Savage garden

I'm off to Riga this weekend. Woo hoo! According to the Beeb website, this is what the weather will be like:

Alright! For those viewing in black and white, that says SUN and HOT. Better pack the Factor 24. Talking of sun, here's a quick update on the Brixton cottage garden.

A rogue slug broke through my pellet defences this week and chomped on a sunflower. Boo!

Senior's slender frame wasn't strong enough in the wind and he bent over. A big ugly kink in his stem. That's why he's now attached to a big plank splint thing. He remains very tall, but his situation is considered critical. Boo!

Runner beans continue their rapid and impressive growth, winding ever upwards up my canes and wires. Woo!

Back to the sunflower competition and the twins are leading the way for us. This bad boy is now about 48cm tall. Go on son!

It's always nice to be recognised for your efforts

Me and my blue plaque, yesterday.

Of course not. Last time I checked, stumbling through a PhD and finishing 6th in the final of 'The Machine' wasn't enough to be awarded with a blue plaque. This Thomas Willis was a pioneering

(and slightly sken-eyed going off the pic on that wikipedia page) neurologist and also published the earliest English work on medical psychology.

Despite Thomas Willis' sterling efforts though, my favourite Thomas Willis (me aside) is probably the exorcist priest Rev. Thomas Willis from North Yorkshire. He unfortunately doesn't appear to have a webpage of his own, but he does feature in this article, four paragraphs from the end.

More great historical figures (not called Thomas Willis) coming soon, fact fans!

Barry Bulsara spotted at rock concert

Trust me, it did look LOADS like him.

As if coldly murdering Tombolablog's favourite ex-girlfriend of Rob Curling wasn't enough, he's now also indirectly responsible for the death of CP's mobile phone which suffered fatal injuries trying to get a picture. Bastard!

Roots manoeuvres

Sometimes it feels like this blog is just an excuse for me to have a solo pun-making competition.

My runner beans continue to grow at an impressive rate. The longest are now over a cubit long (thanks SPMG for teaching me about the forgotten measures of cubit and span). This would be great but I still haven’t put them in the grow bag and they remain in the spare room. It’s like Day of the bloody Triffids in there!
















They’ve started bursting out of their pots and everything. I need to get them planted properly soon or I’ll wake to find their tendrils dragging me from my bed.

A cubit, yesterday.

Mr Beans

Yeah yeah. Someone else would have said it if I hadn't.

On Wednesday morning I knew I had to get a move on and do something with those beans. So here's my handy step-by-step guide to a fun Wednesday evening.

1. Choose a patch of garden that gets plenty of sunshine.

2. Carry a heavy grow bag home from New Cross, possibly doing yourself an injury. Position in the spot chosen in #1.

3. Buy a pack of 7ft bamboo canes and have fun taking them home on the bus from Camberwell [gardener's note - this wasn't done in the same journey as the grow bag. Only Dr. Octopus or that 4-armed Goro dude from Mortal Kombat could manage that]. Push 5 of the canes down into the soil between the wall and the grow bag.

4. Attach wire to the top of each cane and tie the other end around a brick, or around a nail that can then be smacked into the ground. Doesn't come out too well on photos that, but do it anyway.

5. Rather unnecessarily, use your landlady's stanley knife to cut 10 holes in the top of the bag - one for each plant. Realise that you've got the knife full of soil. Plant your indoor-reared runner bean plants in two rows of 5, so that each is next to either a cane or wire.

6. Water and surround with what is probably way too many slug pellets. Spend some time trying to bend the plants around the wire/cane. Snap a leaf off by accident. Curse. Stand back and admire your handiwork.

My, haven't you grown!

Well whaddya know, another entry about horticulture!

A week ago I got carried away and created a runner bean rearing centre in the spare room. Seven days on, it appears to have been a great success:

The tallest of them is about 16cm (the tallest sunflower we have at the moment is 20cm). Time to crack open the grow bag....

Plug-in baby

Now for a letter from regular reader, Charles Wymer...

"Dear Tombolablog,

On my way to work every day I get the bus from the stop on Gresham Road. One day I noticed something that made me go hmm... There was a plug socket on the wall by the bus stop. A plug socket. On the outside wall. I couldn't recall seeing it there previously. Look, here's a picture:

I think you'll agree, that's an odd place to find a plug socket. What's it for? Charge your phone while you wait for the bus? Maybe new-fangled electric cars can top up their batteries as they cruise around town? And I wonder what Health & Safety would make of it, being exposed to the rain like that?

But as abruptly as it appeared, it was gone. But not only gone, there was no sign that it had ever been there. No holes, marks, wires...nothing. Here's the same patch of wall, yesterday:

What's that all about then eh?"

Garden state

Time for an update...

Since getting involved with sunflowers, we've also started with tomatoes and runner beans. I've also got adventurous and tried to grow a buddleia from a cutting. I picked up some rooting powder and then went on a mission to get some cuttings, dragging CP along as my accomplice. She stood looking embarrassed while I hacked at a shrub in the garden of someone else down our street. I've tried about 10 separate cuttings, and at the moment, I'm hopeful of some success. A few are pictured (below left) and although a couple are now looking very sorry indeed, another one or two are doing pretty well.


It's now 4 weeks since the first sunflower seeds were planted. Sadly, the brave seeds planted directly into the flowerbeds didn't fare too well. Despite daily watering and a nice bed of fresh compost, it must be assumed they never germinated as there remains no sign of them.



Thankfully, several other seeds were planted in pots inside. And they're going really well! We've even started naming a couple of them. 'Senior' (pictured right) is the older brother of 'Junior' (their names inspired by the 'Move your feet' hitmakers). He's going well, measured today at about 16cm.

Back outside and I tried planting some in the flowerbed once they had toughened up a bit indoors. These brave souls have been christened 'the twins'. There's probably no room for sentiment in the tough realm of the

garden but I'm a bit of a sap and my inability to ruthlessly thin out the seedlings could seriously hamper our chances of victory in this competition. The twins are now a few cm apart and doing pretty well (left) but loads of our seedlings remain together as I don't like separating them and breaking their roots. Ah well, I guess I'd be happy with a garden with twice as many stunted flowers as I would with a few lonely giants...

Things that make you go hmmm

While inspecting the garden yesterday, I noticed a group of flattened plants (we planted seeds there but they are most likely weeds). Looking more closely, the area in question was footprint-sized.

Hopefully it belongs to the kid from next door, coming over to rescue his footy. If it's not that, then, well......as I said, hopefully it belongs to the kid from next door.

But if he goes stepping on my sunflowers....

CP and I are turning the spare room into a nursery

.





Don't panic parents! Not that kind of nursery!

I'm being overwhelmed by my urge to plant stuff at the moment. I bought some runner beans at the weekend and have set them up in front of a sunny window to give them some strength before transferring to a grow-bag outside.



That was the scene at about 8.15 this morning. They will get more sun than that as the day goes on.