Tag Archives: Sunflowers

A view from north London

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Cheers to Debby H for getting out in the garden and taking some pictures for us now things are coming to a close but you wouldn’t think it with these photographs though.

Above are the cosmos that are still flowering and looking great and below are some cosmos deadheads which’ll be used for seeds. Debby told us you don’t even need to break the seed heads up that much, just put them as they come in a seed tray in the spring. We have to deadhead ours actually, before it starts getting wet and the chance of things going mouldy on us.

Below “The sedum is now looking very pretty” she said and she’s right. It’s a nice plant and seems to do well in UK gardens. It loves full sun and can even tolerate a bit of shade and the bees and pollinators seem to love it.
Below, “Interestingly, one of the dwarf sunflowers that we thought was dead has grown three flowers where there was previously only one.” Brilliant stuff Debby! We look forward to more photos and thanks as ever for sending them on.

What, sunshine in April? Never

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It’s like this every year, you’re waiting for spring to happen and then next thing you’ve got a load of plants to harden off (above). We’ve got some giant sunflowers that are over a foot high now and tomatoes, sweet peas and some chillies we were given over the weekend alongside the geranium cuttings from Honor Oak Park station. It’s only just turned April too!

Also, in the bed down the bottom we started lots of seeds off. The rocket can be seen taking off underneath small branches used to keep the cats and foxes off. The seeds were only put in the other day, or it seemed like it! Hope all goes well on the sowing front your side and the nice weather keeps on keeping on. Keep checking those last frosts dates and do remember nature plays by its own rules sometimes.

 

Frosts by the end of the week?

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Well it’s coming to the end of the gardening season so it’s been a time for tidying up. The best job we did this year has to be relining that pond. It was a pain at the time but once it was done there was no turning back. The fish and the plants seemed happier and we’ve even had frogs taking part in a romantic evening swim and lots of tiny frogs migrating out of the pond to the rugged area around it. That’s all got to be good!

We’ve taken the tomato plants out of the raised beds and stuck in some garlic and onions (and an old stick of celery to see if it will grow) and we’ve a lot of unripened toms sitting on the kitchen windowsill our favourite method of ripening the green fruit. We could have gone for the banana method but we’ve no bananas. Here’s a couple of ripening tricks here and how they work.

We’ve also put some metal netting/grid type things on the top of the surface to stop the pests. The most recent ones to the garden are the pigeons as we caught them red handed at the brussel sprouts tops earlier. And we thought it was the slugs! We really have to think about some netting as we wonder was it them at the cardoons as well?

And we tidied up the bed at the side, took out the corn plants that had been pilfered by rogue squirrels and now working our way down to the sunflowers. We may actually keep the stalks of the big ones and use them for support for the sweet peas or beans or something.

So if you can get some time in now for a tidy up it will save you having to do so when the weather gets colder/wetter. Oh yes, we heard on the countryfile weather forecast on Sunday there could be a frost towards the end of the week so keep them peeled. Better safe than sorry!

Blame Jimi Hendrix or Humphrey Bogart for these!

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Growing giant sunflowers come with various different problems. You have to stake them up to stop them snapping in the wind, keep the slugs and snails off them and there’s also the pigeons and squirrels to contend with. Now the Peckham parakeets are onto them.

It’s not the best photo as it had to be taken clandestinely but there’s at least three birds on the nearest sunflower the one with the multiple heads and one perched on the one furthest away (which hasn’t any flowers) on lookout duty.

It’s funny as when these birds appeared the pigeons and squirels were nowhere to be seen, the same as the cats. You just can’t win! More on those pesky parkeets and the origins of where they may have come from here.

You’re really telling us it’s the August bank holiday weekend?

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God knows what’s happening weatherwise, it’s freezing here in SE23 at the moment and there wasn’t much of an appearance of that yellow thing they call the sun over the weekend despite the promise of it.

Yesterday we spent an hour or two weeding the “rewilding” area at the bottom of garden where we put the “wild flower seed mix” and the odd bee bomb or two. As most of the flowers are “wild” so to speak, it’s hard knowing what are the actual weeds. The area does get a lack of significant sunlight so it’s a big gamble whatever you put down there. The cardoons do well though despite something that’s been eating their leaves for most of the summer (above).

Like we said before, it’s an art to get a part of a garden to look “wild, wild” instead of “wild” as in neglected if you see what we mean. We think we need to give our untame area a bit of time to develop before it looks as nice as the great insect garden of the great Horniman’s Gardens below. That’s “wild” but nice wild.There are successes though, towards the top of the garden we have a couple of sunflowers growing against the garage wall and it’s the smaller one (7ft) that is flowering first. This gardening hobby is all about patience isn’t it? Shame we haven’t got any.

Caught in the act

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We now have proof that it is indeed the squirrels that are having a go at the sunflowers (the giant “10 feet”ones we got off ebay) when we caught one today feeding off the flowerhead. At least they’re actually waiting now until they’re in flower as it was the buds they were nicking previously but surely it’s the seeds (that come after the flowers) they should be waiting for. Who knows?

Shaw Taylor we need you!

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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!

Weekending and chilled

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An excellent instrumental (the vocal side from Kahina Quali is top too!) from the great Blundetto with Booker Gee out of Paris, France to wind you down for the working week ahead.

If all goes well this one will be aired alongside other quality tunes from Frapp, Lama’s Dream and Mario Pinosa Trio in a mix called “Nine and a half minutes at ninety bpm” broadcast on the next transmission of Free Radio Skybird on New Years Eve at 09:00 UTC on 6070 kHz which will be repeated on Sunday January 5th at 12:00 UTC on 7440 kHz. Get your set set.

Here’s a random pic from the blog to remind ourselves of how things are in the garden when the weather is nice as it’s been a while since we’ve set foot in out there let alone stick a fork in the ground!

More trials

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Here’s a quick visual update on the Thompson & Morgan seed trials. The tomatoes are looking more like beefsteak ones every day and look at the size of them!

The sunflowers are also doing well too! We love the surprises we’ve had with the trials and it shouldn’t be too long now before we’re informed about the actuals names/varieties of the plants. We’re still waiting on the spaghetti squash to ripen and we’ve a couple of lettuces on the way too. We love the trails we do!

Back yard reportage 2

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A big thanks again to Thompson & Morgan blog (have a look as it’s interesting stuff with tons of hints and tips!) for sending us some seeds to trial this year and this is how they’re doing in July! They are all watered on a daily basis and have a comfrey feed weekly.

The above is the spinach (in the front pot) which was started off on the kitchen windowsill and a couple of the seedlings were transferred outside but here’s the pot with two left in them. They haven’t gone to seed yet and are doing well!

The daft idea we had to stick a row of the lettuce and spinach in the area shaded by some broad beans (so they didn’t bolt) may have not been a good one but here’s what’s going on so far! We won’t even mention the idea of sowing lettuce in the gully between the earthed up potatoes as nothing has germinated there.

The spaghetti squash is coming on a treat and we reckon we may have put it in the wrong place but “Hey! it’s an experiment”. The other squash that had lots of space to run free has been decimated by the slugs so this is the only one at the moment!

And as the song goes “Where have all the zinnia’s gone?” We don’t know what we done wrong but there’s no sign of any zinnia’s yet. Damn! But the tomatoes and sunflowers seem to be doing well and we eagerly look forward to seeing what variety they morph into! Ta again T&M, there will be updates!