Category Archives: Raised Bed of the month

On a harvest festival vibe

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We’ve had quite a few emails of late with pictures of harvests attached that got us thinking, is it that time of the year again or is it a bit earlier (we saw that blackberries were ready a few weeks before they usually are).

The first is from Rich in the Lake District of his damsons in the garden (above). We’ve never grew Damsons before and don’t know that much about them apart from seeing a jar of the jam once on a Women’s Institute stall at a church fete. Just seen a few other recipes for them here. Cheers Rich!

Ta to Debby H in north London who sent us the above. “Here’s our second crop of pears, and there’s still more to come! All from a tiny tree! Also in the picture is our latest crop of cherry tomatoes. So much garden produce this year.” You’re right there Debby!

Great to hear from Justin Patrick Moore in in Cincinnati who sent us a snap of his carrot harvest this year. We love those red coloured ones.

It’s funny with odd coloured varieties, we imagine the different coloured carrots are just like the orange ones but once we grew white beetroot as we love beetroot here. It did taste like beetroot but it just wasn’t the same without the red juice staining the bread in the cheese sandwich it was in!

Finally some tomato pictures from Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay. Top picture are a few varieties he has grown including Beefheart black, Crimea, grape and Russian. The above two are Russian beefsteak. Great stuff Spike!

Thanks to everyone for sending in those harvest pictures and keep sending them in!

Polytunnel business

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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!

 

 

Preparation, preparation, preparation

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This afternoon we cleared an area (which once housed a greenhouse many moons ago) in preparation for a polytunnel which will arrive sometime this week. Thanks to Alan C who gave us some great advice about purchasing one, as we didn’t know much about what was on offer out there.

We weren’t the only ones that were excited today, there were a Blackbird and a Robin who swooped down a few times even when we walked a little way away, we must’ve disturbed some food in the area or someting.

A harvest report from France

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More great harvest pictures are coming into the Weeds news desks. The one above is from our mate Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay. As we keep mentioning, all his hard work from earlier this year here is now paying off! And don’t you love the recycled steps idea! Cheers Spike for keeping us updated.

Anyone want any tomatoes?

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A bit thanks to Alan C who sent us up some great pictures of his harvest from his Corfe Mullen allotment down in Dorset. First off is his polytunnel that looks so abundant with growth even with this heatwave and lack of rain.

“The polytunnel is a bit messy as you can see (above) but the picture is after I had harvested so there will be plenty more. This is the side with cherry-type tomatoes (toddler), the plum ones are on the other side. You can just about see a couple of Midas chilli plants in pots at the back as well.”

He went on to say, “The extreme weather and ongoing drought hasn’t been good for some things, the peas and beans are struggling, and the potato crop was down with a lot
smaller spuds, but the squash don’t seem bothered.”


If you remember Alan has lots of tubs of potatoes on the go, which is a great idea. “I harvest twice a week, and this is today’s return (above) – over a kilo of spuds from the one tub I emptied (about 15 more tubs left to go) and nearly 1.5 kilos of tomatoes.  Plus, a slightly overgrown cucumber and a nice onion and beetroot.”

“We were already struggling to eat the tomatoes I picked last week so I now need to come up with some new recipes for them, we can give some away, but the neighbours don’t want any more and my daughter is allergic to them.”

Cheers for the pictures Alan and everything is looking brilliant down there and I imagine he’s put in a lot of hard work with everything, especially with watering.

Anyone on here know any good recipes for a glut of tomatoes? We’re thinking of a big pasta sauce and freeze it but it’s all about what space is available in the freezer isn’t it?

Edibles from north London

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We heard from Debby H in north London yesterday as she sent some great photographs of how her garden is doing. She wrote “We grew Capri Red pepper plants last year and tried to keep the plants going over the winter. I was convinced that at least 2 of the 3 plants had died, but they came alive again in June and are now bearing large peppers again!” Wow they look great Debby; they are some large peppers!

We love her first harvest of potatoes (above) and the picture of her Cherry tomatoes that “have gone wild” (below).

She also told us about the greengages she harvested this year, “This is a tiny fraction of the many kilos that our one tree has produced this year. We have never had much off it previously. It must be the heat!” Whatever it is they are doing brilliantly. Cheers Debby!

More marvellous business on the street

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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!

 

And from over in France

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Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay, for sending these pictures of the fruits of his labours and garden. There’s some great looking produce there.

That has come around quick hasn’t it? It was seemingly a few weeks ago when we heard from him when he was preparing his ground with some back breaking work (here and picture below). Good stuff Spike!

If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are all archived here.

Returning to the north

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.

“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!

The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).

And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!

Enjoying the heat with that wonky leg?

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We have a bit of a minor leg injury due to carrying heavy stuff about a week Sunday, so we took it very easy in the garden yesterday. After a very light “tip around with a pair of secateurs” we tuned into WAVE from Imaginary Stations on the ATS – 20+ shortwave radio we bought earlier this year. It’s a cheap and cheerful radio and it has some faults but overall, it isn’t bad for the cheap price.

We heard the great mix from our mate Kit G5KIT in Bristol live on air and quoting him a few days ago “I don’t know what it is, but both Dub and Eastern European music both seem to really suit short wave propagation, they just sound …right.” He’s so correct there! Tune in to the studio recording below and Kit’s mix is at 30 minutes in.

Here’s the track listings:
Deep Reggae Sound System – Midnight Dub Waves
Pat Flashman – Summer Dub
The Heptones – Sea of Dub
Groovy Waters – Rock the Casbah

And here’s a few from the Weeds garden including a very small baby sun rose we were given by a friend from work on Friday which was feeling sorry for itself when we put it in the Belfast sink later that evening but on Sunday we even had a flower!

The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.

And the Globe Thistle is doing well too! Happy gardening everyone.