Category Archives: Jobs to do

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.

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.

Gardening tool of the year

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Cheers to our good friend in Cincinnati, Justin Patrick Moore for letting us know about a favourite gardening tool purchase of his, a Cobrahead Hand Hoe. Wow! It looks great to us here. As it says on the blurb here, “It weeds, cultivates, scalps, edges, digs, furrows, plants, transplants, de-thatches, and harvests with ease” and “It can even dig 12″ holes in even the hardest Ozark garden soil.” Brilliant stuff, thanks for letting us know Justi. It looks a versatile tool.

Any pictures of your favourite gardening tool? Pics please to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

Pop don’t go the teasel

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The teasel is a very odd plant but we love the way the flower grows, very strange white mini flowers are now coming from the head. Odd but very interesting! We just hope they don’t take over the garden.

 

You cannot escape the stones (not Jagger and co.)

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Thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for sending this book cover from Fred Vargas to us. Crazy coincidences of a stone circle kind. Any one drying the dinner dishes tonight with a standing stone tea towel? We await your pictures…

Tomato fruit puller. Puller, puller

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Whilst researching a future post, we found this great variety of tomato from Seed Spring Seeds (website here).

As it says in the blurb on the site:
A Romanian tomato producing large, roughly heart-shaped fruit that weigh an average of 365g and measure about 8.5cm in diameter. Captain Beefheart’s big taste is combined with a juicy flesh, tender skin and few seeds, making it one of the best large-fruited tomatoes you are likely to encounter. The plants are good growers and will produce fruit well into the autumn.

A pepper called Frank Zappa anyone?

The above is a fantastic Beefheart tune as played on the excellent Andrew Weatherall – Live at Antenna Studios mixtape here.

Love in a mist, it’s (not) so dumb

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Here’s a few pictures from around the Weeds HQ garden.

We’ve had the above for a few years now and it pops up every year in the wild bit at the bottom of the garden. It’s quaking grass and we’re not sure who we got it off, but it was off a gardening mate somewhere (if it’s you, do remind us!) from 2023. It’s only small but it’s interesting stuff. Original post here.

The above is also in the wild part of the garden. Nigella or love in a mist is a great plant and as soon as the seed pods are ready, it’s a seed to chuck around the garden in an anarchic Crass-like sowing style. You’ll get results and it’s a great plant to cover a large area.

One of the great poppies that are just popping up all around the garden. They can seed where-ever they want in our garden, as we love them so much.

And finally, the mad plant that is the teasel. Bought off the internet (post here) and then moved from its original location. The wind blew it over last week and we’ve staked it up but before we did, it tried to straighten itself up hence the mad angles. Unless they always are like that!

Let’s hope the weather is better where you are tomorrow and you can get out in the garden!

It’s mediterranean in the Midlands

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The sun is out in full force in south London today, looks like our friends Mike & Julia have got the same up near Coventry. Mike sent us a couple of pictures of their “Mediterranean themed patio in the actual sun!” It looks brilliant, and there’s some lovely ideas going on there. Do keep sending us more pictures as things progress, ta again for the pictures and try and keep cool up there today.

It’s just turned up in the garden

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There’s a tall old plant at the back of the bed that seems to have shot out of nowhere. We did a Plant.id on it and it turns out to be Fullers Teasel. It’s a plant that initially stuck out to us on a walk on the wildside (the river path from Sydenham to Catford) but not so sure we want it in that part of the garden.

We’ve just read up on it and it says it not that good for the plant to move it about, as it has a bit of a large taproot so perhaps we’ll leave it be. It’s good for the birds and bees anyway and the flower don’t look that bad. We are sure we either bought a plant last year or took some seed heads off a plant. Who knows, we just have to check on it that it don’t take over the garden.

Belfast sinks and taking cuttings

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We’ve a couple of weeks off work so we’re trying to get some jobs done around the garden, weather permitting. The first job was done on Monday, which was getting rid of a load of roots of a climber that had taken over a large Belfast sink. Once they were taken out and transferred by a B&Q quid bucket to the wild area at the bottom of the garden, the massive sink was moved by hand using some bits of wood, a garden fork and spade.

The sink is now in its new position and we’re using all the space to the maximum. It now contains three tomato plants (complete with canes found in the street), a couple of Defender marigolds and some freshly sowed free herb seeds (thanks to Penny Golightly for the marigolds and passing on the information of the free seeds from the Wildlife Trust as part of their 30 Days Wild initiative. By the way, the offer is still on here.)

And now after years of not doing so, we are finally getting to realise that taking cuttings isn’t that hard, all you have to do is keep your fingers crossed that they take. Here’s some cat mint (nepeta) that has now taken and even flowering.

 

This evening going to hit the sack early as we’re off to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow, we’ve never been before and have no idea what to expect. We’ll be bringing you a report as soon as we can. We’ll be the ones walking around the site with the large framed rucksack on our backs.