Tag Archives: Thompson & Morgan Blog

(Don’t) build me up buttercup

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Big thanks to the horticultural team at Thompson & Morgan for their helpful advice following Jesse Yuen’s post the other day (here) about ongoing problems with Bermuda Buttercups (Oxalis pes-caprae*). It’s looks like a chemical weedkiller (which Jesse is not going to use) can’t rid a garden of them.

“Bermuda Buttercups are a plant that you may have to learn to garden with rather than against. Pulling up plants always leaves tiny bulbils behind that grow into new plants, it can also result in the spread of bulbils to new areas. These bulbils act as storage organs which are very persistent, lying dormant beneath cardboard or mulch for months, possibly years, so that as soon as the ground is exposed to light they re-emerge. Constant hoeing will help to deplete the bulbils, but again – it will take years for this to have any effect.”

“Even If you decide to use chemical weedkillers, timing of application is critical and you may have to do it more than once. You need to catch the plants just at the point before or on flowering. This is when the bulbils are exhausted of food whilst young bulbils are too small to survive. Not all plants will be at exactly the same stage so repeated applications for several years are required.”

Thanks again to all at Thompson & Morgan for imparting their knowledge about the plant that is giving our good dub gardening friend Jesse a headache at the moment.

*The specific epithet pes-caprae means ‘goat’s-foot’, possibly in reference to the shape of the leaf. (wikipedia)

 

 

A butcher’s around the garden

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After a bit of rain last night in SE23 we viewed a few things this morning, the first being a small water lily on the pond. It’s been taken close up and looking again we’re still not sure what that is in the top right hand corner, micro frog spawn perhaps?

We’re seeing flower buds on the cosmos. We did sow a few seeds in various places but these are the ones that survived. There’re under an old dead cherry tree and they seem have taken well. In a few days there should be flowers (Cheers Debby H again).

And this look like a couple of the Thompson & Morgan seeds here. The above must be the Quick Fire Chilli Pepper to the rear and in front the Quick Snack Cucumber.

We’ve bought some plant feed now to supplement our ever dwindling amount of Comfrey liquid and with the supposedly 25 degrees C today, all should be the right stuff for these plants to grow well. Or so we hope!

The trials of tomatoes (and squash and lettuce)

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The Thompson and Morgan seed trials are sadly coming near the end, I mean look at the beefsteak tomatoes (above) that are now ripening on the plant and the few we took off today next to an AA battery to give some idea of scale. Whoppers they are and we’ll certainly be wanting to grow them again.

The lettuce that was growing in the shade of the broad bean ring around the birch tree has survived and is looking great. It’s either one or a collection of a few!

And the spaghetti squash has stayed this colour and size for a few weeks now. We have now idea of what they’re supposed to look like when they ripen or when they’re ready but we suspect the time is very close!

Thanks again to Thompson and Morgan for getting us in on the trials and we reckon they’ve been a success our end. We’d had a lot of suprises (the sunflowers and nasturtiums) so we can’t complain! It’s been fun!

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!

Live at the seed trials

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Thanks a million to all at the Thompson & Morgan blog for sending us a lovely package a few weeks ago that contained some packs of yet-to-be-released 2020 seeds to trial in our garden. They came in a nice green wallet and the actual seeds (that were in sealed plain white metallic packs) were labelled simply “spinach 201902”, “squash 201904” etc as the proper names of the varieties are under wraps and will be given out later this year. We love that sort of thing here at Weeds. Very GCHQ. Walls have ears and all that!

Above is a bit of an experiment, we recently moved a small silver birch we originally found in the street a couple of years ago (post here) and around it we planted a ring of broad beans, don’t ask us why but it made sense at the time!

In the circle we thought we’d sow a row of the lettuce and spinach. Hopefully the shade will be just enough to keep the plants growing but not bolting (aka going to seed early) as spinach and lettuce do have a tendency to do so if the weather is too hot. It’s only an idea, let’s see how we get on.

We’ve already started off a fair few tomato varieties this year but we welcome another one with open arms especially one in a plain white envelope just called “tomato 201905”. We may have started them off too late (and we didn’t write down the date of the sowing sadly) but it seemed like they took their time to germinate on the kitchen windowsill (compared to the spaghetti squash that was planted on the same day). Out of the three tomatoes that have germinated so far, nearly all of the seedlings are nowhere near the centre of the pot. When/how did the seed move? There must be a scientific explanation, answers on a postcard please. We look forward to finding out what varieties these are. Will they be small cherry tomatoes or beefsteak ones the size of your hand?

The tropaeolum (nasturtium) was sowed directly outside in the Lewisham Council recycled bottle bin and has germinated like a treat. We’ll transplant a couple of these around the garden. We like the look of the darker leaves than the usual varieties of nasturtiums we usually put or self seed in our garden.

The spaghetti squash is something new to us and it will be great to see what they look like and actually taste like. The seed was germinated on the kitchen windowsill and went out in the garden just when it had two seed leaves on with the minimum amount of hardening off (one night under a cloche!) and it’s doing well!

Apart from spinach in a pot on the kitchen windowsill (above) there’s sunflowers in a seed tray, some lettuce sown (in the ridge) in between earthed up potatoes and zinnias (that we have never grown before but look interesting) sowed straight into the ground. We will keep you posted!

Reading and listening recommendations – Stardate 29/5/2018

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Two things to get stuck into. Firstly a big thanks to Mark at the Thompson & Morgan blog for including one of our tips in the interesting “Seed and seedling tips…” post here that’s worth having a look at. There’s lots of other posts on the blog that’ll hopefully float your gardening boat too.

Also the above has been listened to twice today, “Greetings music lover” the story of one of our favourite shows “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire and Steve Barker who keeps it all together. It’s a lovely documentary about a very interesting radio show. Big up On The Wire!

Out of the starting blocks

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It looks like the growing season is now underway at Weeds HQ after a quiet autumn/winter. The other Monday we popped into Shannon’s and purchased a set of three plastic plant propagators (complete with lid, seed and drip tray) at a nice price (below).

Granted they’re not as sturdy as those green hard plastic ones with the plastic cover that has a circular air regulator on the top but we find the covers of those types of propagators get used outside in the garden as cloches and seed protectors and by the end of the season are lost or in a right state. An advantage with the one from Shannon’s is that the seed tray is a collection of “plug plant” type holes that’ll make transplanting the seedlings a whole lot easier (less of that pricking out business!)
Seeds purchased: Tomato (Red Alert), Italian Basil, Pepper (Sweet Boneta) and Chilli Pepper (Numex Twilight – the fruit go all sorts of colours while ripening).Thanks to a discount code (Thanks to Ola at Thompson & Morgan Blog!) we purchased some nice seeds from Thompson & Morgan including some nice poppies, giant sunflowers (you know we here love anything with “Giant, Weird or Rare” in the title) and also a dwarf blackberry bush which’ll be good for sticking in a pot outside the kitchen door. One plant that did interest us was the cat’s whiskers/bat plant or the devil flower (below) that looks great but as we haven’t got a greenhouse or conservatory we had to pass on it. If you have somewhere under glass where it can go, go get this plant!
Seeds purchased: Poppy (Pink Fizz), Poppy (Checkers), Night Scented Stock, Russian Giant Sunflower, Sweet Pea (Night and Day).

Finally the Sunday just gone we ventured to the great place that is Roots and Shoots (in association with Pennard Plants) in Kennington for their potato and seed shop day. Getting there just before the allotted time of 11am we treated ourselves to some bamberger long seed onions and “Rocket” seed potatoes which when chitted (the art of producing nice green buds, more on how to do that here) we’ll do that trick of cutting them in half so we’ll have twice as many plants. Also after taking ages going through the racks of seeds we purchased some great heritage and heirloom seed varieties (more on what heirloom seeds are here.)
Seeds purchased: Far too many to mention but included Beetroot (Detroit Crimson Red), Courgette (All Greens Bush), Sea Holly, Cornflower (Black) and Sweet Peas (Black Knight, America and Albuit Blue).

It’s been a very good week or two for gardening and we haven’t even set foot in the back! By the way do send in any news of seed swaps, plant sales or related events (London based or nationwide as they’re all good) as we’d love to post them up. Fingers crossed we’ll all be out in the garden very soon.