of small change and old washers!
There isn’t going to be much gardening done today, I tell you! Thank god the worms are in the garage and I’m warm in the house. If I was working on the parks for the council today, the kettle would be on, a topic for the all-day discussion chosen and a family pack of povvy digestives purchased for the long day of non-work inside the confides of a park keepers hut (10ftx10ft)!
This is the only gardening that is going to done here today, the leggy Coriander and Basil seedlings on the kitchen windowsill:
And our mate Nigel Slater’s favourite, Lemon Thyme purchased for a quid or so off ebay a few weeks ago (Terracotta pot and saucer optional. Bought from the local garden centre for around around about £1.50):
The above features versions of Keith Hudson’s Hot Stuff (and boy do we need something hot!)
I couldn’t believe it, the sun came out last Sunday so I moved the wormery (a bucket I found in the street perched upon an old xmas tree container which catches any liquid) into the garage as the forthcoming cold months outside won’t do the worms much good. I’ll pop in on a weekly basis and top up with kitchen peelings, tea bags etc and see if they are still okay. There was a good bit of liquid in the bottom bucket which I’ve drained off and will use as a great plant feed this summer comng. All for nothing by just keeping your kitchen waste!
The pots on the kitchen windowsill with the seeds I sowed just before xmas are coming along, the Corriander is looking a bit leggy but I’ll use the seedlings for cooking so nothings wasted, the Basil seeds did germinate but are very slow off the mark but that’s to be expected at this time of the year. Also I’m holding off a while with starting the Tomatoes indoors as last year I sowed them far too early and they were well lanky when finally put in the garden. A lesson learned, don’t be too keen!
For the second time now I got this great book from my library, The allotment keeper’s handbook (a down to earth guide to growing your own food) by Jane Perrone (The Guardian 2007). The first time I got it out, I renewed it to the max allowed as it was so informative, trouble is I dropped it into the bath by accident so had to return it with my head down in shame! On getting it out again a year later, it looks like someone has done the same and possibly dropped it out in the garden too! If you’re getting an allotment or thinking of starting to grow vegetables in the garden/patio at home this book is a must. It covers everything including composting, planning and preparation, heritage seeds, the magic of Comfrey and some mad tips too (starting seeds off in empty egg shells, I never thought of that one!) An informative read with some humour throw in to boot. A book not to read in the bath tho! Have a look a Jane’s blog which is great too.
I’ve just seen an advert on the telly about the Daily Mirror’s free seed offer which starts tomorrow. All you have to do is send one token from the newspaper per packet plus some cash to cover the postage. They have a selection from a wide variety of seeds including herbs, flowers and vegetables, not bad for a price of a paper eh? The seeds you get probably haven’t got the exotic packaging like the russian perennial pea I got off ebay the other day (above) but I reckon they have more seeds per pack than the eight I got in mine!
Weeds up to me knees 