Tag Archives: Thompson & Morgan.

And as we stand in the front of the jury today…

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We’ve been suprised a few times by the results of this year’s Thompson & Morgan seed trials, by the red/pink/purple nasturtiums (below) and what we think may be beefsteak tomatoes but we haven’t been half as surprised as when this sunflower (above) appeared the other day. How good is that? We’re not sure if it’s supposed to be a mini-sunflower or a full-sized one as our plant is quite short, but it could be where we planted it, but what a flower!

And the tomatoes are doing well! We gave them a good watering all week and also a good lot of comfrey liquid this morning. Fingers crossed for some nice beefsteak ones (if they’re not, no bother but it would be nice to have a tomato as big as your hand!)

The spaghetti squash is now romping away (below) but it looks like the slugs are getting to the fruits before they set, damn! We do love this seed trial!

Summer the first time

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A bit of a mish-mash of photo’s taken on the hottest night of the year we reckon in London town. It’s 9pm and it’s still about 28 degrees!

We do love a dahlia here and here’s a couple in the nearest bed to the house whose tubers were taken indoors over the winter and put in a new position in the spring. It’s early days but we’re starting to get some nice flowers on them.

The nasturtiums (below) from the Thompson & Morgan trial seed collection are just great and we’ve had a few comments about them too. It’ll be worth getting a packet or two of the seeds next year!

And here’s the first flowerbud of the sunflower from the T&M collection too. It looks like it’s a mini one but it could be just where we planted it!

The question is how hot will it get later tonight?

On a beefsteak tip, perhaps?

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The other day we spied what we think are possibly fruits of the beefsteak variety on the Thompson & Morgan trial seeds tomato and (a possible further clue it may be a beefsteak) looking at the sheet accompanying the seeds it does mention that the “plants need side-shooting and support”. We love a beefsteak tomato here, please be one.

Talking of tomatoes, we always side-shoot the plants but the other week we watched Bob Flowerdew on youtube where he was advocating not to pinch out all your tomato side-shoots as growing on two/three cordons ain’t a bad thing. Have at the link look below as he’s very funny, educational and we do love his barnet!

Also we’re now getting flowers (and the start of fruit) on the spaghetti squash. We got what we thought was another spaghetti squash at the bottom of the garden (lower of the two pics) but now comparing leaves we wonder if it’s something else like a courgette (zuchinni) that we may have sown earlier? Only time will tell!

Also another spinach experiment is on the go (we’ve had the seeds sown between the earthed up spuds and inside a circle of broad beans which both sadly didn’t work), we sowed a row at the bed at the bottom of the garden that gets limited sunlight, let’s see how they do. The sticks are to keep the cats off (going back to Bob Flowerdew, on another youtube in that series above he says he welcomes cats into his garden and encouraged them to do there “doing’s” in a dedicated toilet space complete with straw and catnip! We do like his unconventional style!) Updates on the trial seeds to follow.

More from the seed trials

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Here’s an update to the seed trials we’re doing for Thompson & Morgan in the Weeds back garden. The most suprising thing to come up are the tropaeolums (nasturtiums), we’ve lots of self-seeded normal orange types going nuts at the bottom of the garden (below) but look at the pinkish/purple ones from T&M above, how good are they? We’re loving the colour of them and funnily enough nasturtiums normally don’t do that much for us here.

The spaghetti squash that is in the top bed is now making a break for it (below). Hopefully they’ll be more room when the broad beans beside it dies off. The squash is looking healthy and just started to flower. We’ve neglected feeding all the plants for a couple of weeks as the home-made comfrey liquid ran out (we gave Honor Oak Train Station a couple of bottles of it to help them with their station in bloom contest entry!), but we’ve now a new batch on the go. There’s another spaghetti squash at the bottom we sowed late but who knows the summer may go on for a bit longer this year.

The tomatoes (below) are in a bed which once used to house a greenhouse, the soil is not great there and doesn’t get the sun until mid afternoon and not for that long but the three plants there are surviving and there’s at least one truss of flowers showing. We won’t give up on them and we’ll be on it with the comfrey feed this weekend. Cheers again to T&M for the seeds!

Don’t step on the cracks

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A trip down the garden path tonight produced this trio of pics. Above: The fiver’s worth of water lily we bought from the Lewisham pet shop (whose website’s by-line is “For all your reptile needs”) a few years ago has gone mad this summer. We counted nearly 7 flowers on it the other day. The fish are using it as shade during the sunny periods and the tadpoles as mini swimming pools. The pond need a bit of thinning out this weekend as it would be nice to give the inhabitants more room. We now get our fish food via ebay, and you get double or treble of the volume of food for the price compared to what you get in those supermarket tubs.

The pink flowers shown above don’t look like much and as a plant it’s a bit on the scrappy side but disregard that and grow night scented stock for it’s evening smell!

And somewhere in the middle of the tomatoes and broad beans growing against the garage wall and the dahlias is the Thompson & Morgan trial spaghetti squash. We reckon it’ll outgrow the space in no time!

And finally a dubbed out one for the warm night we’ll be getting tonight (where it’ll be hard to sleep even with the windows are open!), it’s from Masis called Unearthed Dub  and it’s the Frenk Dublin mix. Tune!

Seed trial update stardate 2.6.19

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It’s only been a couple of weeks since the last post about the seeds on trial from Thompson and Morgan but there’s been some changes. The spinach plants in the pot on the windowsill (below) are doing well. We’ll transplant a couple of them in the garden so leaving a couple in the pot and see how they get on. There’s a couple of patches of T&M’s spinach outside that seem to be tolerating our London clay soil.

A sunflower in its very early stages plus one of the tomato plants were transplanted outside yesterday morning with no hardening off. The both of them seem to have survived the searing weather on their first day outside too, let’s see how they get on with the local slugs!

The lewisham recycling bin has the nasturtiums in and they’re making progress, we reckon we’ll be leaving possibly only one in the bin and move the other plants around the garden.

And finally the spaghetti squash is doing well, no slug damage as yet and putting on some growth. Let’s see what the weather brings. Give us a few weeks and we’ll keep you updated with this and the other trial plants in the garden. Ta T&M for the chance of giving the plants a go!

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.

Do it in the mix

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Tomtato_CloseI can’t remember what radio show I heard about this mad plant above (possibly Graham Porter on BBC Radio Leeds) but it’s called a TomTato ® aka ketchup and chips and available from Thompson & Morgan. At first I thought it was some sort of joke but they’re available for a tenner a plant if you fancy one in your garden. scotch eggThey also do egg and chips, an aubergine crossed with a potato but at nearly £15 a plant I’d be making sure those blooming garden pests wouldn’t get to them first. I’d have evening and dawn anti-slug patrols guarding my veg beds if I shelled out that much for a plant!

Ain’t it bonkers what they can do today? Me, I’ll be sticking with my leggy tomato seedlings.