To overwinter or not to overwinter?

We had some strange old weather today, all was looking bright until about 3pm when it pelted it down and then at about 4pm the sun came out again and we got the Garlic and Shallots in the raised bed. We’ve tried to make it pest proof after all of the shenanigans this weekend too. The metal protection was the shelving from one of those mini greenhouses we had years ago.

The beds have had the added benefit of the soil improver a few weeks ago and we’ll add some compost to the top of them as well sometime this week. Fingers crossed the Shallots do well next year. We didn’t have a bad year with the Garlic but we’ve love to know the secret to getting more out of them. Anyone out there know any good tips for getting decent Garlic in raised beds? Any ideas appreciated!

And news just in is that This is a music show 135 is up on the cloud. Cheers Dazman for posting this up! This week’s show includes Ernest Freeman, a tribute to Richard H Kirk, a steel band cover of The Beatles and some great Reggae as always. So if you love decent music and also love the medium of shortwave radio listen to the below.

And talking of radio shows, tune to The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn) tomorrow morning at 8am UK time for 3 hours of the best tunes across lots of genres. Link to the live link here tommorow morning and you want to choose the Tallinn station. Here’s last week’s show by the way. Radio is still the way forward!

Shaw Taylor we need you!

It’s been a funny old week, the weather did’t know what it was doing and we have sunflowers reaching silly sizes which is brilliant. As you know we love any seeds that say they’re “giant” or “massive”, half the time they don’t live up to their promise on ebay but the ones we got this year have.

The sunflowers down the side bed are doing well they’re well over 8 feet, a few have flowers. The ones that don’t have, have been the victim of the squirrels. They seem to be going for the buds this year rather than waiting for the large seed heads, very strange. We awoke this morning to one of the largest ones that was well over 9 feet, broken in half (below). To say we’re fed up is an understatement but they’re next to a fence so what can we do?

On a brighter note our Sweetcorn plants we got from Shannon’s and Chilli’s (Jalapeno) we grew from seed are coming on great guns! Whether we get any cobs on the corn to eat for ourselves are another thing. Squirrels aren’t keen on them are they?

And if you look hard enough you can see the Jalapeno’s we’ve already had a few off them and they’re great. Well worth growing.

This blog post was written whilst listening to This is a music show 125. Thanks to Dazman for putting it up on his cloud and cheers to Your Host for the selection. Some great stuff as ever including a lovely bit of reggae and some nice dub including the version of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZ-qwD8nG4

A show always worth listening to and it’s on the shortwaves! Have a listen below, you won’t regret it!