Category Archives: From our guest contributor

Buses connect us all

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Here’s KBUS from last weekend, a tribute to the ‘umble autobus from Imaginary Stations. There’s all sorts of bus related tunes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and the show really is the ticket if you love bus travel!

The show includes at 03.49 a mix from One Deck Pete called Mind The Closing Doors and here’s the tracklistings:
Alan Doyle [f/ Steph Simon] – Confessions Of A Bus Rider
Hoovobot – No fair Bus Fare
The Salsoul Orchestra – Chicago bus stop
Lifetime Pineapple – Double bus fare

Big up the bus!

From pirate ships on the North Sea to the French countryside

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A massive thank you to Spike from Morschen43, who is located near Le Puy-en-Velay in Southern France. He sent over some snaps of his house and garden yesterday, and a nice slice of the world it is.

You might remember Spike from his track “MV Ross Revenge (For Ever!)”, a tune we love and featured in a couple of our shortwave mixes. As well as making music, he loves a bit of horticulture too!

As well as growing flowers he grows vegetables as well, and we’re loving the veg patch below. For those who know us, you know we have a soft spot for a good runner bean cane! The long row of canes and that classic wigwam structure to the left are right up our street. We’re already looking forward to seeing how the vegetable garden progresses as the seasons change (more photographs later this year please Spike!)

Spike spent yesterday giving his roses some attention. As he said, “Roses need concentration and attention for cutting.” He’s right there! When we worked for the council, many years ago, there was no love for the craft. No one cared about achieving that classic “rosebowl” effect or making sure the cut was just above an outward-facing bud. They’d just hack them all down to a uniform two feet! It’s good to hear that there are people who still care.

To go along with the photos, Spike picked out a track from his Bandcamp, a duet titled “J’Aime Les Brunes Sans Filtres”

 

Cheers for the photographs of your great house and garden, Spike! Keep those pictures coming as the garden grows as we’ll be well interested in how you get on in that great vegetable patch.

This is Kyiv calling, this Kyiv calling

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∑∑´´Big thanks to our good friend in Kyiv, Wlad (US7IGN) for getting in touch this week. He last post was in November and if you remember, there was a potato shaped like a love heart and photographs of his good friend Sergiy UT3UFD‘s collection of seedlings that were started from seeds of whatever he eats here.

Sergiy’s advocado is coming along well (above) since last time and as Wlad jokingly said “His banana even had a baby!” (below).

Wonderful stuff, when you think they are having as he told us, “regular problems with heating, water (out for up to 3 days), and electricity, but we survive even at -20C at night.” Wow, that is some going -20C!

The best thing we think, is how he experimented with the seeds from a pitaya he bought and they’ve started to come really well, growing their first set of “true” leaves (main picture at the top and below).

And if you remember, this is how he heats his plants, with this ingenious set up:

Great to hear from you as ever Wlad, thanks for the pictures of Sergiy’s growing experiments, as they are fantastic!

By the way Wlad has finished his third book, which is available here. Here’s a mention of it on SWLing Post here.

First sowings of the year

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We know we mentioned a couple of posts ago that you don’t want to be too keen on sowing seeds at this time of year, but we’ve started a couple off, seeing as both seeds need a few weeks to germinate.

This morning, we put 3 pots each of Reals Seeds Prairie Fire Mini Bush Chilli Pepper and Lemon Drop Hot Citrus Pepper in a heated seed tray. This year we’re using some B&Q bought Rocket Gro seed/cutting compost as the cheap supermarket shop-bought peat-free we bought a while ago just weren’t that good and we lost a load of seedings to the dreaded damping off.

On looking at the packets, the Prairie Fire takes 2-3 weeks to germinate and the Lemon Drop 3-4, now that’s a long wait. We will be training patience in this exercise and will keep you in the loop if we see any movement at all.

A fiver goes a long long way!

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Many thanks to our friend Adrienne for sharing this photo of her geranium (or is it a pelargonium?) still flowering outdoors in December. It’s a wonderful splash of colour for this time of year and we can’t believe that it’ll be the winter solstice in a few days time as well.

If you remember, last year we were at a summer fete and purchased a pink geranium (above) in a church sale in Hither Green for a fiver and it was well worth the money. We loved the plant so much and wanted other people to enjoy it as well so we took a few cuttings and gave them away. As the old gardening saying goes “Pass them on!” Cheers again Adrienne and ta for letting us know how the plant is doing.

A message from Kyiv (November 2025)

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(Main pic above: “I saw a romantic potato in the store”. Great stuff Wlad!)

The other month we heard from Wlad in Kyiv (here), where he shared some pictures from his friend Sergiy, who has been growing an impressive collection of plants on his balcony—everything started from seeds of whatever he eats, the last time it was photographs of his avocado plant. We’ve got more this month!

The avocados (above) that featured the other month are growing really well with strong stems, big leaves, and looks like they have no intention of slowing down. On top of that, he experimented with the seeds from a pitaya he bought and they’ve started to germinate (below). We had to look up what a pitaya was as we never heard of it before, it’s also known as the strawberry pear or dragon fruit. More on growing those here. Good luck with those, Sergiy!

And to add to those bits of tropical delight, he also decided to try growing pineapples (below).

It’s hard enough as it is to grow stuff like that anyway but at the moment in Kyviv electricity and heating have been unreliable again, so he improvised: he built a small stove on the balcony and added a new battery-powered lamp.

And that is some bulb!

And if you love a bit of circuitry as we do, here’s what’s inside it:

Now that’s what it’s all about, being inventive and making use of what you you can get your hands on. Great stuff Sergiy! Thanks again to Wlad for sending us the pictures, it’s appreciated. Keep safe the both of you, and do send us more updates.

Starting from scratch in Adelaide

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A cosmos a month before christmas

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A big thanks to our good friend Rich R up in the Lake District for sending over the photograph of his cosmos (and a shout to Debby H too, as the seeds came from her plants). Rich writes, “Really cold here today, wind chill feels like 2°C. With hard frosts and snow on the way, I thought I’d better send you this pic of the cosmos before it’s too late.”

Brilliant stuff, Rich – thanks again (and to Debby H) for sharing!

Autumn colours in north London

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Thanks to Debby H up in north London for this picture above. “The garden plants may be coming to an end for this year, but I think the colours are lovely in the sunshine. Here’s a picture of my golden rod and peony plants, with the french lavender in the middle.” That bed looks great and there’s still a good bit of colour on show.

Let’s see weather permitting, if we can still get some pics from our gardens to stick on the blog well into the autumn, pictures please. Great stuff Debby!