Category Archives: cosmos

Get plugged into the solstice

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Want to see the Sun rise over the heel stone at 04.52 am tomorrow and enjoy some true solstice vibes from the comfort of your own home/bed?

Feeling a bit too long in the tooth for standing in the cold all night, and listening to the sound of early morning drumming workshops with no sleep is not the aural delight it used to be? Tune into the above youtube for some genuine solstice vibes piped to you via the internet. Put on your best Stonehenge slippers, have some tea and toast ready and watch that magic moment when the sun rises.

A Happy Solstice to you all, whatever time it is where you are and wherever you’ll be celebrating the solstice.

We love the stories of the good old days when Ken Barlow used to turn up at a Stonehenge solstice and you could sit on top of the stones and watch whilst Hawkwind played “Silver Machine” as the sun came up. All for Free! Unfortunately we didn’t go to any of the festivals there but attempted it once and missed it by one day. The convoy was driving off when we got there.

Big up Wally Hope by the way, organiser of the Stonehenge Festival. Without him there would be no Crass and without Crass there would be no Crass-like Anarchic seed sowing method that we use.

North London potato update and more!

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Following on to our potato post the other day, here’s how Debby H‘s in north London are doing. As she said “They were supposed to be earlies, but I think we planted them too early as they took nearly two months to show any shoots. However, in the past week, they have shot up!” They are looking great, we always think if you can protect the plants from the frosts (under fleece or plastic), it’s worth getting them in early as you can (within reason of course).

She also sent us a picture of one of her tomatoes (above), which is looking well healthy. Also, a couple of pots of dwarf sunflowers and the two right at the bottom what we think are a phormium tenax, which is about to flower! Thanks for that Debby, do keep us updated as we do love those reports from the other side of the Thames.

Please don’t tell us “summer” has ended

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We’ve heard today in true British Bank Holiday style, that the current lovely weather we’re having is coming to an abrupt end this weekend. Typical! But to cheer us up here’s a couple of great photographs.

The first (above) is Rich in the Lake District’s back garden. Doesn’t it look great! As he said, “The bluebells are really high now”. That’s one chilled out view there Rich, we bet it’s a nice calm place to relax in!

And above is Debby H‘s garden in north London, more specifically the cosmos bed. Debby told us “I can’t believe the number of flowers that we have already on our cosmos plants. They’re only small, about 30 cm high. We planted them out about 3 weeks ago and most of the flowers have come since then. In previous years we haven’t had these many flowers till late summer.”

“I planted the seeds in mid-February, whereas I have done it in March previously. I kept half indoors on a windowsill, and the other half were moved to our plastic greenhouse. It doesn’t seem to have made any difference to how they are growing.” It’s always good to experiment and see what happens. Thanks for the report Debby, we scattered our cosmos seed all over the garden this year and not sure if any have come up or those damned slugs have had them. We will keep you all posted.

And thanks to the great blog from Penny Golightly here’s news of some free herbs seeds here. Cheers Penny!

We love shortwave!

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Below is the studio version of this morning’s Imaginary Station’s WWLS – We Love Shortwave transmission from Radio Miami International featuring tunes and mixes from DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore and Kit, G5KIT. If you love shortwave you’ll love WWLS!

At 22.45 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called We love Shortwave. Here’s the tracklistings:

Radio Sweden Interval Signal
Triptica – Mysterious Radio Signals
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – This Frequency
Shortwave Sounds – Reflections
Madtone – Spoken Words from Ibiza
Holger Czukay/Jah Wobble – Hiss n Listen
Gregory Morris & The 18th Parallel – Dub In Your Stereo (dub of Message in your radio by Kumar)

It all seems to have started up north

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A big thanks to Debby H. for sharing an update from her north London garden! While we sowed ours directly outside this year and are still waiting for them to pop up, Debby’s cosmos are already starting to flower even though the plants are still small (see her photos above).

It’s great to see that her seed potatoes are finally breaking through. There’s some really healthy growth on them already.

Elsewhere in the garden, the rhododendron is also blooming beautifully.

As she mentioned “The bluebells are still lovely, although unfortunately not the native ones” (above).

The garden is looking great at this time of year as well, what’s it going to look like later this year? We can’t wait to find out, keeping sending us the updates Debby!

In north London the gardens are certainly waking up

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London for letting us know how her garden is at this time of the year. She said, ” I have now planted the cosmos in the back garden (above), and we have hundreds of bluebells coming up this year (below)” There’s a big clump behind the cosmos above.

“I thought I would include a picture of our pear tree which has more blossom this year than I remember from previous years. To the left of the tree is the doronicum, which is also blooming well.” There’s a post about the doronicum from March here.

Thanks as always Debby and great to see that things are developing in the garden!

A report from north of the river

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Cheers to Debby H for getting in touch and for letting us know that things are starting to hot up in the garden. “We have germinated about 30 dwarf sunflowers which will need to be potted soon. Also, our tomato plants have finally started to shoot.” Brilliant.

“The cosmos are ready to be planted in pots and put in the cold frame. We have already put some in our plastic greenhouse. We are going to see which environment they prefer.” Great stuff! Please let us know the outcome of that Debby.

She also mentions a plant we have never heard of before (pic above). “Last year our neighbours gave us some plants that we think are called Doronicum. We had seen them giving a good display in our neighbours’ garden and praised them, so they gave us some which we planted last autumn. They are all now beginning to flower. Lots of buds there.” They look a lovely flower!

We look forward to more reports Debby!

A report from north London

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If you remember, last month Debby H in north London let us know that the early sowing of her cosmos seeds had germinated (here).  She very kindly sent us a picture of how they are getting on now and look how healthy they look! “We will put some in a flowerpot soon and put it in the plastic green house.” Great stuff! We still haven’t sown ours yet and will have to do so soon.

So also sent us a great picture of some daffodils growing on an area of council-owned land, down the middle of a road near where she lives. Impressive or what? Thanks Debby and let’s hope spring is around the corner.

A canna lily in north London

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Thanks to Debby H for getting in touch with a great picture of her canna lily and don’t it look grand!
She also let us know that she sowed the first of her cosmos seeds a couple of days ago and she’ll let us know when they start showing up. As she said “It’s a bit early to sow them, but it’s an experiment!” We are always up for gardening experiments here. Saying that most of our gardening experiences are experiments.

A passport to beer and nuts

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We’ve just listened to this weeks Great Lives on Radio 4 with John Cooper Clarke about one Johnny Green (once hippy, driver, writer and the road manager of The Clash and Tour De France fan). It’s a great 27 minutes with contributions from his kids, Topper Headon and Chris Salewicz. It’s nice to hear old JCC’s distinctive voice again. To listen to the show click here.

On the subject of Johnny Green, here’s something about him on blackmarketclash.co.uk (here) about The Clash’s Bury St Edmunds gig in 1978 (where we were also in attendance). We love the line at the end which makes us smile “I considered the Camden Town rockabilly as my friend and a passport to beer and nuts”. We all love a passport to beer and nuts.