Tag Archives: Chillies

Strange seeds and funky things

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This week we bought some seeds from the great Real Seeds. They offer a fantastic selection of unusual varieties, from chillies and herbs to edible flowers. The last time we ordered from them was a couple of years ago, back when we were still getting used to growing with peat-free compost and lost quite a few seedlings but we’re trying again. We ordered some walking onion bulblets and seeds of lemon drop hot citrus pepper, prairie fire mini-bush chilli pepper, Korean mint and marvel of Peru (AKA the four o’clock plant).

As per sowing instructions for the walking onions, we opened the packet and stuck the bulblets in a pot of compost straight away. Technically, you only buy one bulblet but they generously include extras in case of poor germination, we received four! Along with every order, they send clear growing and seed-saving instructions, and even recipes where relevant. Real Seeds really has its heart in the right place. Their passion for sustainable growing and seed saving makes them well worth supporting so have a butcher’s here.

While browsing their site, we spotted a recommendation for the excellent Grow Your Own Vegetables by Joy Larkcom. We managed to pick up a second-hand copy this week for under a fiver and it’s an absolute bargain!

Comprehensive ain’t the word, this book covers it all: tools and equipment, choosing and preparing your growing site, composting, soil structure, seed sowing and planting, clever space-saving ideas, and even a full vegetable directory packed with growing tips and advice. It’s one of those books you’ll keep going back to time and again for reference and well worth getting your hands on.

Have a great weekend and hope you can get out and do a bit in the garden!

Out with the bubble wrap, out with the bubble wrap!

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Sometimes it’s small things that make you think. We were just reading the “What to do in the garden in May” piece on Penny GoLightly’s excellent blog here. She mentioned “The month has started with a mini heatwave, but I’m not rushing to plant out most of my seedlings too soon” and we have a bit of a realisation and checked the weather forecast for SE23 and thought “Ahh, she has a point”.

Its looks likes there’s going to be a little bit of a change in temperature this weekend to say the least. From those glorious summer vibes to a humbling 13°C tomorrow. Funny enough we just found a pic (above) from May 17th 2020, look at those sophisticated forms of frost protection and thats in mid-May!

To be honest we did get a bit carried away and put a couple (and more to be honest) of tomato plants out and yes there are some chillies seedlings that have been repotted and left out overnight. We’ve even dismantled a cold frame (aka took the bricks off holding down the polythene and folded up said polythene and chucked it in the bin). Looks like all of that will have to change this evening, alongside the flip flops and shorts going back into the wardrobe.

We’ll be bringing the chillies in tonight just to be on the safe side as it may drop to 4° C and we have a massive roll of bubble wrap purchased initially for selling stuff on eBay that will come in very handy.

We feel a bit sorry for the bloke on Facebook the other week who put out all his 30 odd tomato plants saying there won’t be a frost. He may be alright, but it does seem a bit nippy in the evenings next week. Good luck and may the (frost) protection be with you and enjoy those rays of sun rays today as you may have to put the jumper back on tomorrow.

From Seed Tins to ex-Thompson Twins

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It’s February by a week, some earlier sown seedlings are growing, sowed seeds are starting to germinate and there are more seed packets to be opened.

In an earlier batch we started off in the heated propagator in the back room, we made sure we turned the heating off as soon as the seeds started to show through and then over a few days took the plastic lid off completely. The tray is lidless now by the back window and seems to be doing well. Most have germinated apart from the chillies that had “Sow by the end of 2023” on the front of the packet. We’re still giving them the benefit of the doubt though, they could be late starters or we could be a bit impatient.

And here’s a seed sowing musical accompliment from International Observer called Seedsavers Dub. It’s a nice bit of dub which if played to up and coming plants, will stimulate them (or so we reckon!)

Starting them early my friend

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It’s still only January but we’ve started some seeds already. Last year everything seemed to go wrong with the seed sowing as they germinated and then just stalled for a good few weeks and then died. We have no idea what it was, was it to do with the cheap compost we got at a supermarket? Was it those damn aphids who feasted on the basil plants on the kitchen windowsill later in the season? Was it some sort of delayed damping off?

 

Who knows but we weren’t best pleased as the batch contained some rare chilli and some choice tomato varieties. We ended up buying some chilli plants and a nice bushy tomato plant from B&Q in the end which all done well but it’s not the same.

We’ve now wiped the slate clean and put the memory of last year’s failings out of the way and started afresh with some proper seed and cutting compost in pots in a heated propagator we received as a present a few year ago (cheers Maz and Marc!)

Seeds sown this week: mint, dill, basil, chives, parsley, san marzano tomato, cerise tomato, chilli habanero, chilli Jalapino (the last 3 out of packs that say sow by 12.2023) and some seeds we dried off our chilli apache plant last year. We also sowed some catmint even though we were warned years ago that “you’ll have every cat in the neighbourhood in your back garden”.

In a few weeks every windowsill will be full with pots on saucers, jam jars and plastic freezer bags on top of plant pots as cheap alternative to greenhouses.

 

Anyone know any good tips for stopping those aphids? Someone the other week mentioned neem oil and we’ve just looked online and may try it. Anyone ever used it? Any tips to one deck pete at Gee mail dot com please.

Life is one big circle innit?

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And they’re off! It’s taken nearly three weeks for the Chillies to germinate in the propagator with the lid and the Lemon Drop (aka Lemon-flavoured Aji from Peru) are the first to show their faces. We’re now waiting for the Pretty in Purple and Albertus Rotoco to get going now. We started them early and know some chillies are hard to germinate due to some of the seed being dormant so even at this early stage we are chuffed.

And the Tomatoes which were started in an uncovered tray are slowly starting to grow. These above are the (first vertical row) San Marzano (second row) Florentino which we are sure we obtained from a Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15 seed swap from two or three years back and (third row) a Cherry Tomato called Cerise from those 6 in 1 vegetable pack from Ebay. Springtime we’re waiting for you to spring!

Dreadlocks the time is now

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It’s been exactly a fortnight since we lugged that bag of seed compost on two buses from the nearest B&Q and then sowed various seeds on the kitchen and the upstairs windowsills (post here) but we’re now seeing some action (it’s the tomatoes that are popping up first rather than the chillies). It’s been less time since we sowed the sweet peas (a week perhaps?) below.

There’s people who say they’d rather buy plants than seed as “they haven’t the time” to wait for the seed to grow. They forget after the seed has been sown and it has the right conditions it’s the seed that does all of the hard work in the background. All you have to do is make sure the compost is kept moist and all’s okay. Then all the gardener has to do is get on with their own lives (eat, sleep, drink and be merry) while the seeds get to work. There’ll be a bit of pricking out and repotting in the future but that’s hardly hard work and then the plant will just keep on growing hopefully.

Seed sowing, give it a try, you’ve got nothing it lose and it’s far cheaper. If you’ve got your own transport you won’t be lugging bags of compost on two buses either.

 

 

The sowing starts here

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We’ve made a start on the seed sowing today. We found our propagator and its lid plus another seed tray the other day and earlier this morning popped to B&Q and got some seed sowing compost for £6 and some of those great pots that allow roots to grow through.

It’s mainly chilli peppers we’ve sown but there’s also some tomatoes too. It’s probably a tad early for the tomatoes but they mention on the chilli seed packets to start them early as possible. With all of this nice weather at this time of year we may as well take advantage of it. We’ll keep you posted when they germinate. Anyone else started yet?

 

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.

November spawned a chillie

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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!

It is October and what is that tune?

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Well things should be coming towards an end in a couple of week’s time and all that outside gardening fun may be slowing down but we still can grow stuff on our windowsill. The chillies we got in a plant swap are still going well. If it gets the heat and the protection from frosts it may survive and give us more hot chillies. Even the butternut squash outside is still cracking on.

 

Also the other day we relistened to the B side of a compilation we bought a couple of weeks ago and found (at 17 mins in on the above) a 1970’s Bunny Lee/King Tubby’s sounding cut of the wonderful Shirley & Lee’s – Lee Goofed. There’s versions out there by John Holt & Hortense Ellis (So long Baby) and The Love Children/The Marvels (Lee Goofed) on youtube but nothing sounding as heavy as the one on the Little Axe Compilation (A label which releases some wonderful tunes by the way and worth checking out). Any ideas on what the version on the compilation is? Any ideas appreciated.

The cut reminded us of those 1970’s old singles on the Grounation label like these two corkers below. Now there was a good label.