This year we’re growing a lot of varieties of chillies. Which is ironic because I have problems with hot food (though I love it a lot)
Varieties include:
Apache F1
Habanero
Tabasco
Hungarian hot wax
Demon red
Anaheim
Birds eye
Wenk’s yellow hots
Purple Beauty (sweet pepper)
Orange Bell (sweet pepper)
Palivec Pointy Red
Early Jalapeño
Pepperdew
There’s also one called ‘F’. This is not its real name, but I’ve lost the packet.
Update: It’s called Fresno!
Going to be a hot summer!
Not making tea and coffee, but growing it.
I don’t live up a mountain, but it’s fun to try exotic species. They were presents to my wife from about 2 years ago, but they’re worth a punt.
Soak the seeds in warm water for 20-40 minutes before planting. Fingers crossed!
A few years ago I tried growing oyster mushrooms on a green log. It didn’t work.
This time round, I’m trying to grow them on a toilet roll. I hope it works, it’s the last new roll in the house. This may not be the best thought out plan…
The steps:
Boil a kettle and soak the toilet roll.
Use a spoon to remove the inoculated grain
Add to the center of the toilet roll
Cover with a large plastic bag and leave in a warm place for 10-14 days…
Few weeks ago I tried hunting down “Peppadew” (capsicum baccatum piquante) chillies to grow at home. Well, the “Pepperdew” chillies are in. A bit late due to loosing the packet but they’re now in the airing cupboard to hopefully get them underway. In a few days I’ll have them in full sun and under the LED grow lights to boost them as much as I can.
My chillies were starting to look a bit leggy after I put them in the airing cupboard too long.
The LED lighting system off eBay for about £14 is widely acknowledged as useless (I found this out after I ordered) but I’m going to have a go anyway. It’ll be used to extend the growing hours in the morning and evening on a south facing window.
It’s not everyday I come into work to have a pleasant present. Especially from my project manager. Today was an exception and is been handed a German sourdough cake starter. I hoped for a few seconds it might actually be a sourdough starter as I’ve tried before to make one and failed, making something akin to rotting fish and blue cheese.
Anyway I must try it. It’s an excuse for cake.
Just a quick update on the rhubarb. See, you can transplant it in the middle of a dry summer during full growth and it just doesn’t care. You can’t kill it if you plant it in manure!
My friends Chad and Tanya visited this weekend (bringing a range of beer and cider) mainly to try some of my pizza and experience the delights of “The Man Cave” cinema experience – though we made so much pizza (probably about 20 or so) we never actually got round to doing much in the way of cinema viewing. Chad has pointed out I need a wifi baby monitor so I can sit out in the garden without worrying to much about my baby to be.
As you can see from the above image the insulation on the pizza oven doesn’t really survive the burns I’ve been doing. It should really be encapsulated in a lime render – similarly the large cracks that have formed correspond to the large cracks in the oven itself. It’s pretty much had it and we’re intending on rebuilding it soon. I think the only real way to do it is to have everyone over stomping some mud for the new oven, offer them pizza from the old then rebuild it the next day. We pretty much know how much we need (a lot!) and if we make enough screened material without pointy stones in it it should be an easy process.
At least I know what’s wrong with the current oven – we just didn’t use anywhere near enough sand in it!
Pics below
Bikes are great. Lungs aren’t. Well, they are if they work and mine have decided that after decades of idle use they’d throw a spanner in the works and make things really difficult for me.
I’ve been suffering allergies all my life and recently since before the cycling I’d developed a pretty nasty cough. You can get used to a cough and when I think about it, I’ve had it on and off, probably more on for about 2-3 years. I suspect it may even have been the cause for my umbilical hernia a couple of years ago that foiled my allotment for a year.
Anyway, I’d had a chest x-ray to rule out anything nasty and on Thursday I popped into the doctors after flu like symptoms on Wednesday had made me feel really ill. Thursday night it really kicked in and breathing became like treacle. I survived the night but felt like I had pneumonia.
I saw the doctor the next morning and was immediately put on a course of steroids. So I’m now on 11 pills a day of various sorts, inhalers and sprays to control it. Lovely. It seems one of the glands in my throat is infected and producing lots of gunk, filling my lungs and making me feel pretty rotten. After about 12 hrs on sat, I felt much better and could even sleep. Not for long as my friends had popped down from Runcorn to see us 
My fruit trees arrived on Thursday. I’d got five canes of Autumn Bliss raspberries
A Bramley 20 M26 (that’s a Bramley clone 20, less vigorous than a normal Bramley and a root ball that limits natural growth to 2.5-3.0m to fit in with the rest of the trees)
Japanese wineberry. Never had one of these…
And a really big fruiting blackberry. To replace the ones that didn’t really fruit in our garden!
There is also a grape vine, but that’s more of a stick at the moment…
I'm Tim, a 29yr old ex-Allotmenteer. My wife and I used to have a small 5 rod plot in South Essex where we grew all manner of veg. I'm also involved in brewing the odd keg of beer.
Recently we bought a house with a 65ftx30ft garden, which we're converting into a mini orchard and veg beds. The entire transformation is happening at the moment and being chronicled by a timelapse camera.
The hope is to introduce chickens next year into the orchard to allow them free range.
If you want to contact me, you can do so here
