Category Archives: Jobs to do

Spring may have sprung

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One great thing we love with this gardening lark is the passing on of surplus seeds from one gardener to another. This week we received a little package off a gardening friend with some interesting seeds and stuff that we’ve never grown before (Cheers again Ruth!)

Firstly there was a small envelope with some Amaranth seeds (more on them here) which we’ll be sowing in a sunny area in the garden as they like that. Also in a brown bag was a climber called Mashua which we’ve never heard of before, turns out it’s climbing Nasturtium with deep orange-red trumpet flowers with edible tubers and the young leaves can be eaten in a salad. You learn something every day, especially in gardening!

The other bag contained some Jerusalem Artichokes (aka Sunchoke), we read it’s not like the globe variety but a kind of sunflower with an edible tuber. We’ve also learnt they can spread like wildfire but we will be giving them a go. We’ll keep you posted on how we get on with everything above. Any tips appreciated!

And on the shortwave radio tomorrow evening at 10pm UK time is a repeat of a transmission of a while back of KSOL which features a mix from One Deck Pete called “A bit of sunshine and soul” which feature tunes by Jackie Lee & Delores Hall, Cat Stevens, George McCrae, Carl Bean and Love Unlimited. If you haven’t a shortwave radio you can tune in here.

Keep on keeping on

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We heard some great advice when we were out and about this week and it was a simple “Don’t give up”. Quite apt as we were going to put in some fresh seeds into one of the trays in the propagator in the kitchen windowsill next week as we thought the Cape Gooseberry seed sown in there was shot as the Peppers we planted at the same time now have their seed leaves and are looking good. Then this morning we spotted some action in the tray, patience that’s what gardening’s all about and sometimes we ain’t any!

And this morning we were looking for some fresh Tarragon leaves for a chicken recipe and couldn’t find any so we had a brainwave to pop into Shannon’s and get a live plant. It may be small but give it time…

Coming soon!

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Last Sunday we visited the Seed Swap at Glengall Wharf Garden, Peckham SE15 6NF. It was a lovely morning and we picked up a great assortment of seeds including some Texsel Greens (Ethiopian Mustard), some nice tomato varieties and lots of poppy seeds.

We do love a seed swap here at Weeds and just found out about another (above) at Hither Green on Sunday 13th March 2022 from 11am-1pm at Springbank Road Community Garden (thanks to @LewishamGardens on twitter for letting us know!)

Also coming soon is the transmission of The Scented Garden (a nod to flowers and gardeners and also John Peel’s Perfumed Garden show) on Wednesday 9th March 2022 at 1700 utc on 3955 kHz which features at the start of the transmission One Deck Pete‘s “A tribute to council gardeners everywhere” mix. Tune in here.And whilst we’re on the subject of music, here’s a great tune from Islam Chipsy & Eek called El Dynasor. It’s certainly a lively number and one to get those hips a swaying.

Big props for keeping up the fence!

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Cheers to Gerry Hectic for giving us an update a few hours ago on the Fence versus Storm Eunace battle. We love the barbell arrangement and the whole thing looks like it may have worked. We love a bit of garden inventiveness here at Weeds!

We here meanwhile thought it would be a good idea to go out and try to pick up the wheelie bins that had fell over mid-storm until we got a bit spooked out by the speed of the wind so shut the front door. Then we thought to ourselves “What’s the point, the bins will only go for a burton again” so they’re still strewn across the drive.

The storm seems to have quietened down now but we can still hear the wind howling and we’ve even had the odd sharp shower of halestones over the last few hours. What a day!

Relatively safe from the madness outside we’re seeing a bit of movement on the couple of seed trays we’ve got in the propagator on the kitchen windowsill (Jalapeno’s and Cape Gooseberries.) It’s taken a good couple of weeks for the seeds to germinate but we must remember it’s still technically the winter. It shouldn’t be long till spring!

And an apt record from Incognito with a wonderful mix from Carl Craig from many years ago.

Walk on

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The Egyptian Walking Onions arrived this morning and now have gone into the ground post-Storm Dudley and pre-Storm Eunice. The plants were well packaged and arrived in a well healthy condition and we even got a bonus sprouting lower bulb as well.

A couple were put in the raised beds which have a top made out of a wooden frame with some plastic over the top. The other one was put into a tub with a glass jar pushed in the compost a good bit for protection. Even though the plants are well hardy we’re taking no chances. We’ll keep you posted on these horticultural oddities! #egyptianwalkingonions

From our worldwide correspondents

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Big shout to our good friend Stevyn Iron Feather Journal in Hokkaido, Japan who’s just given us a glimpse of what his garden is like today. It’s covered in snow and he’s caught what may have been a flying whistling kettle in the snap, very apt what with the transmission of WSTL this weekend. Thanks Stevyn. For more on the excellent fanzine he produces, have a look here. Also have a butchers at his Pink Floyd’s Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast remix project here which has some interesting music on it.

Also cheers to another of our gardening/music friends Gerry Hectic for this musical recommendation of this great Jazz Gardening classic from Kamasi Washington. We’d be lost without the garden path wouldn’t we?

And talking of musical gardening selections here’s one from yesteryear from our good friend Dr Strangedub of the excellent show The Echo Chamber on KFAI. More on the show here.

And whilst we’re on the subject of dub gardening here’s one from Lopez Walker with Jah Jah New Garden followed by Garden in Dub. (If it was “Gardening dub” it would be even better!) #dubgardenersoftheworldunite #gardening #gardeningsnotdead

Roll on spring

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There’s been some crazy goings on in the sky over the last few evenings and apart from the winds and cold we’ve even had some sunshine during the day. Don’t be fooled though, we’ve still got some cold weather to come and if you believe the Daily Excess, it’s going to be the coldest winter since 1947 (As Graham Porter used to joke on BBC Radio Leeds “They say that every year!”)

There is stuff to do, you can have a look through your seed tin and see what you have to get for this growing year, you could pop down your local garden centre (we visited Shannon’s) and get some seed potatoes to “chit” (more on chitting here, some people swear by it and some people swear at it!) or start off some seeds in a propogator indoors. You can also have a look online and see if there’s any plant/seed swaps near you as they’re good for finding often interesting seeds. It’s always good to make an early start so when springs starts you can get off on the right foot!

Beyond your back door

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Some very apt gardening advice for this time of year from the late great Percy Thrower at 2.19 mins in on the track Winter in June from Beyond The Wizzard’s Sleeve. “The more we do during the autumn and winter, the easier and better the gardening is throughout the rest of the year” and “There’s a tendancy to look out of the window in the month of January and say it’s a dit dull, it’s a bit murky outside, nothing of interest in the garden. If the garden is like that it’s not the fault of the garden it’s the fault of the gardener.” Wise words Percy!

In his lifetime he also uttered the great line “I’m a gardener. I’m not a celebrity, I’m not famous, I’m a gardener.” We very much doubt he’d be up for those very gripping “Big Brother”/”Castaway”/”Three celebrities left in a shed” type programmes if he was alive today.

And talking of Percy…

May 2022 be a good one…

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A big Happy New Year to all our gardening, music and radio friends from across the globe and from around the corner. May 2022 be a good one for you all, we hope your vegetables and flowers do well, that you find some great tunes this year and may Solar cycle 25 be with you.

We had a little tidy up this afternoon as the weather was so mild, we took the pump out of the pond and gave it a clean and a dry and have put it away until the spring. We also got a little fire prepared for a New Year’s Eve mini burn up later.

To end the year here’s firstly a wonderful tune from Grey Frequency called Chimes (Rai Internazionale) from the forthcoming Shortwave Transmissions project from Cities and Memories.

And in the background whilst writing the post we had on This is a music show 146 with the top 25 tunes Your Host found thrift shopping in 2021. As he explains on the website here: “This Is A Music Show” is a weekly hour-long music program featuring records found secondhand at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets. Each show features a wide variety of music from around the world. Some tracks are good, some a great, some are terrible, but it’s all interesting (I hope).” A show you have to listen to if you love music!

And at number 20 on this year’s countdown is the classic The Cables “Be a man”. What a tune! Here’s to a great new year!

Sleet is on its way

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It was the best of weeks, it was the worst of weeks. The cold is on its way in and we’ve had the booster and the flu jab and been feeling a little rough. Now the heatings gone at Weeds HQ just as sleet is forecast for tomorrow but life could be worse.

The Cosmos is still in bloom which isn’t bad as it’s December next week. How good is that? We’re also actually getting some Brussel Sprouts. Okay the slugs, snails and pigeons have taken a liking to the leaves but there are some mini sprouts there!

Years ago we had something wipe their rear end on one of our Brussel stalks (we think it was foxes) and soiled the actual sprouts and even after an intense hosing down we couldn’t get the thought out of our head so couldn’t bring ourselves to use them at the Christmas dinner so bought a stalk from the supermarket.

We told a good few people about what happened as we were so dissapointed, we even rang into a gardening radio programme who told us, “If you hose them down well and cook them then cover them in butter, they should be great to eat.”

Also a chap at work said to us not long after our mishap “I had sprouts at Christmas and I was telling my visitors around the Christmas table about your home grown sprout misfortunes”. I doubt if that story helped the Christmas dinner go down well!

Also we’ve finally got some flowers on a dwarf blackberry bush we bought a few years ago after moved to a sunnier spot thinking it’ll do better. It’s always the way isn’t it, do wrap up and keep warm this weekend!