Category Archives: Guest Gardeners

Gardening website of the month

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A big shout to our good gardening/music/radio friend from across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for starting us off on our new feature. We at Weeds (with the help of our gardening mates online and offline) will try and bring you once a month a gardening website that will hopefully inspire us all.

The first of the series is the excellent The Italian Gardening Project which is just brilliant. It was started to keep the old Italian gardening traditions alive (Nostalgia for Yesterday … Lessons for Today) and here’s a more in-depth explanation of why it was started (here).

The gallery on the site featuring some fantastic gardens and there’s some great videos about seed saving and tomato staking amongst lots more good stuff too.

One of our favourite posts is Canning Tomatoes with Mr. Ciccone. There’s some nice memories about a day of preparing and canning the produce with someone who knew a lot about the art and it sounded like a great day out including the supping of “espresso corretto, espresso “corrected” with a splash of whiskey” and some nice food imbibed with some home-made wine. Do go and have a look at the website as it’s well worth it and is bound give you ideas.

And Justin has picked an apt tune from the great Bunny Wailer as there’s some fine examples of fig trees on the website too.

They’re on their way!

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Now some of the flowers have dropped off the tomato plants we’ve been giving them and other fruiting plants a weekly feed of comfrey liquid. We’re also been giving the tomatoes some support with canes and garden wire as in a few week’s time some of the fruit will get heavy.

We’ve been using the home-made feed sparingly as we haven’t been getting that many comfrey leaves to make the liquid out of. We usually try and pass the feed on as it’s brilliant stuff but up until now have just about enough for ourselves. Fingers crossed we get a splurge of comfrey leaf growth soon.

The zucchini/courgette we planted in a in a pot is starting to flower now too and the climbing beans plants we got from Shannon’s are setting fruit on one of the three runner bean cane tripods we put in. As for the other two tripods, one went for a burton through underwater and the other one has been overun with blackfly. It’s strange as there’re only a couple of feet apart from each other.

So keep on with the watering through this dry spell and get some plant feed to your vegetables to get the best out of the plants cropping wise.

And while we’re on beanpoles here something brilliant bean support-wise from a few years ago from Vic Godard from The Subway Sect’s Dad’s garden. It’s a 16 caner with a nice tying system at the top and it really looks the part!

Are we there yet?

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We’ve been away for a few days to sunny Sudbury where the only stress was making sure a couple of cats, the garden birds and the guest ducks were fed and cat treats administered. It was nice to get away for a break after the last couple of years of the on and off madness of lockdown.

When we returned, the garden at home had certainly grown even after 5 days. The spuds we put in early (in February under cover here) were looking well happy and flowering like anything and so was the courgette seedling we put in a big pot (above). One tip, don’t even consider consuming the fruits that may appear on the potato plant after flowering as you’ll certainly keel over. This is how one website put it “…if you are feeling adventurous, you could try tasting a ripe berry, but don’t swallow it unless your health insurance is paid up.” We always knock them off if we see them growing just to be on the safe side.

Now it’s back to that age old “When do we pull the spuds up?” conundrum. It’s all confusing, as far as we can remember these were Golden Wonder maincrop potatoes which you supposed harvest in August/September, but we put them in earlier than they should have been so that’ll make a difference won’t it? If you want to find out more, there’s a good article about the various potato types explained on the Gardener’s World website here.

We usually wait until the flowers and foliage have well died down before we go in with a fork (remembering what Joe Maiden used to say about going in a few times so nothing is left in the ground. “Volunteer” potatoes can muck up an OCD laid out vegetable bed the year after if not) but there’s nothing stopping the impatient digging around in the compost earlier seeing if there’s anything small to harvest. If you’ve got raised beds filled with general purpose compost it shouldn’t take much effort get in there with a trowel and be like a careful archaeologist. If there’s nothing of a decent size just cover them back up and let them get on with it. We’ve read online some people enjoy spuds when they’re marble sized, each to their own we say.

Another thing we actually got around to doing was “side shooting” our tomato plants. This is simply taking out the side shoots that appear between the leaf joint (making sure they’re not the fruit bearing trusses that grow from the stem not on the junction between leaf and stem). The whole idea of doing this, is the plant will put all of its energy into making the fruit rather than into making leaves. If you have a butchers at this video below though the great Bob Flowerdew suggests growing Tomatoes on a couple of main stems. We love the bit that starts at 2.25 “I thought you were a good gardener?”

But the big question here isn’t if he’s a good gardener or not, it’s is he a reggae lover or a Kraftwerk fan or both, we need to know! If anybody knows please tell us.

Something old, something new, something wood

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We’ve been a bit busy in the garden making good use of the lovely weather we’ve been having hence no new posts until now. Today has started gloomy and we’re expected to have a couple of days of this until the weekend when it brightens up again which is great news.

We heard from our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore who has started a new project, something that is brand new to us here at Weeds. It’s a hugelkultur bed. As it says online: “Hugelkultur is a centuries-old, traditional way of building a garden bed from rotten logs and plant debris. These mound shapes are created by marking out an area for a raised bed, clearing the land, and then heaping up woody material (that’s ideally already partially rotted) topped with compost and soil.” http://www.almanac.com

More info here on this different sort of raised bed that made us think initially of the Victorian hot beds. Best of luck with that Justin, do let us know how you get on with it as it sounds great and looks good too!

A couple of years ago a good friend gave us a couple of foxglove plants and they’ve multiplied and starting to come alive this year. Self seeded plants are sometimes a pain (in the case of spuds left in the ground or weeds) but these foxgloves are brilliant, even the one coming out of the brickwork on the garage.

The raised beds by the Dad Corner are starting to burst into life. The seed potatoes that were put in extra early are starting to grow and the overwintered garlic in the 2nd raised bed on the right are well on their way. Shame we didn’t have much luck with the shallots which just withered away. Remember we’re still in May and there’s reports of the odd unexpected frosts about so still keep an eye on the weather forecast for those cold nights and keep those old net curtains handy!

In the wild bit at the bottom which doesn’t get much light where’s there’s a row of spuds, cardoons and some wildflower mix from those beebombs and the odd assortment of cheap seed packets is started to look a bit “wild” instead of looking a bit untended. We’re trying to get it looking wild like the beds at the Horniman’s Gardens (below) which’ll take a few years and a bit of effort but it’s worth trying!

A garden in Hokkaido

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A big thanks to Stevyn and Yukako Prothero for sending us pictures of their first journey into the world of gardening in Hokkaido, Japan. We know Stevyn from the excellent Iron Feather Journal fanzine (there’s loads about it here and here) and he was also behind the Towne Club Records Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast remix project here which included a musical contribution from Madtone.

We at Weeds love a garden no matter its size or form and this is a neat little one. What makes it even better is that it’s the first time they’ve both had a go at growing stuff and in their own words with “little knowledge or experience.” That’s what’s gardening’s about, starting small, learning from any mistakes and see how you get on. You may get the odd failure but you’ll get successes too. Just being in the outdoors tinkering away with the many gardening jobs is healthy for a start and keeps your mind off the various lists and worries of the week.

The plot is compact “the earth is very rich, it’s excellent soil and get lots of sunshine and rain” says Stevyn. There’s a great mix of stuff growing including tomatoes, beans, peppers, zuchini, eggplants, shiso, carrots, lettuce, pumpkins, asparagus and onions! It’s right up our street.

He told us that the American orange pumpkins are rare compared to the green Japanese pumpkin and also jalapeno peppers are scarce over there too and cost a fortune.

As always we ask our contributors to pick a tune and Stevyn chose this one, a cover of a song from “a very touching sweet tv show about a man and two kids who live in a shack in Hokkaido trying to survive called Kita no kuni kara (From the North Country)”.

Also Stevyn sent us a pic of a rice paddy near his house “Many miles of rice paddys here, as the people eat rice daily” and how great is that scenery?

Also whilst we’re on the subject of Japan and gardens have a look here at a great garden they visited last year in Tomakomai. Here’s a sneak preview. A fun garden indeed!

Thanks again to Stevyn and Yukako for sending the great pics and we’d love to see more photo’s later on in the year to see how things develop!

Dub gardeners of the world unite yet again

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Yesterday morning on Radio 4 was a lovely dubwise treat thanks to Don Letts with Dub Revolution: The Story of King Tubby (available on listen again here) a celebration of the dub organiser himself. Worth a listen if you love the world of dub like we do here.

And talking of the rebel dread you may remember that in 2013 that Don said about Weeds: “A Dub/Punk/Gardening blog….now’s there’s a combination I can relate to! Actually tailor made for The Don…..check my yard bredrin’….” and sent some pictures (one below) of his garden which we loved! More pictures of his garden here.

And by chance yesterday we found a link of Don and his wife Grace’s garden on Gardeners’ World which originally went out last year. Have a good butchers at the garden from 6.40 minutes in here. As Don himself says, it’s a real mix of styles! #dubgardenersoftheworldunite

Dub gardeners of the world unite

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A big shout to Jesse Yuen who presents the excellent RTM.FM show North of the River Swan that specialises in downtempo dub and low end business on the second Sunday of the month from 4-6pm. Thanks to Jesse for sending us some pics (Thanks to Dee for taking them) of his great looking indoor planting scheme. The space is so bright and alive!

There’s a good variety of plants here even though us at Weeds are not the best when it comes to looking after plants of the indoor variety (we tend to overwater them then forget about them we’re ashamed to say.) There’s all sorts here including Kentia Palm, Chinese money plant (sometimes known as the UFO plant!), Prayer Plant, Tropic Snow, Mother-in-law’s Tongue, Devils Ivy, Parlour Palm, Umbrella Tree, Yucca, Mistletoe cactus (that looks well interesting) and the well hardy Spider Plant. (By the way whilst we’re on the subject of houseplants we have to mention a podcast to start following if you love gardening of the great indoors. It’s Jane Perrone‘s On the Ledge available here.)

And Jesse sent some of his favourite tunes from the North of the River Swan record boxes below to get stuck into. We didn’t know a lot of this stuff and that is what’s good about this music lark, once you open up that can of worms it’s never ending. There’s a ton of excellent tunes played on the show too so peruse the show’s mixcloud site here.

And do listen to the last episode of the show from 2020 featuring Jesse and Dubplate Pearl as it’s excellent stuff and full of some cracking tunes! Includes Prince Fari, Yabby You, Tradition, the great Depthcharge from Keith Hudson (What a tune!), a dub of Play fool get wise by Johnny Clarke and lots more great music.

Thanks again Jesse for sending the pics and the tunes!

Photosynthesis in dub

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We’re just researching a gardening related mix and just came across a collective called Plants Dub “a project of inter-species music that inquire the communicative transfer between the human being and the plants”. Now you’re talking!

We’re going to dig deeper (no gardening pun intended) and do some finding out. Here’s one to start with “Phoenix carariensis” which is the Canary Island date palm. Who says gardening and music don’t mix?

And just to press home the point here’s a mix from the good Dr Strangedub from the excellent Echo Chamber on KFAI from a good few years ago. Well worth a listen.
Dub gardeners of the world unite!

And just in from our Cincinnati correspondent…

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And this week’s guest garden pics are from our good friend Justin Patrick Moore in Cincinnati and it’s a garden that has a really nice feel to it! All text below from Justin and click here for a recent great piece on Delia Derbyshire from his blog sothismedias.com
The mugwort (below) is planted on the side of the house. I try to harvest some every year around the summer solstice to make smudge sticks with. It’s good on its own, or mixed with sage & lavender in a smudge. It grows real tall and gets kind of wild. Lily of the Valley has taken over the bottom area next to old muggy, and has spread there on its own, fast, from the patch of Lily we have in the front. Blackberry bushes on the fence are also making forays into this area. Our cat Flynn is chilling on the cellar doors.
I bought a mushroom growing kit back in April and gave it a go. I thought, after a few weeks, it didn’t work or I messed it up, so threw it on the compost (below). Now there are a few small oyster mushrooms growing in the compost. Not a bad spot for them really! Some things take longer to sprout than others.
We had a concrete patio put in last year and we’ve had some nice gatherings on it so far. Looking forward to when we can invite the friends, family, cousins and extended kin, blood or otherwise, back to the house and have a proper grill out and pot luck.
We moved the houseplants out and back inside three different times this past spring (below). Except the really big heavy ones I have to use a two-wheeler to get out, because really I’m only going to move those in the spring and the fall. I guess we really should have until the real last frost because they took a beating with repeated cold snaps, thunderstorms and then hot days. That’s Cincinnati weather for you. Wait a few minutes and it will change.
Our veg patch (main picture at the top) also took a beating. I may use some old windows we have to keep the seedlings warmer next year. Most of them didn’t really stick, so we ended up buying starter plants of lettuce, tomatoes, & jalapeno and putting those in, and my wife just got some thai basil and put that in. Our daughter had a bunch of romanesco they had started and she gave us a few to put in. And begged us to take more. That’s a new one for us (We at Weeds haven’t grown them either.)
On the other hand some seed we planted a few years back finally sprang up. We’ve been attempting to get a wildflower patch going around the birdfeeders, because it gets pretty messy around there anyway. Last year a bunch of sunflowers came up from the seed the birds left behind. We also had some borage and other stuff in there. But this year the foxglove seeds we put down -well, at least one- finally came up and made an appearance (above).
The Frankenstein t-shirt on the line I got on a field trip to a place up in Dayton, Ohio, an old surplus store that is going out of business in September. Mendelsons is the first place to look for every last thing, and it has a special place in the hearts of many local electronics and radio hobbyists because of the rows and rows and rows and rows of electronics they have there. “Mendelsons was established in 1960 by the late Harry Mendelson. With over 1 million square feet of warehouse space and inside loading dock facilities, Mendelson’s handles surplus & liquidation inventory from one box to 50 truckloads.” Besides the capacitors I picked up, I also picked up the Frankenstein shirt, because, well… he lives on electricity too. It was great trip with Robert K4PKM and Howard KD8WOY, which we dubbed the “Fellowship of the Fritter” because of the apple fritters I bought at the bakery before heading up to Dayton.
Brilliant stuff Justin, we love the garden here and Mendelsons looks a brilliant shop, it’s a shame it’s closing! And here’s a very chilled tune as chosen by Justin.

How does YOUR garden grow?

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A big shout to our good mate Marc B for sending over some pics of his garden. Because of that damn lockdown all sorts of gardening jobs have been undertaken which ain’t a bad thing. It was Marc’s new compost container (you know we’re a bit passionate about trips  to stick in single teabags in the compost bin at the moment) made from a couple of wooden palettes that caught our eye first. The foxgloves and the aliums in front of it look great too! We do love a foxglove here and aliums are great, you can have them just dotted about here and there or grown in big clumps. Love those purple ones.

Here’s some nice plastic bottle slug and snail repellent with an added coffee ground minefield and we can even see one of the damned gastropods (in the top right) getting as far as away as possible by the look of it!

And here’s something that tolerates all sorts of conditions and is low maintenance but looks great. We don’t know a lot about ferns but we do  know there’s a few to choose from if you wanted to go down that road (aka Pteridomania.) We love the mosaic behind it!

And Marc gave us a great tip about the excellent radio station Venture FM which playing some excellent reggae, soul and the like over the airwaves in London but available for all the world to hear online here. Cheers for the tip and the garden photo’s Marc!

Do send us your garden, windowsill, balcony gardening pics as we love them here! onedeckpete (at) gmail.com