Category Archives: Jazz Gardening

The end is nigh (sort of, until next year)

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We’ve sadly not been out in the back garden for a good while mainly due to the bad weather and also been busy elsewhere (rediscovering the joy of building crystal sets, contributing to Free Radio Skybird and DIY jobs indoors). We’ve missed being out in the garden! Yesterday was cold but the sun came out after a well misty start and it gave us an opportunity to see what’s what!

The lawn we sowed after pulling up some of the rubbish 1980’s crazy paving in the August bank holiday has taken really well and it’s had a couple of cuts with a flymo and it’s looking good (above: before, during and after). The Dahlias to the left of the lawn don’t seem to have gone black yet (have we actually had a hard frost yet or are the plants getting a bit more tolerant?) but very soon we’ll be digging them up and drying them out for keeping indoors all ready for next year.

The veg bed at the bottom of the garden is looking a bit sorry for itself like an allotment that’s been forgotten about but an hour or two spent pulling up the Nasturtiums and a fork over should do the trick. The Cardoons down there that did so well this year (below) have now died down and the local Parakeets are using the dry heads as food but lo and behold there’s more greenery appearing at the bottom. Brilliant stuff, a plant and a half!And right by the house and up against next door’s extension (so getting the benefit of the heat) are the Garlic we bought back in September here (alongside some succulents and a Egyptian Walking Onion or two) stuck in the great South Suburban storage box we found in a skip up the road. Roll on spring. Please!

We’ve just had a look on the web for any mentions of London based seed swaps, free seeds, garden give-a-ways to cheer us up at this time of year, nothing as yet. But there’s news of a couple of Potato Days that are worth going to:

London Potato Fair
Sunday 9th February 2020
11.00am-2.30pm
Roots & Shoots,
Walnut Tree Walk,
Lambeth SE11 6DN
http://www.rootsandshoots.org.uk
Free Admission.

Potato Day and Seed Fair
Sunday 1st March 2020
11.00am-4.00pm
Garden Museum,
5 Lambeth Palace Road,
London SE1 7LB
Free Admission to the Potato Day.

A potato finale plus animal nightlife

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And here are the last of the spuds we dug up yesterday as we don’t want them going rotten with all the wet weather we probably get in the forthcoming months. These were originally from seed spuds we bought from Shannon’s and it’s taken us years to work out if you leave the potatoes in for longer they will grow larger. Sometimes it takes a while for the penny to drop. But when it does…

Also the other week we noticed a small tin of opened sweet corn and an opened bread packet down by the pond and thought nothing of it. Then we found that something had severed the lead from the little solar panel that powers the battery of the pond pump. Now yesterday we found they’ve all been severed. We have a couple of cats and they usually keep the vermin away and we’ve never had anything like this before. Any ideas?

Could the above be anything to do with it? We have a big pile of broken slabs piled up at the back of the pond (that we took from the area that has now been seeded) do you reckon there’s something that has made their home in there who likes gnawing through wires? Rodents perhaps? Suggestions please. We are putting an ad on Gumtree today for anyone who wants a load of 70’s slabs for free as hardcore for an old shed or something. That should do the trick to clear the area. Trouble is we still have to buy another pond pump next year. That’ll be the third in as many years, damn!

Radio, suckers never play me

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On Sunday 17th November at 1300 UTC there’s a new transmission from DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird on 6070 kHz shortwave by Channel 292 and if you haven’t got a suitable radio it can also be heard on the SDR link on their site here. The show will be rebroadcast the week after on Sunday 24th November at 1200 UTC on 7440 kHz.

This month’s programme will feature: Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory, Steve with Mini-indie radio and our very own One Deck Pete presenting the Skybird Mailbag. They will also play Pete’s “Shortwave mix and match” that has new tunes from: .ihaveaface, Jazzy System, Dabey and Leaking Shell.

The programme will be available on DJ Frederick’s Soundcloud page a day or so before transmission date if you want to hear it in true stereo but we here prefer the show via by ground wave. Tune in and turn on! #shortwavesnotdead #madtone #freeradioskybird

Giving it all away

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A great thing about gardening is the passing on of stuff (whether it be it seeds, tools or plants) from one gardener to another. We don’t “give to receive” but there’s something nice about imparting something and then weeks later you get given something from someone totally unrelated. A Zen mate of ours told us this was “the universe rearranging itself”.

This week the universe has been on the rearrangement tip as the other day while going through the bag we take to work we found a folded piece of loo roll with a peg on it. “What the?” we thought as we began to unravel the mystery packet (above: packet with foxglove and lily seeds). Then we remembered a friend had given us some foxglove seeds.

On Thursday we had a workmate kindly pass on some lily seed heads (we’ve never grown lilies from seed before so any advice appreciated!) and last night a Tai Chi classmate brought in these well-healthy foxglove seedlings (below) which went in today. It now looks like we need to repay the universe for this week’s gifts. Anyone fancy some Egyptian onion sets?

 

When one door closes, another opens

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Things are coming to an end in the garden, here’s the last of the cherry tomatoes grown from seed and the potatoes where we’ve been very patient when it comes to digging them up. Look at the size of that big one, that’s a large colander by the way! Ta to Shannon’s for pointing us in the direction of the tomato seeds and the seed potatoes.

And finally the garlic we put in to overwinter. Those didn’t take long to get off to a good start. We’ll be soon saying goodbye the 2019 vegetable gardening season but it’s never too early to start planning for next year!

Everything’s gone Green

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Due to being away for a weekend, periods of bad weather and being busy with other things, it seems like it’s been ages since we were out in the garden. We go down the pond and feed the fish daily but we haven’t done much work out there for a long while. This morning the sun came out and we took the opportunity to give the newly sown lawn (up to the tree on the right) its first cut with the flymo at its highest setting.

Over a few weekends in July/August we pulled up the 1970’s crazy paving that had been there for years which was nothing but trouble what with the constant weeding we had to do to keep it tidy (pic below: the paving that was).

Suprisingly when we pulled up the paving there was just very compacted soil and a bit of sand and no hardcore as we expected. Then all we have to do was give it a good decompacting with a garden fork and repeat the process a few times.

Finally over the August Bank Holiday we popped into Shannon’s for a couple of packs of grass seeds, sowed them all, put a thin layer of soil over the top, gave it a light trample and hoped for the best and low and behold it’s now looking great! The grass was wet this morning when we cut it hence the unevenness of it and its “puppy fur” type look but it’s a 100% improvement on the paving!

Skybird on repeat

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Due to poor reception over the whole of Europe the other week, Free Radio Skybird is rebroadcasting their October edition tomorrow at 1100 UTC (12 noon UK).

Tune in using your shortwave set on 7440khz in the 41 metre band, via the SDR on Channel 292 or failing that, have a listen from locations around Germany using the SDR site here. There’s a mix from Weeds’ One Deck Pete featuring a new track from Madtone an old feature about Numbers Stations and a Delia Derbyshire Radiophonic Laboratory special.

Fingers crossed for good propagation!

#shortwavesnotdead #freeradioskybird #madtone #deliaderbyshire

Saturday night’s radio today

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https://soundcloud.com/djfrederick/free-radio-skybird-5-october-2019

Here’s an advance on  Free Radio Skybird‘s Saturday 5th October at 2200 UTC/ 2300 UK transmission on 6070 khz on shortwave if you want to hear it now and without the sounds of the ionosphere.

This month’s programme features One Deck Pete’s “Sunspot Minimum but the Music’s maximum” mix at 11.22 in, at 22.01 Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory which is an excellent special on Delia Derbyshire (cheers also to Justin to pointing us to this great Delia Derbyshire resource here), a rerun of a Numbers Stations special at 34.47 featuring Akin Fernandez and Simon Mason and at 42.35 One Deck Pete again with the Skybird Mailbag. 

“Solar minimum but the music’s maximum” mix has tunes from: Froth Whitlam, Dasya, Andre J Kwenda and a worldwide exclusive from Madtone with Diamond in the sky.

Big thanks to DJ Frederick for getting us involved in the Skybird project and a big shout to everyone else involved (Justin & Steve). Tune in and drop out (now or later)! #Shortwavesnotdead #Freeradioskybird

Another page in your (gardening) diary

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This afternoon we put in another couple of rows of onions and garlic which we got from Shannon’s the other week so they can happily overwinter (or they’ll only sit in our seed tin until next spring). In the bed (above) where once stood a greenhouse many moons ago and where now the Thompson & Morgan trial sunflower and tomatoes are still hanging on, we put in one row each of Autumn Champion (white) and Electric Red onions.

And near to the house we put in an extra row of Marco garlic that’ll get a good bit of the sun because of the position of the bed. To the left of the picture can just be seen the newly bit of lawn we sowed around the August Bank Holiday. A few weeks previously we took up all of the 1970’s crazy paving that was doing nothing but attracting weeds in between its cracks. With all this late gardening action we can’t wait to see the results next year. Roll on next spring!