Category Archives: Jobs to do

Tales from the heap

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The other week we cleared out some grass clippings and recent vegetation from out of the dalek compost bin and stuck it into the old fashioned “out in the elements” heap of old next to it. Up until a few days earlier the wooden frame was full of a few years worth of sticks and ivy that had never rotted down but we moved that into the local council’s garden refuse bin leaving the bottom of the dalek with a load of brandling worms chomping their way through some well rotted warm debris.

Well we looked in the “Open to the wilds of SE23” compost area today (we took off the once stylish now mouldy, bath mat cover first) and gave it a good fork over and it seems to be rotting much quicker than it was in the dalek, not sure if it’s the weather or just being outdoors but whatever it is, it’s working well (see above).

The quarter full darlek (above) is also doing well, there’s less brandling worms compared to last time we looked which means it’s on its way to maturing. Composting well is a bit of a science but it’s worth delving into (no pun intended) as your garden will thank you for it!

Madness, madness, they call it (zuchinni) madness

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Big thanks to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us this picture of a volunteer (plants that self seed) zuchinni (aka courgette) that has come up on the compost heap. They thrive in rich soil so a compost heap is ideal. To say the plant is going mad is an understatement!

We only got one plant that we got from a new seed supplier we found out about this year and it’s really suprised us as it’s so large. We only sowed two, one got eaten by slugs and snails and this one has gone barmy, taking over the garden path. Only a couple of fruits so far and one of them was one of those forgotten ones which grew to a fair old size!

Looking at Justin’s site here we were reminded of this tune below and a great episode of  Wireless Nights (Megahertz) from a while ago available to download here. An interesting listen if you like all that shortwave radio business! Cheers Justin!

For hands that do dishes…

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Here’s a container that came available today for the current batch of Comfrey liquid (nice video about making the stuff here) we tipped out from the bucket at the furthest end of the garden today. It’s well handy to tell you the truth when it comes to squirting it into your watering can. Less chance of splashing about we hope. Get this stuff on your clothes or hands and the smell will be with you for days, months and years.

We had heavy rain on and off most of today so the neighbours must have thought we’ve lost the plot (again) if they looked out the window at 7.30 pm and saw us with a watering can giving the plants a feed. At least the plants will appreciated it!

Blink and you’ll miss them

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It’s crazy the weather we’ve had the last few days, rain then sun then sun then rain so everything is starting to grow like billy-ho. We’re not complaining though as the strawberries we put in a tub we found in the street (after we gave it a lick of paint) are doing well.

Also the randomly sown poppies are coming along too. We bought more poppy seed from ebay over the weekend and just chucked it around whilst it was spitting today (that’ll help the seed germinate).

These pics we took yesterday are from our earlier “Chuck ’em and see what happens” experiments. Shame the actual flowers don’t last long on the plant.

A bit of happiness

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It’s been a bit of doom and gloom for the last few posts what with the bad weather so here’s a couple of uplifting things seen this morning. Firstly the first poppy of the season opening up, it may be small but it’s a lovely red!

And this little seedling (below) will hopefully will be supplying us with some purple srouting broccoli if all goes well. Roll on full days of sunshine eh?

What the hail?

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Here’s some pictures to convey how bad the weather was yesterday around 5pm in London town. It started as a downpour, then heavier rain and then mad hail! To say it was chucking it down was an understatement. A fast flowing stream appearing under the back gate from the drive and then the hail built up at the start of the lawn and it’s still there now.

Watch those seedlings. We may not be having frosty nights but heavy rain and hail can be a pain. One good thing with all of this rain is that the pond is filling up. That makes a change!

Three’s (not) a crowd

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We spent another couple of hours yesterday “tipping around with a hoe” as they used to say at the council and sorting out what’s what, now the new fence is in. As we cleared the side bed the day before we now can see what can go where.

At the bed at the bottom of the garden (pic above top) are a couple of cardoons that are now on their third year now after getting them originally from Shannon’s knowing nothing too much about the plant. I mean we don’t now that much about them now apart from the plants soar up to seven feet high and their thistle-like flowers attract bees and all sorts of pollinators in droves.

There’s also a globe artichoke next to the cardoonswhich we obtained after doing a swap with a mate at a local community garden for some egyptian walking onion bulbs (another “out there” plant). We’ll keep you posted on how they get on this year but do have a look at getting a cardoon or two if you fancy a bonkers looking plant!

About the weather

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We’ve just found out that it’s supposedly going to be sunny and 16° this Saturday, how mad is that? And it was only a couple of weeks ago we had snow!

There’s also signs of life in the herb pots we started off (above: Basil) using the indoor house plant compost as we don’t want to invite those fungus gnats back into the house. We were told that the supermarket bought herb plants also have been known to house the critters. Fingers crossed we don’t get the small clouds of them this year as we’ve had in the past.

We popped into Shannon’s this week and got a few bags of compost for the raised beds in the back, more indoor houseplant compost for starting off some seeds (as we don’t want to take any chances!) and some seed potatoes which are presently chitting by the window in the back room. There’s the argument that chitting don’t do that much as they’ll grow anyway but we’ve done it for a few years now and they always seem to help the plants get a good start. We may also use the “cut ’em in half” technique to get twice as many potato plants to plant. More on the process of chitting here. Here’s to the start of the gardening season.

And here’s a nice and melllow tune from Sum Total called Bakery for a Thursday evening in lockdown.

Holding back the tiers

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We go up another tier level this week, how are we going to cope with another lockdown? You can’t really go out in the garden as it’s a bit wet even though there’s been some warmer weather promised later this week. One job we will do is to get some gnat-free herb plants going on the kitchen windowsill after a summer of constant clouds of fungus gnats on our old pots. We’ve watered from the bottom and put up sticky traps and now going to admit defeat and starting again from scratch. More about the gnats and how to protect against them here.

We took some advice from the folks at Shannon’s and bought some indoor houseplant potting mix which should be free of any gnat’s eggs, put the old plants outside and give the actual pots a good clean with some disinfectant and then rinsed them through a few times for luck. It’s a bit early to be sowing anything really serious but we may start off a bit of basil (above: a few packs of seeds bought off ebay the other week) off in a pot with a see-through plastic bag on the top as a temporary greenhouse. As soon as the seeds show signs of propagation we’ll take the plastic off as to stop any damping off occurring.

Next summer we may be experiencing “a new normal” in the kitchen (ie. without clouds of gnats flying about or those sticky traps that don’t look too nice with lots of dead flies on them!)

The weather it is a-changin’

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Wow, it’s December can you believe? No wonder it’s freezing out there and the rest of the week looks like it’s going to be getting colder. We’ve heard from our gardening pals in Cincinnati  (Cheers Justin!) and Freiberg, Germany (Cheers Jazz’min) where they’ve had their first dusting of snow so I doubt it won’t be long until we’ll get some.

Those dahlias were still looking fine last weekend but we reckon it won’t be long till the frost comes and blackens the plants when it will be time again to dig them all up and stick them somewhere frost free and dry for the rest of the winter, keeping an eye out for any rotting or mouldy tubers while they’re in storage.

We can’t complain as those spikey orange ones have been great this year, flowering right up until we last looked so going to the effort of digging them up and storing them indoors is a small price to pay for a few more years of the same.

And the nice plastic looking pink variety we were given this year was great too (cheers Marc).

And the beds in front of the Dad corner (that has been productive this year thanks to the new raised beds) have been tidied up a bit and now ready for the winter. In the pic you will notice a couple of cabbage stalks that we left when we cut the leaves off them. Not sure if it will happen over the winter but usually when you cut them off like that, the leaves grow back again. Value for money or what?