Outside suprises

More cold weather is on its way but the parsley and the carrots we sowed late in the day outside are perservering. There’s also some oregano still out there hanging in despite the cold weather. What’s odd is that the pot of it inside on the kitchen windowsill isn’t doing as well. We really thought that those plants dislike the cold weather or prehaps they can tolerate them once they are on their way (until it gets to -4 as it’s supposed to tonight). Any thoughts?

Also we’ve just read about carrot tops (the green feathery leaves that grow above) are making a comeback as an edible addition to the plant. We’ve read in one of those Adam the Gardener books that you can lighty steam them and they taste like spinach supposedly. We’ve never tried them but it sounds good.

Dreams less sweet

On Saturday afternoon after our Mystic Meg-like prophetic dream, the “vibes” (or more than likely the guilt) forced us out in the garden to do some tidying up. We only did a couple of hours but it was a pleasure to spend some time out the back.

We tidied up the patio and moved the carrots in the big pot we found in the street from the bottom of the garden up nearer the house. It’s all tops and does need thining out but there are baby carrots there and the decorative foilage ain’t bad. If anyone asks we’ll them they’re some sort of exotic microferns.

And we finally cleaned the leaves off the pond netting and gave it a good once over around it and it does make a difference to the look of it. With this weather God only knows when we’ll be able to get out there again though next Saturday is looking dry.

And finally we retrieved some beetroots, not many but enough to boil and to fill a small bowl and stick in the fridge to eat this week. Cheese and beetroot in a white bread sarnie, a treat you can’t beat!

And here’s a few random tunes for a Sunday evening.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnQ-w2xCEzU

November spawned a chillie

It’s not that far off mid-November and the garden should be getting ready for a kip until spring but you wouldn’t think so. We picked three cherry tomatoes yesterday and the couple of chillies we got off the plant below that is sadly nearing its end.

If you fancy growing some hot chillies get some 7 Pot Yellow (AKA Seven Pot Brain Strain Yellow) and see what you think. They are originally from Trinidad and Tobago and are 1,000,000+ SHU (Scoville Heat Units) as in super hot! We’ve always picked them when they’ve been green so they’ve never got to the yellow stage. We’ve just looked and there’s a red variety which is even hotter at 1,000,000 – 1,200,000 SHU. We’ve never done chillies seriously before, thinking they’d never work but we were wrong and going to grow more!

We’ve also got a big pot of carrots growing after chucking some old seeds found at the bottom of the seed tin into a pot we originally found in the street filled with Lldl’s finest potting compost. They need some thinning out but we wonder if we’ll actually get some carrots later this year? The foilage looks quite decorative!

Found at the back of a drawer, the back of a drawer

We were berating the lack of contents in our seed tin earlier this weekend and today as it was drizzling we’ve tidied out a drawer or two (very rock n roll! ) and found this pack of carrot seeds wedged at the back of one of them.

On the reverse of the packet it says “Best before 9/2019”. That’s well okay as seeds can last ages (you’ve just more chance of failure as the months/years go by especially something like parsnips but it’s well worth giving old seeds a go!) so we’ll be sticking them in the ground come the spring. Here’s an interesting thing here about out of date seeds and how long they’ll keep for.

Got any good out of date seed stories? Contact us here at onedeckpete (at) gmail.com We’ll even accept cleaning out drawers and shed stories as well!  #everyonelovesacleanoutduringlockdown

Getting your fork on

We’ve been furloughed again for two weeks so it’s back out in the garden for some sanity! It’s never ending this gardening lark and if you want something to do you’ll soon find that “something”.

Whilst working as a council gardener years ago I was told that one of my fellow co-workers was watched by the boss (and “Dave the driver”) from a hidden council truck and was seen staring into space for nearly an hour, smoking a roll up with one foot on the garden fork. I mean an hour just staring into space is some feat (never mind with one foot balanced on a gardening fork!), he should’ve got a medal!

It’s a shame said worker didn’t say to the boss he was “practising mindfulness” as when he was finally caught his excuse to the gaffer was “I’ve ran out of things to do”. Never EVER say you’ve nothing to do at work especially in the councils of yesteryear. The next day he was handed a four sheets of typed A4 of jobs that had to be done by the weekend and was told there was more of the same to do when he’d finished. They got rid of the bloke in the end, I wonder why?

This morning’s jobs from the A4 sheets was to clear out the side bed but keeping the gardening anarchy of courgettes, carrots, dahlias and whathaveyou. And what’s wrong with some gardening anarchy?

We’re now running for the shade!

Blimmin’ eck the sun’s out!

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-074

This blog post has been written whilst listening to this week’s This is a music show. We love the intro, over Max Greger and his orchestra’s Never Can Say Goodbye we hear Your Host with “Lot’s of different countries (played this week) including Germany, Brazil, The Cayman islands, Haiti, France…” Great stuff!

And we also love this tune by The (Fabulous) Wailers from Seattle (not Kingston, JA.) that was played at the beginning. That’s what’s great about the show, there’s always something great that you’d never heard before. Big shout to Your Host!

On a gardening note, we nipped out to the raised beds this morning to thin out the carrots (below) as it’s a bit of a jungle out there. We’re proud as punch as these were put in at the start of lockdown. We also found out the hard way that it was tons easier pulling out the carrots in the beds with the bought multi-purpose compost in them rather than the ones with London clay. We will rectify that come the spring!

We reckon that the carrots we pulled this morning were the early nantes free with Kitchen Garden magazine pre-lockdown in January. We’ll be getting some of them next year for sure. Anyone else having a bit of success with their veg? Do send us your pics! onedeck (@) gmail (.) com.

And on that note we have to say goodbye even if we can’t, we have gardening to do and the odd sunny interval to enjoy! #classiclockdowneweather #gardeninginlockdown

About the weather (in June)

Weatherwise it hasn’t been the best week this week but tonight looks like it may be taking a turn for the better as we had a little bit of warmth and even a hint of the sun an hour ago. It was nice to be out there.

The raised beds (below) have been doing great, there’s all sorts of stuff in them, spuds, carrots, beetroot, cabbages, tomatoes and even peppers. Talk about square metre gardening and sticking in as much as possible! They’ve come on a long way since that first week of lockdown when the local shop had the 3 spuds per person rule that made us think that we must obtain some seed spuds and any packs of seeds we could get our hands on.Now we’re off the furlough we’re only spending the lunchhour and after work gardening and much of the big work was done when we were off. Once you get a good headstart on yourself, gardening gets a lot easier but it’s getting that start. We managed to keep the bed on the right hand side (below) a lot tidier than usual and even stuck in some tomatoes, cabbages and spuds amongst the flowers. The comfrey we use daily, pulling off massive handfuls to stick in the compost heap and for putting in holes before we transplant something. That keeps the comfrey under control as it can swamp everything if it gets its way!

Something we forgot to do on most of the tomatoes was to pinch out the sideshoots of the variety we have, so the plant can put all it’s goodness into the trusses on the main stem. We’ve been through all of the plants now and there was only one that had two stems but that doesn’t matter, we’ll keep it as “an tomato experiment”. More on sideshooting tomatoes here.

And talk about best laid plans and all that, this bed below was supposedly going to be rested this year and was going to be full of the Thompson and Morgan wildflower seed mix. Well we sowed them at the back with the borage and we’ll see what happens. Can we now have the sun back please? It is June.

And here’s a wonderful piece of music to welcome the sun back when it does finally return from the great Blundetto called Paseo. Tune!

Gardening on a DIY tip, yet again

We had a brainwave this morning, “What if we tacked some left over plastic from a delivery over the top of those palettes we were given a few years ago that were sitting in the corner crying out to be filled with compost and made into raised beds?” we said to ourselves. We’ve now got some carrots, cabbage and parsnips in a micro-DIY-greenhouse thing. Who said you need much money to do that gardening lark?

And now the sun’s out, here’s a wonderful tune from Rahat called Djembe on Via del Sol records to cheer us all up and it’s a grower!

Have a look in the box!

People tell you it’s all in the preparation and they’re right. Before you start planning and buying new seeds, see what you actually have in the seed tin already.

We took a look last night and suprisingly found stuff we didn’t think we had. There were some seeds left of the sunflowers (below) we were given as part of the seed trials from Thompson and Morgan. We’re not 100% sure on the variety but it may be the ‘Sunshot Golds Mixed’ (If anyone knows do give us a shout). We also found some Skyscraper Sunflower, Green Sprouting Calabrese, Tomatoes and Carrots. As the saying goes “it pays to have a butchers first”!