Tag Archives: jam jars

‘ere, can you spare us any bubble wrap or jam jars for the garden mate?

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It’s been a lovely day here in south London today and it looks like the temperature will drop again a little from tomorrow. Looking at the weather forecast for the next week it could be anything from 6-10 degrees C overnight so hopefully no frosts.

We’re taking no chances here as don’t want to lose any plants overnight even though they have been hardened off over the last few weeks. We’ve put three tomato plants out and some sweet peas but we’re still covering them at night with some improvised protection from bubble wrap, jam jars and the terrarium we found years ago that is now a bit cracked at the side and missing its glass top and now has some polythene on the top. Who cares what the frost protection looks like as long as it’s doing its job! More sunny weather please.

And we started a day with a great tune and we end it on another one. It’s by Jah Version out of Lisbon, Portugal with Friendship (Vocal Dub). Turn it up.

Can’t wait, won’t wait, will try

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Patience, that’s what you need when it comes to this gardening lark. Sadly we haven’t got any.

This week we took the dahlia tubers straight out from under the stairs (where they’ve been hibernating since late autumn) and into the ground even though there’s still a chance of frost. We also left a couple of them in the garden from last season as we couldn’t be bothered to dig them out. Why do we do these things when we know we shouldn’t?

We have got protection for them and the other plants that don’t do well when it comes to frosts though. There’s the seed potatoes under the black membrane that was used under the decking and lots of DIY plastic/wood contraptions (don’t throw out your jam jars!) over vegetable seedlings that are germinating so it ain’t that bad.

All the gardening books tell you to be aware of late frosts, they also tell you that runner beans seeds don’t like sitting in cold soils and “for god’s sake don’t put out your tomato plants out early as they’ll suffer if it gets cold” but we still do it (we’ve a couple of tomato seedlings in the ground at the moment we’re ashamed to say.) It goes like this, we see a period of lovely sunshine so the hoe is taken out from its winter hiding place and then it’s all systems go after that. We don’t think this lockdown has helped in holding back either.

Talking of lockdowns, there’s a new gardening-related game developing here. At least once a week on our (very) regular visits to the compost heap a gloved hand will be thrust into the mass of rotting vegetables, old ripped up leccy bills and single tea bags to “feel the heat”. That’s not normal behaviour is it? Early signs of “lockdown lunacy” perhaps?