Coming soon!

Last Sunday we visited the Seed Swap at Glengall Wharf Garden, Peckham SE15 6NF. It was a lovely morning and we picked up a great assortment of seeds including some Texsel Greens (Ethiopian Mustard), some nice tomato varieties and lots of poppy seeds.

We do love a seed swap here at Weeds and just found out about another (above) at Hither Green on Sunday 13th March 2022 from 11am-1pm at Springbank Road Community Garden (thanks to @LewishamGardens on twitter for letting us know!)

Also coming soon is the transmission of The Scented Garden (a nod to flowers and gardeners and also John Peel’s Perfumed Garden show) on Wednesday 9th March 2022 at 1700 utc on 3955 kHz which features at the start of the transmission One Deck Pete‘s “A tribute to council gardeners everywhere” mix. Tune in here.And whilst we’re on the subject of music, here’s a great tune from Islam Chipsy & Eek called El Dynasor. It’s certainly a lively number and one to get those hips a swaying.

And now the end is near (possibly)

We gave the lawn its final cut of the year yesterday. It’s the second week in November and the grass is still growing strong. Hopefully giving the lawn the last run in with the mower so late in the year will make a it a little easier when the flymo comes back out next year.

We’ll still do the old council mowing trick of “two cuts in one” in the spring. We go over the lawn with the mover blades on the highest setting (giving it less of a cut). Then give it a quick rake over (even thought you may have a grass catcher on the mower) and then go over it again with the mower blade one notch lower. It takes longer but saves less effort on the blades. And can you believe the cosmos is also still going…

Feeling high, so high…

It’s been a hot weekend to say the least here in SE23!

Yesterday was spent at a local “Midsummer Fayre” in the searing heat but a great time was had by all. Between the Taekwondo demonstration, a brass band (playing renditions of Dancing Queen and Anarchy in the UK) and the eagerly awaited results to the prize rafffle, various plant and bric-a-brac stalls were visited. A few bargains were acquired; some plants, a couple of rugs for indoors and a foot high plastic mushroom (above) for a pound. A right bargain!

And as you know we are suckers for any plant that is subtitled “Rare” “Giant” or “Unusual” in seed listings and it looks like the giant Sunflower seeds we bought on ebay are coming true to their word. They’re at seven foot now and not stopping. We’ll keep you posted on how high they get.

And talking of Rupie Edwards’ Ire Feelings here’s a couple of cuts of it, the second has a little bit of the tune Nite Owl from Tony Allen and the Champs and also later covered by Lee & The Clarendonians. More about that great piece of music from a post earlier this year here. It’s a small musical world. Keep cool and keep safe this week as it’s going to be a hot one!

It can’t be June already!

It’s all gone a bit bonkers in the garden here what with the good weather of late plus the combination of the rain we had a few weeks previous to that. The veg in the raised beds (above) are tearing away and the spuds are almost flowering.

We’ve let the grass go a bit wilder due to No Mow May and we’re beginning to like the idea. I think it’s the council gardening background made us a bit reticent to let the lawn grow more than a few inches. The only thing is now that we can’t see where our old cat leaves its “presents” so we have to go by smell and tread very carefully in the evening.

The pond is going great after the big pond liner change. The fish seem to like it and we’ve even got tadpoles in there now and we didn’t even spot any frogspawn beforehand. We were told many years ago by a workmate that down the Walworth Road one Sunday in the 1960’s “It rained frogs” (a report of raining frogs in Croydon here), perhaps it could’ve been raining tadpoles overnight in Forest Hill recently?

And the bed next to the new fence has come alive with new plants procured from the market, garden centre and seeds off ebay and friends. The comfrey plants that usually go mad have probably been checked when the fence went in so the comfrey feed has suffered so far but you never know as we’ve got a few months yet. But can you believe that it’s really June? We cant.

Whilst we’ve been writing this, the below was the musical background. One of the best music shows on the shortwaves!

What month is it?

We were complaining a few weeks ago about that there weren’t enough rain as we’ve had to go out and manually water all the new additions to the garden.

In the past few days we’ve bought some lupins and stuck them together in a group in a bed near to the house, acquired some strawberry plants (cheers Dylan!) and as reported previously the tree lilies we were given (cheers Marc!) are also starting to come up. The giving and exchanging, the swap-shop value of gardening is what we love here, we also love the local garden centre (Shannon’s) for plants and advice and it’s nice to see the re-emergence of local plants sales (plant pots stuck on a wall outside someone’s house at cheap as chips prices) or have they never gone away?

What we don’t love is the current weather. For the past few days it’s been warm one minute, cold the next and then you see on twitter someone’s had a frost or a light dusting of snow. Well it’s back on with the protection in the evenings on top of the raised beds here even though the potatoes are coming on well and the plants that have been outside hardening off (above) will have to come in for the night. We won’t get too discouraged as it’ll be summer soon. Or will it?

Rock the CABAHs, rock the CABAHs

You know we love a plant sale here at Weeds. Thanks to Lewisham Gardens for letting us know about the Charlton & Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society‘s plant stall at The Horn Fair, Charlton House SE7 8RE on Sunday 14th October from 10am-6pm. There’s plants grown by members, free seeds and a talk with gardening tips and tricks at 11am, what more do you want! Fingers crossed the weather’s good. Remember do send us details of any plant sales, seed swaps etc and we’ll give them a plug.