Cheers To Rich R for the picture (above) from the Lake District one sunny day this week. Looks wonderful up there Rich!
Thanks to Mike & Julia from up near Coventry for an update on how their hydroponic basil is getting on. It looks great to us and possible an alternative way of growing it. Interesting stuff.
Tired of slugs and snails decimating tender stuff in the garden we thought of a daft idea, we wired a pot of Basil atop the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago and going to see how it work. We even stuck an old jam jar over it to give it a bit more warmth in the night. We’re not sure if it will deter slugs or snails and also even if it’s a good idea or not but you have to try sometimes. That’s the hat stand that already has a couple of seed potatoes in some old shopping bags on it. We may even run some climbing beans up it too. A bit unconventional but why not? It’ll make good use of space.
Also the Lemon Verbena in a pot that we thought was a goner is starting to sprout. It was a good thing we didn’t give up on it and threw it in the bin like we were going to. It’s an interesting plant and we got the idea off another Dub Gardener Haji Mike in Cypus a few years ago here after he mentioned it on a Facebook post. It makes a wonderful refreshing tea and there’s lots of recipes online on how you can use it too. Here’s a great tune from Mike from a few years ago.
The time has flew by this year, it’s nearly June and things are starting to crack on in the garden. Can we have more sunshine please?
We were raring to go Saturday morning, the weather was going to be nice and there was so much to do out in the garden but we were forgetting one thing, it was only a couple of weeks ago we were suffering with sciatica so we had to take it easy.
We had six bags of compost delivered by Shannon’s thinking that’ll be more than enough. It was gone before we knew it and we could have done with six more to be honest. Even lifting one bag of compost was tiring so we really had to take it easy on the Saturday so we tidied up the bed by the dad corner, taking out the odd cabbage and old beetroot and filling up the raised beds to a nice depth of compost (pic above – before we started).
For one of the raised beds last year we used garden soil (we ran out of multipurpose compost) which wasn’t as good as the compost filled ones that you could put your hand in to see if there was any spuds forming on the potato plants there. You can’t do that with our London clay soil. so we dug that out and put compost in.
Today we got up early and started off a few seeds in an old propagator which was collecting leaf mould and soil at the bottom of the garden but after a wash was ready to go and now on the kitchen windowsill. We sowed a couple of different types of chillies, thyme, basil, chamomile, dyers chamomile and Medwyn’s free gift earlier this year, some “Trial seed longest Leeks” (pic below). We’ll keep you posted.
We also stuck some polythene on top of the raised beds (pic above) as we did last year and will give the soil a couple of weeks to warm up before trying a couple of seed potatoes in very early. The season has started for us now. Has anyone else made a start on the garden this weekend? If so let us know and send us some pics.
And for no reason at all, a couple of King Tubby’s dubplate mixes that we’d put up before and no doubt put up again.
We’ve just found out that it’s supposedly going to be sunny and 16° this Saturday, how mad is that? And it was only a couple of weeks ago we had snow!
There’s also signs of life in the herb pots we started off (above: Basil) using the indoor house plant compost as we don’t want to invite those fungus gnats back into the house. We were told that the supermarket bought herb plants also have been known to house the critters. Fingers crossed we don’t get the small clouds of them this year as we’ve had in the past.
We popped into Shannon’s this week and got a few bags of compost for the raised beds in the back, more indoor houseplant compost for starting off some seeds (as we don’t want to take any chances!) and some seed potatoes which are presently chitting by the window in the back room. There’s the argument that chitting don’t do that much as they’ll grow anyway but we’ve done it for a few years now and they always seem to help the plants get a good start. We may also use the “cut ’em in half” technique to get twice as many potato plants to plant. More on the process of chitting here. Here’s to the start of the gardening season.
And here’s a nice and melllow tune from Sum Total called Bakery for a Thursday evening in lockdown.
Above is the weather forecast predicting heavy snow for the SE23 area in the morning. And we were thinking of forking up those frost-bitten dahlias and bringing them indoors to be stored until the spring. Doubt if they’ll be much chance of us being out the back tomorrow.
There’s a couple of pots of coriander and basil seeds in some houseplant compost sitting on the kitchen windowsill with a freezer bag put over each to give them a mini-greenhouse effect in an economic style. Will they germinate is the question but it’s worth trying.
And here’s a just discovered nice tune in a downtempo style to make you forget of the crap weather to come by John Hobbs called Last Night in Barcelona on M-Sol a hypnotic tune you want to keep rewinding. Stay safe and stay warm!
We go up another tier level this week, how are we going to cope with another lockdown? You can’t really go out in the garden as it’s a bit wet even though there’s been some warmer weather promised later this week. One job we will do is to get some gnat-free herb plants going on the kitchen windowsill after a summer of constant clouds of fungus gnats on our old pots. We’ve watered from the bottom and put up sticky traps and now going to admit defeat and starting again from scratch. More about the gnats and how to protect against them here.
We took some advice from the folks at Shannon’s and bought some indoor houseplant potting mix which should be free of any gnat’s eggs, put the old plants outside and give the actual pots a good clean with some disinfectant and then rinsed them through a few times for luck. It’s a bit early to be sowing anything really serious but we may start off a bit of basil (above: a few packs of seeds bought off ebay the other week) off in a pot with a see-through plastic bag on the top as a temporary greenhouse. As soon as the seeds show signs of propagation we’ll take the plastic off as to stop any damping off occurring.
Next summer we may be experiencing “a new normal” in the kitchen (ie. without clouds of gnats flying about or those sticky traps that don’t look too nice with lots of dead flies on them!)
Thanks to our gardening mate Gerry Hectic for getting in touch and for letting us know about ALDI’s present gardening bargains, mini-roses at £1.79 each. The above is where Gerry put his two recent purchases into. It’s a herb infused incinerator with some coriander, parsley and is that basil or mint in there too? Inspired thinking we reckon!
It’s a great idea for a tall raised bed. We’ve an old incinerator that’s missing a bottom that could be put into action now. You could have a mixture of all sorts in a container like that, a potato plant in the middle, some tumbling tomatoes at the sides, herbs, some nasturtiums, the list is endless. A great idea Gerry!
And to accompany Gerry’s great idea here is a mad cover of Nina Simone‘s African Mailman by The Rhythmagic Orchestra which will be featured on the next special Free Radio Skybird mailbag later this month. What a tune!
We bought some seeds on ebay over the week, some coriander and basil to top up the pots on the kitchen windowsill so we have a little supply over the winter. Also we’re partial to a cup of chamomile tea so purchased some chamomile seeds too for sowing outdoors next year. It’s never to early to start planning!
And here’s a gardening update from our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore with some pics of his veg patch in Cincinnati. From top to bottom, we have some lovely looking basil next to a great looking tomato plant. Wish our basil was looking as great as this one! And then below the tomato which looks like it’s enjoying growing there, loving those fruits!
And something we’ve never tried before, some healthy looking jalapeno‘s, the garden’s looking great Justin! #veglookinggoodincincinnati
Big shout to our good friend Phil Harmony out of Berlin who’s made a start on his great balcony plot which we’ve featured a few times here on Weeds (one of a few posts here).
He’s got some chilli’s on the go from a nice little kit (above), a basil plant from last year, tomatoes, salad and trying some radish and sunflowers. Phil mentioned growing scarlett runner beans (aka feuerbohne or fire beans) on his balcony plot too. Good stuff!
And for this post Phil nominates this mix from Peter Kruder from a couple of years back.
Brilliant stuff Phil. Keep those progress reports and tunes coming!
The last few days haven’t been that warm but they’ve been nice enough to go out and catch up on a few jobs in the garden. I know we mentioned we weren’t going to put in those pre-chitted spuds on Good Friday as per tradition but we cracked yesterday (Easter Sunday) and stuck in a couple of rows of maris pipers just down from the onion sets and broad beans just peeping through (pic above). Some comfrey leaves were put in the hole beforehand and some bamboo canes and rose prunings flung on the top to keep the cats off. More on how you sow seed potatoes from an older post here.
Typically a couple of hours after the spuds went in we heard that later this week it may get cold at night (below) so it might be out with the fleece or those old net curtains.
Talking of protection there’s a couple of tomato plants under the tipped up terrarium (pic above) we found in the street a few years ago but if it does look like it’s going to be really cold we’ll be bringing them back indoors.
A couple of rows of spinach and basil seed even went in (yes we’re well optimistic about the weather) under a homemade cold frame type affair made out of an old window and some old wood. It was really a ploy to get rid of a “bargain” obtained at B&Q the other day; a massive sack (125L) of multi-purpose compost for £6.50. As soon as we opened the bag we knew why it was so cheap, it honked to high heaven and it’s not something you want to be putting in pots indoors for certain. As the old saying goes “there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or a compost bargain).”
Weeds up to me knees 