Eats, shoots and leaves

I heard two great gardening tips this week. The first was from Penny Golightly (of the great Golightly Gardens website) who mentioned the free tomato seed offer from Heinz. It’s only a limited thing but have a look at their Facebook page here and see if you’re lucky!

Also on last week’s Gardening with Tim & Joe show on BBC Radio Leeds, Joe Maiden mentioned rather than buying a pack of seeds especially for pea shoots from the major seed sellers (around £2.50), go to the supermarket and buy a packet of dried peas which are the same thing and a whole lot cheaper!Bulbs in the greenI had a day off Thursday and managed to do a little bit of gardening before the rain came and it was so nice to be back out there. I cleared the bed next to the pond (Pic above – fish courtesy of Lewisham pet shop, bought a few years ago and they’ve multiplied a bit since then. God knows how they survive in a rusty old water tank!)

The reason I was out there was I bought a load of bluebells a fortnight ago which were bought “in the green” (as I missed the proper bulb planting time in the autumn) so when the postlady delivered them on Thursday morning they were live (with roots and shoots and all) so they had to go in. Let’s hope the birds or the squirrels don’t pull them up!

onions under glassThings are on the move, the onion sets, garlic and parsley under the top half of the old kitchen door are starting to show signs of life and the tomato and pepper seeds I stuck in a few weeks ago indoors are on their way. It won’t be long now, roll on the warm weather!

Tray of seedlings

New Cross, New Cross

Tomato bonanza aug

Thanks to our Mihaly and Renato at Dig This Nursery for passing on an advance flyer for the next leg of their tomato festival in August. If you want to know anything about the humble tom, go down and have a word with them, the nursery is just opposite New Cross Gate Station.They know quite a bit seeing as though they’ll be having 92 tomato varieties at the festival. How mad is that? 92!

Neotropic – New Cross – Council Folk Recordings

Stephen Tin-Tin Duffy

I've got a biscuit tin...Last Friday I was passing the local pizza place on the way home from work and noticed some smart looking empty tomato tins left outside with a “please take me” note beside them. I manage to snatch one before a couple of people behind us grabbed a few each. Back home some drainage holes were drilled (in a freeform jazz gardening stylee,) a lick of varnish was applied and now I’ve got a smart plant pot! A tarragon plant was purchased from Shannon’s and stuck in it and it’s now in situ!

extra protection

There weren’t too much gardening done this weekend due to the overcast weather but some climbing french beans plants were put in (some empty jam jars were put over them as extra protection even though they’ve been hardened off – another Shannon’s purchase.) I also sowed some flower seeds (danish flag poppy and night scented stock) in some well-washed reused pots with a freezer bag over the top and stuck in the mini greenhouse. I was going to buy a smart permanent marker for the seed labels as I’ve had a few worn off of late (I’ve no idea what the pots contain now) but I was told at the garden centre on saturday morning “don’t bother wasting your money use an old pencil and write on the non-smooth side of the plant label.” Money saving tip of the week!