Category Archives: Wigwam of the month

I don’t want to be the prisoner

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A few weeks ago at 7.30 am on a Sunday morning we were strolling around Brockwell Park in the parish of Herne Hill with extreme toothache (don’t ask). It was a lovely sunny morning at the height of festival season and the council workers were out in force on an overtime spree collecting litter (Sunday morning working is double time aka “Double Bubble”). A mini-moke passed us with a balloon tied to the back of the cab and Patrick McGoohan and The Village immediately came to mind.

On catching up with said vehicle when one of the operatives was taking a leak in the bushes we excitedly said to the driver “We love your truck with the large balloon attached to it. Please tell us you have watched The Prisoner.” Sadly he didn’t know what we were talking about but it did make us smile and made us forget about the toothache for a while.

Pic above: The Prisoner mini-moke with Rover on a beach which looks very much like Camber Sands. The same place where reputedly Public Image Limited ended up on a “Punk Jolly” when they should have been at Birminghams ATV studio’s for their debut appearance on Mickie Most’s Revolver show.

Spring must be here!

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Thanks to Mike G and his partner Julia for sending us some recent pictures of their garden from just outside Coventry and great pics they are! Top image features the great flowers of bleeding heart and also grape hyacinths.

Love the picture below, look at that clematis go! The clematis in our garden is nowhere as prolific. Ours has flowered poorly over the last couple of years so we used a tip heard on Gardeners Question Time a few years ago. Within earshot of the plant we said “If we don’t see any improvement in that clematis next year, we’re pulling it and sticking it on the compost heap as it’s the best thing for it”. It’s not a nice thing to do but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind and funnily enough the GQT tip may be working. If it flowers as half as good as their one below we’ll be more than happy!Their peas look great especially so early in the season and we look forward to see how they get on. We don’t have much luck with peas, we know the trick may be all about keeping them well watered but these below look well healthy.

We had to look this plant below up on the web and used Plant.id here which is telling us it’s a spring starflower (Ipheion uniflorum). Whatever it is, it’s a striking flower!
So cheers Mike and Julia for sending in the pictures of your great garden and do let us know how things are going later this season!

 

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.

It’s time to sow (or is it?)

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In-between the rain and sunshine yesterday, we got out into the garden and sowed some seed in the raised bed at the side with some transparent plastic tacked over the top so to create a cheap mini greenhouse. Those pallet box collars we were given a few years ago have had a good life, the polythene on the top don’t last sadly and needs replacing every year but they do work. In these “poor people’s greenhouses” we sowed some beetroot, the Lldl lettuces we purchased last year and some parsnips. Parnsips are funny anyway and need fresh seed but these seeds were bought last week so touchwood should be okay if the soil gets warm enough in there. Fingers crossed we will get some germination out there.

And speaking of germination we have had some success on the kitchen window with two  cherry tomatoes showing their tiny seed leaves. Great stuff, all we need is the rest of the windowsill seeds to kick off now.

Keep this frequency clear

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It was very sad to hear about Benjamin Zephaniah who passed away this morning. Thanks to Gerry Hectic for letting us know about this great tune. RIP Benjamin Zephaniah.

There’s good in their hearts

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Big shout to Real Seeds out of Pembrokeshire, Wales for having their heart in the right place. We were in the process of ordered some great chillie seeds from their website here the other day when we noticed that they did a great deal for the low income/unwaged gardeners with a subsidised seed pack for £10.50 containing all sorts of good stuff and well worth looking at if you’re finding cash hard at the moment.

As we loved growed those chillies this year we’ve picked a couple of good ones off their list. The seeds came lighening fast and came with a nice newsletter type thing that had cooking tips for the variety of chillies ordered too, that’s a nice touch. We look forward to starting off the seed in the new year!

Big thanks again to Real Seeds and we here love what they’re doing. And they picked a tune too, it’s Kimchi by Formidable Vegetable.

On a seed swapping tip

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We’ve just heard of a great seed swap from Incredible Edible in Lambeth next month at The Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road SE1 7LB on Saturday 18th February 2023 from 12-3pm. Get those spare seeds in a packet and get on down there and see what’s available to swap.

Know of any good Seed Swaps in the London area? If so do get in contact and we will post up the details as we love a seed swap here.

There’s more on the way!

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A big thanks to our good gardening mate Gerry Hectic for sending us pictures of the story so far in his garden. Loving the runner beans in the pot with a trolley from Aldi at the bottom so it can be moved around to catch the maximum of sunlight. Our other good friend Phil Harmony in Berlin used to also use that idea on his balcony for his veg growing. As The Merton Parkas used to sing “You need wheels”.

The peas and tomatoes look great too! Just water them daily and add a weekly feed, all will hopefully be grand! More pics of your progress in a few weeks please Gerry!

They’re on their way!

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Now some of the flowers have dropped off the tomato plants we’ve been giving them and other fruiting plants a weekly feed of comfrey liquid. We’re also been giving the tomatoes some support with canes and garden wire as in a few week’s time some of the fruit will get heavy.

We’ve been using the home-made feed sparingly as we haven’t been getting that many comfrey leaves to make the liquid out of. We usually try and pass the feed on as it’s brilliant stuff but up until now have just about enough for ourselves. Fingers crossed we get a splurge of comfrey leaf growth soon.

The zucchini/courgette we planted in a in a pot is starting to flower now too and the climbing beans plants we got from Shannon’s are setting fruit on one of the three runner bean cane tripods we put in. As for the other two tripods, one went for a burton through underwater and the other one has been overun with blackfly. It’s strange as there’re only a couple of feet apart from each other.

So keep on with the watering through this dry spell and get some plant feed to your vegetables to get the best out of the plants cropping wise.

And while we’re on beanpoles here something brilliant bean support-wise from a few years ago from Vic Godard from The Subway Sect’s Dad’s garden. It’s a 16 caner with a nice tying system at the top and it really looks the part!