We didn’t sow that

Posted on July 6, 2023 by onedeckpete

One plant we always have in the garden mainly through self seeding (thus being a volunteer plant) is the good herb borage. It’s great for the bees and its leaves can be thrown into the comfrey liquid bucket adding some extra goodness into the mix. More on its uses here.

Also if you remember we were a bit fed up of accidently leaving in potatoes when harvesting them and they regrow the year after leaving spuds where you don’t want spuds. One idea we were told about to get around this problem is growing them in a large pot, various containers and even plastic bags so all you have to do is tip the spuds and soil out in one easy action. Here’s one doing well (above) in a green shopping bag with lots of drainage holes in the bottom. Where there’s a will there’s a way as they say.

Ain’t it sprung yet?

Posted on February 22, 2023 by onedeckpete

Sunday was lovely for a spot of gardening after a rather wet and windy Saturday. The lawn was cut, the beds got a bit of a tidy up and we even got caried away sowing some borage under the tree. It’ll probably won’t be the best spot for them and God knows if they’ll even germinate as it may have been sunny Sunday but who knows what the future weather has got in store for us.

And we even had a peek under the plastic covered raised bed and the elephant garlic is coming on a bit and the foxgloves that were once plugs have even survived after a bit of a change from the warmth of the kitchen windowsill to outside in the freezing cold.

Come Monday morning it was back to the cold weather again and we went down to the compost heap to stick a couple of tea bags in and to give it a turn. What was well suprising was how much heat was generated in the heap even overnight with the grass clippings, there was even a bit of steam coming off the heap after forking it over. Covering the heap with cardboard certainly keeps the heat in. Let’s hope we can get out there again this Sunday.

And here’s a wonderful tune for a Wednesday night from Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin called Loango Weaver. It’s from last years set “A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa by Various Artists” well worth checking out here.

Not at all a bit previous

Posted on November 6, 2022 by onedeckpete

We’re starting to think of next year’s gardening even if at the moment we wouldn’t want to actually go out in our garden as it chucking it down but it’s never too early to start thinking of next season.

We bought a lot of herb seeds last week to restock up on the pots just outside the kitchen (plus some poppies to chuck in the wild area) and hopefully get a few herb pots going on the windowsill. We’ve just noticed on one of the seed packets that the original common name for Borage was “burrage” or “llanwenlys” a Welsh word for “Herb of Gladness.” We’ve also just found out that the herb is used in the German green sauce known as Grüne Soße or Grüne Sosse. Good stuff!

Remember even if you’ve got a few seed packets in your seed box that may be out of date don’t worry they are worth trying (except Parsley that really needs fresh seed to start germinating). It’s all in the preparation!

Is there anybody out there?

Posted on November 29, 2020 by onedeckpete

The bed at the bottom of the garden is always a bit of a problem as it only gets sunlight in the late afternoon. At the present moment the nasturtiums have taken over and so has the borage behind them. We haven’t had a hard frost yet so it’s looking a little wild to say the least!

If you can remember we were going to “rest” the bed and fill it with the Thompson and Morgan Beneficial Flower seeds mix then COVID 19 came along. We were so fed up that one of the local shops had a 3 potato per person rule we put in a couple of rows of spuds plus some onions and broad beans there (see the bed in July here). After they were harvested in mid-August we gave the bed a good tidy up (here) and boy has it grown since!

The state of play at the moment is a Globe Artichoke root (1) we did a swap with a mate at a local community garden (for some Egyptian walking onion bulbs) is now starting to grow and the brilliant cardoons (2 and 3) we bought at Shannon’s a few years ago have starting sprouting again. Talk about value for money! And in the middle of the crazy nasturtiums are a couple of rows of autumn sown broad beans (4). When will the growing ever end?

Side of the garden that the tourists never see

Posted on August 16, 2020 by onedeckpete

Due to the drizzle not much was done in the garden over the last couple of days apart from the old council trick of going over the soil (down the vegetable bed at the bottom of the garden) very very lightly with a garden fork before a storm or a shower so when the rain comes it gives the impressive a lot of deep forking and hard work had be going on! Well it makes it looks the bed appear a bit neater anyway.

And another light layer of comfrey leaves were ripped up and left on top of the freshly forked-over compost heap. We couldn’t find any decent borage or nettle leaves that would have added to the heap which was a shame but you should have seen the steam (or was it dust?) that came off the heap when we turned it! #compostinginlockdown.

This post was written while listening to this week’s This is a music show 77 which featured some great tunes as ever especially Rupert and The Rolling Coins from The Bahamas with Grooving which we can’t find on youtube which is a crying shame!

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-077

A garden update and a tune

Posted on June 24, 2020 by onedeckpete

Thanks to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for the sending us a photo update of his back garden. That’s what’s brilliant around this time of year, the garden seems to grow overnight and at a fair rate too. We all should really appreciate this time as autumn will be here before we know it. Above are the “Tiger Lilies gone wild” and below is entitled “When the Compost Takes on a Life of it’s Own” and we all know about that when we get those potato peelings and old onions sprouting! Is that a cucumber/courgette growing and are there a few mushrooms in there too?

And below a nice patch of borage that the bees love and the leaves are a good addition to comfrey if you’re making a liquid feed.

He also sent us a nice tune to accompany the pics from Anna Nacher & Marek Styczyński off the LP entitled Throbbing Plants (the title sounding very Genesis Breyer P-Orridge meets Percy Thrower.)

Thank you for the pics Justin. Please send your garden pics, no matter how small your garden is, even if it’s just a couple of pots on a windowsill, send them in! The address is onedeckpete (at) gmail.com we’d love to see your garden!

B is for borage, L is for lockdown

Posted on April 25, 2020 by onedeckpete

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

How did that get there?

Posted on July 31, 2016 by onedeckpete

Borage Earlier this year I bought a couple of packets of Borage off ebay and just flicked a light amount of seed here and there in a random fashion and forgotten where I sown it until now.

They’ve been appearing all over the garden from cracks in the pavement to the middle of OCD military-style sown veg beds. Thank god for anarchic type sowing!

I’ve just found this on wikipedia as well “Borage is said to protect or nurse legumes, spinach, brassicas, and even strawberries. It is also said to be a good companion plant to tomatoes because it confuses the mother moths of tomato hornworms or manduca looking for a place to lay their eggs. Claims that it improves tomato growth and makes them taste better remain unsubstantiated.”

The bees love it and I always stick a few Borage leaves in to add to the mix when concocting the evil smelling Comfrey plant feed. Big up the Borage!

On a gardening home-brew tip!

Posted on May 10, 2015 by onedeckpete

Today I popped out and did a few hours in the garden in glorious sunshine can you believe! One of the jobs I did was to make some plant food with some Comfrey leaves (Bocking 14 Comfrey is the best as it doesn’t set seed) which I steeped in water in an old fermenting bucket from my days of wine-making (which weren’t that successful.)

Comfrey is a great plant to have in the garden, it spreads like wildfire, the bees go bonkers over it and if you rip off loads of leaves and stuck them in a bucket of water for a few weeks it makes a great plant feed. Stick in some nettle and borage leaves into the mix too and it’s even better.

For God’s sake don’t breathe in the stuff as it’s lethal! I repeat do not smell the liquid. Keep the lid on for a few weeks and when it’s done (It’ll turn into a sludgy black liquid) water it down and apply it to your plants. More on how to make it here.

Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

Posted on July 12, 2014 by onedeckpete

The 2 Bears – Angel (Touch Me) – Southern Fried Records

Bonkers video from The 2 Bears (Joe Goddard/Raf Rundell) for their new single heard on the Rob Da Bank show last week. Don’t do this at home kids as this is not behaviour that’ll get you a pass first time. Great tune though!

Also this week I heard someone on the radio refer to the plant borage as “bor-raj” like how you’d say garage in Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage. That isn’t right is it? Or was the presenter giving it a Hyacinth Bouquet? Everybody know it’s “bor-ridge” as in porridge. Answers on a postcard please to the weeds up to me knees elocution department.

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life

Tag Archives: borage