Tag Archives: raised beds

The weather it is a-changin’

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Wow, it’s December can you believe? No wonder it’s freezing out there and the rest of the week looks like it’s going to be getting colder. We’ve heard from our gardening pals in Cincinnati  (Cheers Justin!) and Freiberg, Germany (Cheers Jazz’min) where they’ve had their first dusting of snow so I doubt it won’t be long until we’ll get some.

Those dahlias were still looking fine last weekend but we reckon it won’t be long till the frost comes and blackens the plants when it will be time again to dig them all up and stick them somewhere frost free and dry for the rest of the winter, keeping an eye out for any rotting or mouldy tubers while they’re in storage.

We can’t complain as those spikey orange ones have been great this year, flowering right up until we last looked so going to the effort of digging them up and storing them indoors is a small price to pay for a few more years of the same.

And the nice plastic looking pink variety we were given this year was great too (cheers Marc).

And the beds in front of the Dad corner (that has been productive this year thanks to the new raised beds) have been tidied up a bit and now ready for the winter. In the pic you will notice a couple of cabbage stalks that we left when we cut the leaves off them. Not sure if it will happen over the winter but usually when you cut them off like that, the leaves grow back again. Value for money or what?

This is a pepper

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We filled some of those raised beds a bit tight at the beginning of lockdown and it’s starting to look a bit like a jungle in some of them now. Perhaps it wasn’t the correct way of using them what with all the plants fighting for space, soil and water. In the raised bed (below) we’ve two tomato plants and a load of peas at the back, a lettuce and two cabbages in the middle row and in the front row either two chilli peppers or more than likely two peppers PLUS some spuds. Can we put anything else in there? Talk about square metre gardening!

With raised beds they do tend to dry out easily so we’re forever giving them a water during the morning. The great Joe Maiden would say never water at night as the slugs and snails would be attracted to the moisture and suggested always early in the day is best for watering and we’ve also started giving the raised beds a comfrey feed once a week too.

The peppers or chillies or whatever they are, are flowering (top and bottom pics) and there’s some mini-fruits too! We love those raised beds!

About the weather (in June)

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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!

What did YOU do in your lunchtime during the great corona virus?

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In 60 minutes how much gardening can you really do especially when you got to wolf down some tuna pasta first and then wash the bowl?

We managed to tack some clear plastic sheeting onto the top of the two empty palettes that were sitting around waiting for compost which have now gone on top of the raised beds. We also put in two more spuds and brought out into the sunlight the seed trays that have some cabbages, tomatoes and peppers in them in an attempt to “harden them off”. Talk about the genre called “speed gardening”!

Where will three spuds get you?

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It all started the other Saturday afternoon, we were in a shop in Forest Hill at the end of queue of people scrambling to buy some fresh fruit and veg. The woman in front of us was knocked back as she was trying to buy more than the regulation “Three potatoes per person” as stated on the hastily written felt-tipped sign on the wall. A thought came into our heads, what’s it going to be like in the next few months when it comes to buying fruit & veg? Will there be enough to go around and if so will they be affordable?

Apart from some onions and garlic which are overwintering, some packs of seeds left over from last year plus some from a recent ebay purchase we decided to see what else we could get, so another trip to Shannon’s was in order. We want to give a big shout to everyone there for their help, they’ve been great! When we were there they were well busy with everyone having the same idea as us to get seeds and plants in before the lockdown. They still had a good bit of stock left, so we bought a couple of big bags of compost, a large bag of seed spuds and a couple of packets of cut and come again lettuce. We know it’s early in the season and yes we’re taking a chance with the frost but the weeks will fly by and it’ll be summer before you know it, so we’ve started sowing now.

We’re working from home at the moment so we can now spend an extra hour daily (1-2pm) in the garden. As you can’t go out to get anything (and most places where you could are closed anyway) we’re utilising what we have stored away like the palettes we were given years ago now in use as raised beds and plastic cloches, window frames and the upside down terrarium thrown out for the binmen as frost protection. The latest thing is a roll of black material that was bought to put down before our decking was laid. It’s now in use as some sort of weed suppressant, frost protector come soil warmer for the early seed spuds that we put in. All we did was weigh it down with stones on top of the soil and cut an X in the material with an old bread knife and popped the spuds in. We put some soil on top of the hole that the spud will eventually grow through as extra protection. It’s a case of whatever we got, we’re going to use!

And it’s only been a month that we sowed those cut and come again lettuces we got free with the Kitchen Garden Magazine (post here) on the back windowsill and they’re well on the way to start eating! The tomatoes and pepper seedlings are growing too. The sooner you sow the sooner they’ll be ready to eat but remember to protect against those frosts!

Gardening on a DIY tip, yet again

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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!

It’s good to get out there (while you can!)

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We don’t know what the weather has in store for us today but last Sunday it was glorious and a few gardening jobs were done! The garden pond pump was cleaned and the wires put back together again with some dry solder joints and a good bit of electrical tape after some roadent had gnawed through them last year. The pond pump now works!

The back bed was dug over again and raked to a nice tilth as we’ll be sticking some wild flower seeds down there after the frosts and give the bed some rest from the vegetable growing for a change. Even the lawn got its first cut in true council style, one cut on very high, then one a little lower.

And some palettes we were given years ago were put into use as some raised beds. All we need now is a big bag of compost to stick in them to get them to a nice height!

When the sun’s out the old enthusiasm seems to lift. Roll on the good weather!

Raised bed of the month

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Rauls raised bedsHere’s a new feature to weeds where we salute the humble raised bed!

This month’s collection comes from our good mate Raul S in Estonia who has an excellent weekly radio show called vibratsioon and releases music as Ajukaja amongst other things. Nice beds, a nice cutlass/pruning saw and two great tunes by the way!

If you fancy sending us a pic of your raised beds please email them to onedeckpete (at) gmail (dot) com and everyone who enters the feature will have their name put into a draw with the chance of winning a quality greenhouse* at the end of the year.

*Subject to availability

You raise me up (just like a runner bean cane)

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Tarrium and garlicA big thanks to the weather for the weekend just gone and it looks like spring has finally sprung!  Things are certainly on their way, I’ve got some healthy looking leek seedlings, black poppies and garlic in the glass terrarium I found in the street a couple of years ago (above) and the bulbs are starting to come up in the found empty champagne case too (below).Garlic in bucketsEarly Sunday morning I popped into Shannon’s (ta to Paul, Araba and Alexi for the lift) and got myself three bags of multi-purpose compost to put into the new raised bed (below) made out of a couple of free scaffolding boards procured from Paul a couple of weeks earlier. So thanks to a cheap argos drill, some spare wood and a quarter of a tin of fence protector left over from last year, it’s now a home for beetroot, carrots and climbing french beans. And look at the runner bean cane wigwam, that’s been put in a bit early!Raised bed and bean canesAnd here’s a tune dedicated to all who put in a few hours over the weekend with their mowers, garden forks, spades, trowels and (new pair of) loppers while enjoying the good weather in their gardens and allotments! Roll on the spring!

Damian Marley – Hard Work (Dedicated to all Westminster City Council gardeners)

Lazy wednesday afternoon

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I’m off work this week as it’s the kid’s half term and spending a bit of time doing some DIY on the house. I started early on the painting this morning so I could treat myself to a bit of gardening if the weather perked up in the afternoon, which it did!

Between the April showers I “tipped about” with the hoe, cut the grass and sowed some courgettes and french climbing beans “under cover” aka a jam jar and having ran out of plastic seed labels improvised with a bit of wooden moulding (found in the street last week) and a saw!

I even had to raise the glass on the cold frame made out of the old window as the super early spuds are tearing away. It’s not ideal so I’ll be wrapping them up in fleece while the threat of frost is about and move the frame elsewhere. It’s certainly working well for the spuds and the biodynamic malarky seems to be helping too!

Everything is starting to take off now what with the combination of the sunshine and the showers. The raised bed made out of the scaffolding boards has been filled with plants and in front of that is the salad bed and the seeds sown there are starting to germinate. I ran out of fence protector so need to purchase another couple of tins and the second raised bed needs filling too. This gardening lark, it’s never ending!