Category Archives: seeds

What a difference a day makes (again)

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Saturday was a lovely day so we tipped around in the garden, done some weeding and tidied up. Some seed spuds were sown in the old window frame on bricks (halfway in the picture on the left hand side). The rest of the spuds we procured from B&Q were put in empty egg boxes next to the window in the back room to start off the chitting process.

Come Sunday though, it was grey all day and from mid-morning constant drizzle but one thing with rain, even if you’ve just scratched the top layer of soil in a bed it makes it look great like you’ve spent hours working on it. Viva the good weather!

Life is one big circle innit?

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And they’re off! It’s taken nearly three weeks for the Chillies to germinate in the propagator with the lid and the Lemon Drop (aka Lemon-flavoured Aji from Peru) are the first to show their faces. We’re now waiting for the Pretty in Purple and Albertus Rotoco to get going now. We started them early and know some chillies are hard to germinate due to some of the seed being dormant so even at this early stage we are chuffed.

And the Tomatoes which were started in an uncovered tray are slowly starting to grow. These above are the (first vertical row) San Marzano (second row) Florentino which we are sure we obtained from a Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15 seed swap from two or three years back and (third row) a Cherry Tomato called Cerise from those 6 in 1 vegetable pack from Ebay. Springtime we’re waiting for you to spring!

The great indoors

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Thanks to Debby H for sending us pictures of her collection of indoor plants. Because until recently, she didn’t have a garden; she has an abundance of them. As we here at Weeds are not very good with houseplants, we love to see other people’s. The flowering cactus (above) looks great.

Now the picture above is brilliant, the Orchid is blooming and there’s a healthy looking Pineapple. We didn’t even know you could grow them here, even indoors! More on growing Pineapples here.

Debby wrote “I grew the Strelitzias AKA Bird of Paradise plants (above) from seed about 5 years ago. We are hoping they may flower sometime.” Wow and when they flower…

“I also grew the Canna (below) from a tiny plant. Last year it flowered continuously with beautiful bright red flowers. The Canna lives outdoors in the summer. We put the Strelitzias out too, but they hated it and wilted every day there was any sun! Strange because they generally live outdoors in warmer climates.” Brilliant stuff Debby, thanks a lot for that and do send us some picture updates and also when the strelitzias flower as that’ll be great.

Dreadlocks the time is now

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It’s been exactly a fortnight since we lugged that bag of seed compost on two buses from the nearest B&Q and then sowed various seeds on the kitchen and the upstairs windowsills (post here) but we’re now seeing some action (it’s the tomatoes that are popping up first rather than the chillies). It’s been less time since we sowed the sweet peas (a week perhaps?) below.

There’s people who say they’d rather buy plants than seed as “they haven’t the time” to wait for the seed to grow. They forget after the seed has been sown and it has the right conditions it’s the seed that does all of the hard work in the background. All you have to do is make sure the compost is kept moist and all’s okay. Then all the gardener has to do is get on with their own lives (eat, sleep, drink and be merry) while the seeds get to work. There’ll be a bit of pricking out and repotting in the future but that’s hardly hard work and then the plant will just keep on growing hopefully.

Seed sowing, give it a try, you’ve got nothing it lose and it’s far cheaper. If you’ve got your own transport you won’t be lugging bags of compost on two buses either.

 

 

A seed swap with a few biscuits

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We’ve just found out about the Incredible Edible Lambeth Seed Swap of 2024 which takes place on Saturday 24th February 2024 at the Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB from 1pm-3pm. Looks good! More details here.

Our favourite part of the flyer was “Tea /coffee and a few biscuits will be on offer.” Only a few biscuits? Has that line been put in to put off the free biscuit freeloaders? It looks like a brilliant event no matter how many biscuits available!

Sowing is sweet during lunchtimes

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As we’re working from home we do have a bit of an advantage that we can do a litle bit of gardening at lunchtime during good weather. Today as it was on the warmer side we decided to sow a few more seeds. The kitchen window has become a little crowded so we utilised some spare space in the raised beds under plastic out in the back.

The second covered raised bed is starting to fill up too. The celery cut from the base is starting to grow, those volunteer giant garlic bulbs are doing well and we have some parsnips in the middle so we decided to put some pots of sweet peas either side. Hope they like the heat under the plastic as we haven’t had decent sweet peas for a few years now. The below pic is going back a few years but it is inspiring us to have some sweet peas back in the garden again.

Songs to sow seeds to

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A big thanks to Gerry Hectic for supplying us with our first ever guest mix. It’s only three tracks but it really is a lovely mix and goes out to all of the early seed sowers out there. Here’s the tracks:

Gerry Hectic presents
“A packet of three (Seed Varieties) for Weeds up to me Knees”
Fug – From Little Seeds We Grow (4hero Folk Soul – Vocal/Instrumental)
Paris Smith Quintet – Thought Seeds
Seeds Of The Earth – Planting Seeds

So get those seed catalogues out, bang this on the stereo and chill out to this great mix. Thanks a lot Gerry! We welcome all mixes in a gardening style by the way.

The sowing starts here

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We’ve made a start on the seed sowing today. We found our propagator and its lid plus another seed tray the other day and earlier this morning popped to B&Q and got some seed sowing compost for £6 and some of those great pots that allow roots to grow through.

It’s mainly chilli peppers we’ve sown but there’s also some tomatoes too. It’s probably a tad early for the tomatoes but they mention on the chilli seed packets to start them early as possible. With all of this nice weather at this time of year we may as well take advantage of it. We’ll keep you posted when they germinate. Anyone else started yet?

 

Seems a bit milder out there…

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This morning while putting two tea bags in the compost heap (any excuse to get out there) we noticed it was quite mild weatherwise and also spotted what we think are some giant garlic bulbs (volunteers we reckon) resprouting. That’s a good sign but we won’t speak too soon as you never know it may snow next week (we hope not though!)

First Seed Swap in

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News just in of the first Seed Swap of 2024. It’s not south London but it’s in Hackney Wick at Hackney Herbal at Trowbridge Gardens, 1 Trowbridge Road Hackney Wick E9 5LD. It’s on Saturday March 16th from 2.30 to 4.30pm and Free. More on their Spring Equinox Seed Swap here. If we find out about any more Seed Swaps especially situated  the south side of the river we’ll let you know. If you hear of any do let us know too.

We’ve just found out they have an irregular radio show on the great Soho Radio called “Between 2 Parsleys” which is a show that “explore herbs through the interwoven stories of plants and people.” Sounds well interesting, more on the show here.