Tag Archives: courgette

Around the garden and SE23 this week

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Here’s some mad pictures from a week around the garden and one from the locality of Forest Hill. The first (below) made us think of Wlad (US7IGN) and his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) in Ukraine who is growing a banana plant in his apartment (post here). We are sure that this is a banana tree growing outside in a front garden in SE23. God knows how it survives the winter here, we could be wrong but it looks very much like a banana with fruit on it as well. We love the flower as it looks like someone’s carved it out of wood or it could even open up and start talking.

And the other day we were complaining that we weren’t getting much action from the courgettes (zucchini) in the raised beds until we moved a leaf and found this giant in hiding.

And in the tiny bed at the bottom of the garden there is some sort of melon (we think) and some peppers and chillies. Now it looks like there’s a self seeded cape gooseberry in there too and it’s only a tiny bed as well. A good example of square metre gardening gone wild!

Report from the garden

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It ain’t The Good Life but we’re starting to get some more edibles out of the garden. The shallots are small but we’re getting a lot of them, that’s the first Zuchinni/Courgette (above) and the chillies are really doing well and there are a good few on the plants. As a good gardening friend of ours said a long time ago “Keep picking the fruit and cutting the flowers and more will come”.

As for our anarchic seed sowing style we have a Cardoon up near the house from when we broke open a seed head and just chucked the seeds around the garden. There are better looking Cardoons up the road but we ain’t complaining especially as they’re from free seed.

And as for the Barley Straw in the pond it does now look like it’s working and been working for a while. The fish seem happy and you can actually see them now!

 

 

Empire state chilli

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The sun’s been away for a couple of days and it’s been feeling cold of late. Things are cracking on in the garden though, like the chilli plant (above) that is at the top of the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago here. Touchwood no slugs have scaled it just yet.

The zucchini/courgette plant (above) which is in the raised bed is now beginning to flower after we made some room for it after we pulled out the potato plant (with some spuds!) that was there before.

And indoors on the kitchen windowsill we have another chilli (one that we were given) and that’s fruiting too. We always used to think growing chillies were hard. So far it’s the chillies that are doing well next to the spuds. Regular watering and comfrey feed is our secret to success alongside not much else.

Life on the wild side

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It’s going to be hot this forthcoming week, we’re looking at nearly 30°C in SE23 and we think the garden is going to enjoy it. So get the watering, weekly feed and any fiddling with a hoe out of the way early and then park yourself in the shade and enjoy the weather.

The courgette/zucchinni plant we stuck in a pot as we couldn’t find any space (above) is doing well, giving us some nice flowers. The area around it with the raised beds of potatoes (below) are also on their way but impatient as we are, we keep looking around the plants and still only getting golf ball sized spuds.

The one raised bed of tomatoes are now setting fruit and we’re checking that there’s no side shoots forming and tying the main stalk to the support canes when we remember.

And on the wildlife tip, we’ve put another “pothole pond” down the wild bit (below) after being influenced by Bill Shimmers’ great pond here. We stuck some wood leading into the water after Bill mentioned in his reply of our effort on Twitter. “Any water body adds extra wildlife habitat to a garden. One thing I always include, any steep sided ponds need a sloping shelf or ramp to allow critters to get out as well as in. Stones or branches will do.” Our one is not exactly steep but we’re including the sticks to add further disguise to the former B&Q product container.

And in our main pic this week are the inhabitants of our pond, well part of the mob that are in there at the moment. And the big question is where do they disappear to? Enjoy this great weather when pondering on that thought.

Oi! Get off me stamen!

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Here’s a pic of one of the courgette/zucchinni flowers yesterday. We’re keeping the plants well watered, feeding them weekly and finding anything that resembles finished compost at the bottom of the dalek bin and sticking it around the plant as mulch. We’ve just found out this tip online as well: “Don’t use a fertilizer too high in nitrogen; it will diminish your yield.” We didn’t know that! Know any more good tips?

More on growing them here. #zucchinniinlockdown

It’s that time again, or is it?

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We’re working from home for the foreseeable future and on Thursday lunchtime we went for a walk (in a social distancing style of course) to clear the mind. There were queues outside the doctors, pre-corona paranoia, not a soul on the streets nor a sausage in the shop. We popped into Shannon’s where it was well busy! We purchased a big bag of compost and some seed potatoes (below) whilst other people were getting herbs, tomato plants and all sort of good gear that’ll come in handy in the months to come.

God knows what’s going to happen when it comes to getting fresh veg in the near future so we may as well make a start now! We’re already overwintering some onions and garlic and now warming up the raised beds where we may stick the odd seed potato in this week and take a chance. We using all the stuff we’ve found in the street or in skips like the terrarium, the window frame, the odd jar and some plastic small cloches to do the job. We’ve got a few rows of seeds in already and we’re going to do more. Why not? You never know what the weather’s going to be like.

And this thing (below) covered with a jar is a courgette seed, talk about starting early! Keep safe and when loneliness hits you during the day working from home, don’t go down the local shops as you’ll be disappointed, walk out to the back garden and tip around with a hoe for half an hour. It works wonders!

On a beefsteak tip, perhaps?

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The other day we spied what we think are possibly fruits of the beefsteak variety on the Thompson & Morgan trial seeds tomato and (a possible further clue it may be a beefsteak) looking at the sheet accompanying the seeds it does mention that the “plants need side-shooting and support”. We love a beefsteak tomato here, please be one.

Talking of tomatoes, we always side-shoot the plants but the other week we watched Bob Flowerdew on youtube where he was advocating not to pinch out all your tomato side-shoots as growing on two/three cordons ain’t a bad thing. Have at the link look below as he’s very funny, educational and we do love his barnet!

Also we’re now getting flowers (and the start of fruit) on the spaghetti squash. We got what we thought was another spaghetti squash at the bottom of the garden (lower of the two pics) but now comparing leaves we wonder if it’s something else like a courgette (zuchinni) that we may have sown earlier? Only time will tell!

Also another spinach experiment is on the go (we’ve had the seeds sown between the earthed up spuds and inside a circle of broad beans which both sadly didn’t work), we sowed a row at the bed at the bottom of the garden that gets limited sunlight, let’s see how they do. The sticks are to keep the cats off (going back to Bob Flowerdew, on another youtube in that series above he says he welcomes cats into his garden and encouraged them to do there “doing’s” in a dedicated toilet space complete with straw and catnip! We do like his unconventional style!) Updates on the trial seeds to follow.

Shine on you crazy vegetables

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Gardening books always say home grown vegetables are going to look a big different than the ones you get at the supermarket but the courgette (zucchini) above we found this morning in the veg patch is pushing it a bit far, it almost looks like a giant slug or snail!

The Egyptian/walking onion below is now on it’s journey around the garden. One of the bulblets on the stalk have now been directed to a plant pot and using a bit of wire to keep them in place if goes well will root. There’s another couple of other bulblets (aka top sets) forming on the stalk as well. It’s a very mad plant and one to have in your garden if you want visitors to say “What the blazes is that?” More on the humble walking onion at our favourite “out there” website here. Every time we open their homepage UFO abductions and portals to other dimensions come to mind for some strange reason!

And to end the weekend here’s a lovely number from the great Chronnix with his dad Chronicle. Tune!

Pumpkin’s progress

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rat_large_resizeIt all started with seeing the back end of a large rodent in one of our dalek compost bins back in April (post here). The contents of said bin was then emptied into a trench in the bed at the bottom of the garden (below).

compost trench

A pumpkin, butternut squash and a courgette plant were purchased from Shannon’s and stuck on the top of the trench as they love that sort of richness.

Everything has gone green

Then there was that big gardening faux-pas, all the potato peelings in the compost trench started to sprout and threatened said plants (post here). It was dealt with by some continuous hoeing, a few times a week!

Then we had some action on the pumpkin, it started small, then a bit bit bigger but still green.

yellow-pumpkin_2

yellow-pumpkin_1

Then the other week it started to change colour. As long as those pesky rodents don’t have it we might be onto having a giant pumpkin!

yellow-pumpkinThe butternut squash is on it’s way too! All’s well that ends well and all that!

yellow-squash