Category Archives: Jazz Gardening

Marvellous!

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Bringing down some tea bags to the compost heap this morning, we were stopped in our tracks by the sight of what we think is our larger Marvel of Peru AKA (‘Belle de Nuit’ or 4 O’Clock plant) which is grown in an old food waste bin. We do love those flowers!

The leaves certainly look like the other marvel, but we’ll wait and see later this evening around 4pm. We’re very happy though, even the smaller red version is great as well. We got the seeds off Real Seeds who have some very interesting seeds in their catalogue here. Have a good Saturday!

Pass us some rain down here please

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Cheers to Rich up in the Lake District for the great picture of what the weather was like up there today. Looks a bit cloudy, if you have any rain to spare in those lakes, could some be passed down here as our lawn is looking so blimmin dry.

Someone at work was telling us the other week about their brother-in-law who has a lovely green lawn even during this summer of draught 2026. She was saying “He’s been watering it morning, noon and night and it looks so green, not like mine”. She went onto say, he’s been watering it so much so that Thames Water contacted him and worried thinking he had a water leak on his property as the water bill had shot up so much. How mad is that? Remember big brother is watching you(r lawn).

Cheers for the picture Rich!

 

 

 

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why?

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Here’s a book we discovered again in the Weeds gardening bookcase (above). It’s a wonderful book, interviewing gardeners and asking them that one big question “Why do you garden?” All sorts of mad stuff in here from a man who mows grass for the council to commercial rhubarb growers in Yorkshire who grow it under candlelight (below).

We’re asking you the same question. “Why do you garden?” Answers on a postcard or to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

And from over in France

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Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay, for sending these pictures of the fruits of his labours and garden. There’s some great looking produce there.

That has come around quick hasn’t it? It was seemingly a few weeks ago when we heard from him when he was preparing his ground with some back breaking work (here and picture below). Good stuff Spike!

If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are all archived here.

Tuesday night tune (before the bins go out)

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We’ve just found this excellent new tune on Bluesky from Cornershop Ft Bubbley Kaur called “Bounce & Salute” and what a great tune it is, with an great video featuring some Trojan singles being pressed and some sort of worker celebration. Wonderful stuff!

Returning to the north

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Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.

“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!

The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).

And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!

Enjoying the heat with that wonky leg?

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We have a bit of a minor leg injury due to carrying heavy stuff about a week Sunday, so we took it very easy in the garden yesterday. After a very light “tip around with a pair of secateurs” we tuned into WAVE from Imaginary Stations on the ATS – 20+ shortwave radio we bought earlier this year. It’s a cheap and cheerful radio and it has some faults but overall, it isn’t bad for the cheap price.

We heard the great mix from our mate Kit G5KIT in Bristol live on air and quoting him a few days ago “I don’t know what it is, but both Dub and Eastern European music both seem to really suit short wave propagation, they just sound …right.” He’s so correct there! Tune in to the studio recording below and Kit’s mix is at 30 minutes in.

Here’s the track listings:
Deep Reggae Sound System – Midnight Dub Waves
Pat Flashman – Summer Dub
The Heptones – Sea of Dub
Groovy Waters – Rock the Casbah

And here’s a few from the Weeds garden including a very small baby sun rose we were given by a friend from work on Friday which was feeling sorry for itself when we put it in the Belfast sink later that evening but on Sunday we even had a flower!

The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.

And the Globe Thistle is doing well too! Happy gardening everyone.

Barry Norman’s Film of the Week

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Here’s an excellent film from many years ago well worth watching. It features some historical stuff, Noel Dyer who hitch hiked from Peckham to Ethiopia, The Reverend Hillman, a chap with some great headwear at 39.30 in and some excellent tunes.

The first is one from the great Wilmoth Houdini (one of his well known tunes “Black but Sweet” here as sampled by the Sabres of Paradise) called Ethiopian War Drums.

Then the great Mighty Terror with Emperor of Africa.

 

And a cracking Prince Buster tune called The Prince of Peace only ever heard played out once upstairs at The Betsey Trotwood at an On-U sound related event on a Friday night many moons ago featuring Pete Holdsworth who told us he obtained said record from a charity shop for a sum of less than a quid, years previously.

And finally the Ethopian reggae sound of Tilahun Gessesse. All great stuff off a great film!

Around the garden while watering

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It’s going to be silly hot today (around 32 degrees C), so we did a bit of watering this morning before it goes too mad. The first (above) is from our Marvel of Peru (AKA Four o’clock plant) that we grew from seed and the first flowers are just forming. It’s a bit of a different kind of plant as in the flowers usually open from 4pm attracting all sorts of moths and pollinators. Supposedly the flowers have a great smell too! More on that here.

A new arrival to the Weeds garden (above) that we saw when we went to the Chelsea flower show. It’s a Lychnis flos-cuculi “Petit Henri” and giving us some clusters of great small white flowers and it’s a perennial too! More here.

We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!

And meanwhile down the pond our Echeveria is kicking out some great plastic looking flowers! We do love this gardening lark!

We’ve also been checking out an interesting Jamaican gardening blog called Hopey’s Garden. It’s an interesting read if you want to try different type of vegetables and stuff. The article above is very interesting and has some nice tips contained on there so do give it a look over.

Reports from Bristol, SE23 and France

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We’re a bit behind here with posts at Weeds, the other week we received a message from Kit G5KIT, who said “We had 37 degrees C here in Bristol today. The only ones enjoying it are my chilli seedlings, which are now ready to put into containers as the roots are starting to come through the sides of the fibre pots.” Now 37 degrees that is hot, but he’s right, those chilli seedlings (above) are looking great!

Ours are in the ground after we took a bit of a frost risk earlier this year and we are getting a lot of growth and we are just starting to see the flowers appearing (above). Next to the chillies are onions grown from seed that need a bit of thinning out.

 

We’ve been having a good few reports from Spike from Morschen43 from a very sunny and hot Le Puy-en-Velay in France over the past few days. His garden is looking well bountiful now. We start with a rose (above) which he said was from the mountains called Rosa Centiflora (aka ‘Cabbage’ or ‘Provence’ rose). He was also saying that the rose can tolerate temperatures down to -15 degrees Celsius. Wow!

Here’s a selection of what’s growing in his garden now, some wonderful stuff here, a few different varieties of Tomato, Aubergine (Eggplant), Courgette (aka Zuchinni), green pepper and runner beans. We’ll have an update from Spike’s yard soon as there is so much there!

This post was written while listening to the latest Ross Allen Meltdown show on Soho Radio. Guest this week was Jimmy Lindsay who was in the great Cymande, we didn’t know that!