It’s great to hear that Gerry Hectic is taking on a new seed saving project after tasting a strawberry that was so nice he got given one that he is now saving seed from and trying to grow a plant from it. He is now trying the same method on the above!
We will keep you posted on how he gets on! Fascinating stuff though and more free plants if they take. We found a great link about seed saving here. Good luck Gerry.
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!)
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.
Happy New Year to all our music/gardening friends and we hope 2024 is a good one.
It’s now time to think of what you’re going to grow this year and what changes you may be making in the garden, if any. First thing we did was check our seed tin seeing what we may have had left over. There were some Ldll lettuce, a couple of packets off ebay and some stuff we’ve had knocking around for ages which suprised us a little as we thought we used everything up.
As ever we’re on the look out for any seed swaps, or community/allotment sales that have good cheap seed and plant events we may be able to get some interesting variety of seeds. At the present moment we can’t find too many local ones in south London. Garden Organic has a regularly updated list here that is worth checking and also Pumpkin Beth‘s website here which list seeds swaps and plant fairs. If there’s any you know of in the London area or thereabouts, do let us know and we’re blog the dates up.
So we will now raise a mug of tea and hope everyone has a great 2024 and may your garden thrive! And here’s some garden related tunes to give inspiration and good plant growing vibes.
A big thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for sending us another gardening themed music recommendation, this time a nice chilled beat-driven set from Emapea out of Poland called Seeds, Roots and Fruits.
So get those old plant pots cleaned out with some washing up liquid and warm water, give them a good dry out and then fill them with seed compost and make a start of this season’s seeds whilst this collection of tunes are on the hi-fi!
There’s been a lot of keenness in the garden today what with the sun coming out and we’ve spent a good few hours since 10 am tipping around, sowing, tidying and mowed the grass. Some suntan lotion was even applied!
You know for a fact it’ll probably snow all next week but that’s a risk we’ve got to take, it’ll only be the cost of a packet of seeds and a few seed potatoes. You never know what’ll happen and it’s worth giving it a go.
We even used the last of the comfrey feed we had left over from last year so started a new batch. Comfrey leaves are now springing up and we used them combined with some fresh nettles and some borage leaves for added goodness. It’ll be stinking up the place in a few weeks time but the jazzy Boots home brew bucket is way down the garden and the liquid is worth its weight in gold when it’s ready!
Last week I got a right old bargain from ebay, 30 odd packs of seeds (plus a couple of seed collections thrown in on top too) for £9.56 including P&P! The oldest sell-by-date was 2013 so it weren’t that brilliant but most of the use-by-dates were at least 2015 and there wasn’t that many duplicates. Not bad for just under a tenner though!
A mate from work has just got an allotment and this weekend was going to the allotments’ annual Cheese and Wine, Seed Swap Barbecue, (how’s that for a good idea?) I gave her a massive handful to make a good impression and I still had loads for myself. Bargains, I love them! Remember this bargain related tune from many many moons ago?
It’s never t’wirly* here! A few days into the new year I stuck in some seeds (post here) and here’s how they are getting on nearly a month or so later. It’s all done on the cheap, (especially after the expense of christmas!) the propagator cost us £3.50 from shannon’s, the seeds were off ebay and the whole thing is stuck in the back room by the patio doors.
There’s some tomatoes on their way (tray on the left, front) and behind them, the peppers are starting to come through. Alright it’s been a month, but who cares as they won’t be able to go out till ages yet. The other seeds coming through in the pots are some lettuce leaf basil and some strawberries. The other two pots contain an odd one for me, alkanet, don’t ask me why but I’m giving it a go this year and also a chinese lantern (aka bladder cherry. what a good name!) More reports on those in the next few weeks.
And as for the seed potatoes from shannon’s (above), there’s signs of life! Keep on chitting on.
And to end on, here’s a happy sounding slice of tune-age from a few years ago with an apt forward-looking title (considering the weather of late) as heard on Tom Ravenscroft’s show the other week. It’s from Karriem Riggins called Summer Maddnes S.A. (Alone Together.) Roll on the spring!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfEAusoydGQ
*More on the cult of the twirly here.
I’ve just spent an hour between showers weeding the veg bed at the end of the garden, it’s ideal for lettuces, spinach etc as it doesn’t get full sun all day so they tend not to “bolt” (go to seed quickly). Apart from the lettuce and spinach, there’s a couple of cabbages, climbing french beans, one purple sprouting broccoli, early spuds (that are nearly ready to dig up) beetroot and a pink tree stump (don’t ask!) Also in shot, a couple of dalek compost bins procured off the council, a wheelbarrow which was left out on a local street with a note saying “take me” on it, the wormery (the white bucket) and the comfrey liquid fermenting in a bucket with a council garden waste bag on top filtering out the toxic gasses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8WRzdN43BI
At the same time down the road the local church fete was in progress. I knew it was on because earlier I popped to the shops and saw local firefighters decked out in face paint (imagine them turning out like that to a shout!) showing kids around their appliance and a bouncy castle was in full swing. While I was tending to the veg patch a RnB band started up with the amps cranked up really high (much to the disgust of the neighbours). They banged out “Route 66,” “Johnny B Goode” and a cover of The Subways “Be my Rock n Roll Queen” with lots of added shouts, iggy pop-isms and yelps which made me laugh while I pulled out weeds and filled in the gaps with more sowings. Mid-set the lead singer read out the results to the Tombola (“The star prize of £200 goes to…”) and then into a another rocking version of “Johnny B Goode”. Brilliant! What do you reckon the vicar thinks to all this rock n roll behaviour? “Jolly good” I hope is her reply.
I opened the compost bin I started just over a year ago this morning and it is looking mighty fine! The kitchen/plant waste has near enough rotted except for a few eggshells and the odd large potato. I’ve made a mental note to cut up the kitchen waste finer and to crush the eggshells even more from now on. If you look closely at the contents you’ll also see a nice blue biro. How the hell did that get in there? How long will that take to rot do you think?
Rereading Jane Perrone’s book this week I could really relate to the section about making compost where she writes “I’ve been known to secrete used tea bags in my pocket to take back for my own ever-hungry compost pile.” Tea bags never get wasted in our house, after a brew they either get chucked on the compost heap or the worms have them.
Talking about worms here’s how the wormery is progressing in the garage. It’s taken a lot longer than I thought (I started it early last summer) but I’ve got a big jar of liquid plant feed out of it and there’s also a good bit of compost underneath the rotting veg, sprouting onions, killer sized slugs and mouldy bread.
Also this week I started off some seeds on the kitchen windowsill, Cabbages (goldenacre) and Foxgloves (pam’s choice) and sometime soon will get those tomatoes seeds out of the packet. That’s good for me as I sowed them just after xmas last year. Patience dear boy!
Weeds up to me knees 