Category Archives: Wildlife

B is for borage, L is for lockdown

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It started cold and bleak today so we stayed indoors wielding a paintbrush this morning. The weather did improve and come about 1pm it was beautiful as this bee on the borage can testify.

We have borage popping up everywhere this year, we bought some seeds a few years back and it now self seeds all over the garden. It’s a plant well worth growing for the bees to enjoy and for the flowers you can put in Pims and also salads (and it has herbal medicine uses too here) but we love it for the leaves that can be chucked in into the compost heap or comfrey liquid for a bit of extra goodness.

Everything in the vegetable beds are cracking on at a good rate. We are packing a lot into the home-made raised beds but why not? The ones above contain potatoes, tomatoes, peas, carrots, peppers and whatever else can be crammed in. We only have limited space so we’re taking a chance on what’ll grow.

Also don’t be fooled with this present run of sunny weather, next week it goes down a few degrees and it always good to be aware that you may get a late frost which can wipe out a lot of stuff so regularly check the weather forecast just in case.

We’ve still got protection over the top of the tender plants at night (we close them up about 6pm so any further heat that the sun produces can be trapped in until the morning) and it ain’t anything fancy. We’ve got large jam jars, plastic cloches, an old window frame and recycled polythene tacked onto the cold frames. With this gardening malarkey you can’t take anything for granted, especially UK weather!

We hope the growing is going well in your garden. Anyone fancy sending us pictures of what they’re growing so we can post them up on the blog which’ll give us all more encouragement during this lockdown. Do get in contact if so.

#gardeningduringlockdown #lockdowngardening #sleepinginlatertocombatlockdown #sniffindisinfectant

Forget what we said about seed tapes

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There is a downside to seed tapes we found out after buying a bargain assorted vegetable tape off ebay. Turns out the names of what seeds they are, are only at the beginning of the tape (not all the way through) and now we’ve sowed a few we have no idea what’s what except brussel sprouts. Who told us seed tapes were a good idea?

And after a couple of hours hard graft today the front wall (nearest the road) can now be seen, trouble is the mass of ivy on the top right of the picture is covering a piece of wall that isn’t there. We’ll get back to you tomorrow with our solution to the problem.

And the first delivery of guinea pig straw (with added roadent waste) was left on the garden fence in a plain carrier bag with no note but we had a vague idea what it was when we spied it. The contents have now been dumped into the heap and we will keep you updated on its progress. We’re an interesting lot aren’t we? Blame the lockdown.

Best job done in a long while

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We’d been putting it off for a couple of days and it’s finally done, the bed by the pond is cleared of that purple horrible flowered thing that was taking over (though we left a bit behind the hebe). To say we’re chuffed is an understatement! It took us a good few hours and it was hard work but we were entertained with birdsong and the sound of a constantly croaking frog from the pond!

And here’s the latest instalment of Free Radio Skybird that’s to be broadcast on Easter Monday at 1100 UTC (12 Noon UK) on 6070 kHz via Channel 292. It’s features a host of great stuff including Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory at 24.08 and One Deck Pete’s “Tunes to cheer you up” at 36.55 with Funk Reverse with “In & Out” (DJ Moy’s dub version). Listen to the show here or tune in Monday with a shortwave radio or using an online SDR here.

https://soundcloud.com/djfrederick/free-radio-skybird-6070-khz-april-13-and-19

Our job on the side

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We spent about an hour today clearing around the side bed at the end of the decking towards the pond, right up to the part where we cleared yesterday. There’s a blueberry (the left of the above pic) that has been swamped by that horrible purple plant for a long while now and as we’ve thinned the stuff around it we should see some progress even though they should be in acidic soil not our London clay soil. There’s still a bit to do under the variegated hebe and there’s loads of the creeping plant behind it but we reckon we’re doing okay. The weather’s supposed to be nice tomorrow so we’ll be cracking on.

And there’s life from the celery, god know’s what’s going to happen to it but it’s growing! There’s a link here that shows you how you can do it even though we didn’t suspend over water, we just stuck it in the raided bed! #ifitgrowsitgrows #gardeningduringlockdown

Constructing in a Blue Peter style

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Nothing was really done in the garden this morning apart from putting some vegetable peelings in the compost heap (that’s still gardening isn’t it?) but come the late afternoon the sun came out for a short while. In that time some plastic sheeting was tacked onto the other two palettes, making them now a home for spuds and some rows of carrot seeds. This simple construction like the other couple we made this week will give the plants protection from the forthcoming cold days & nights we’re supposed to be having so the weather report on Countryfile tonight reckoned.

A left over stick of celery was stuck under the terrarium to see if it would grow and a wormery was hastily put together using an old butchers bucket that used to be a home for worms a few years ago. A bin bag and a concrete slab was put over it for good measure. On the last two subjects, will anything happen you reckon?

We’ve all been told to garden from home

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There’s been a lot of keenness in the garden today what with the sun coming out and we’ve spent a good few hours since 10 am tipping around, sowing, tidying and mowed the grass. Some suntan lotion was even applied!

You know for a fact it’ll probably snow all next week but that’s a risk we’ve got to take, it’ll only be the cost of a packet of seeds and a few seed potatoes. You never know what’ll happen and it’s worth giving it a go.

We even used the last of the comfrey feed we had left over from last year so started a new batch. Comfrey leaves are now springing up and we used them combined with some fresh nettles and some borage leaves for added goodness. It’ll be stinking up the place in a few weeks time but the jazzy Boots home brew bucket is way down the garden and the liquid is worth its weight in gold when it’s ready!

It’s good to get out there (while you can!)

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We don’t know what the weather has in store for us today but last Sunday it was glorious and a few gardening jobs were done! The garden pond pump was cleaned and the wires put back together again with some dry solder joints and a good bit of electrical tape after some roadent had gnawed through them last year. The pond pump now works!

The back bed was dug over again and raked to a nice tilth as we’ll be sticking some wild flower seeds down there after the frosts and give the bed some rest from the vegetable growing for a change. Even the lawn got its first cut in true council style, one cut on very high, then one a little lower.

And some palettes we were given years ago were put into use as some raised beds. All we need now is a big bag of compost to stick in them to get them to a nice height!

When the sun’s out the old enthusiasm seems to lift. Roll on the good weather!

Smells like teen spirit? No.

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We here at Weeds swear by comfrey liquid used as a plant feed. Ours is made well out of the way at the bottom of the garden in a 1980’s Boots homebrew fermenting bin. A good few handfuls of the leaves of the plant are chucked in the bin alongside a few of borage and nettle and are left to rot in a small amount of water for a good few weeks weighed down with a housebrick, talk about simplicity!

It’s a brilliant feed used well diluted but what of the pong you may ask? Comments heard the last few times we’ve used it have ranged from “that smell is blxxdy awful!” to “that’s worse than the wiff of a thousand dirty ashtrays” to “urgghhh, that reminds me of body odour off a sweaty armpit stuck in your face on a tube at rush hour times ten”. Never mind the niff, it’s brilliant stuff, it’s cheap and works wonders! #comfreyliquidforever #comfreyplantfeediswhereitsat More comfrey info here.

Don’t step on the cracks

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A trip down the garden path tonight produced this trio of pics. Above: The fiver’s worth of water lily we bought from the Lewisham pet shop (whose website’s by-line is “For all your reptile needs”) a few years ago has gone mad this summer. We counted nearly 7 flowers on it the other day. The fish are using it as shade during the sunny periods and the tadpoles as mini swimming pools. The pond need a bit of thinning out this weekend as it would be nice to give the inhabitants more room. We now get our fish food via ebay, and you get double or treble of the volume of food for the price compared to what you get in those supermarket tubs.

The pink flowers shown above don’t look like much and as a plant it’s a bit on the scrappy side but disregard that and grow night scented stock for it’s evening smell!

And somewhere in the middle of the tomatoes and broad beans growing against the garage wall and the dahlias is the Thompson & Morgan trial spaghetti squash. We reckon it’ll outgrow the space in no time!

And finally a dubbed out one for the warm night we’ll be getting tonight (where it’ll be hard to sleep even with the windows are open!), it’s from Masis called Unearthed Dub  and it’s the Frenk Dublin mix. Tune!

Saturday stag night fun

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A few weeks ago a couple of the Weeds team went on a bat walk around Camberwell New Cemetery which was great fun. It’s not every Friday night you can wander around in the dark in your local cemetery carrying bat detectors.

On the night we were told if we wanted to encourage more wildlife including stag beetles into our garden we’d have to keep some wood piles and have the odd rotting stump lying about. Well we heeded the expert advice and have been visited a few times by the friendly stag beetle (here’s one from tonight). When these things take off it reminds us of a heavily fortified military vehicle. Bonkers!