Category Archives: Music connects us all

Let’s get cool in the pool

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s a lovely chilled-out balearic mix from a long time friend Will J, who actually introduced us to the exellent Echo Chamber radio show on KFAI many many moons ago we remember (Dr Strangedub of said show’s raised beds were the feature of last post funnily enough!)

Reminiscent of those old C90’s from Jose Padilla and the balearic bailiff himself Phil Mison, the hour’s tape includes some excellent tracks including this one:

It’s a mix well worth playing loud when the sun comes out next (or even when it’s raining as it will cheer you up). Good stuff Will!

Answering the call of the cosmos

Posted on by
Reply

It has finally come, the day the first cosmos flower appeared. We may have lost a few plants to the slugs earlier on this year but the few we started off in pots and are now undernearth the dead cherry tree have got buds on them and this afternoon one actually opened. Cheers to Debby H for starting us off on this cosmos journey. Anyone else got any cosmos pictures to post up here? One deck pete at gee mail dot com if so.

And today also saw one of the cardoons showing their first purple dyed spikey top with more growth to come in time we hope. The bee on it seems happy enough.

And for a Saturday evening here’s  a couple of excellent tunes, the first being from Cantoma (AKA Phil Mison The balearic fare dodger) called Light Before – Ambient Outro. It’s one piece of ambient chillout to end the day with!

 

And a lovely bit of dub from a set called Mid City Dub Encounters Vol.1 by Irie One and Lord Sekou on Jah Thunder Records and this track is called Kalimba Dub.

A butcher’s around the garden

Posted on by
Reply

After a bit of rain last night in SE23 we viewed a few things this morning, the first being a small water lily on the pond. It’s been taken close up and looking again we’re still not sure what that is in the top right hand corner, micro frog spawn perhaps?

We’re seeing flower buds on the cosmos. We did sow a few seeds in various places but these are the ones that survived. There’re under an old dead cherry tree and they seem have taken well. In a few days there should be flowers (Cheers Debby H again).

And this look like a couple of the Thompson & Morgan seeds here. The above must be the Quick Fire Chilli Pepper to the rear and in front the Quick Snack Cucumber.

We’ve bought some plant feed now to supplement our ever dwindling amount of Comfrey liquid and with the supposedly 25 degrees C today, all should be the right stuff for these plants to grow well. Or so we hope!

Why buy seeds when you can dry seeds

Posted on by
Reply

It’s great to hear that Gerry Hectic is taking on a new seed saving project after tasting a strawberry that was so nice he got given one that he is now saving seed from and trying to grow a plant from it. He is now trying the same method on the above!

We will keep you posted on how he gets on! Fascinating stuff though and more free plants if they take. We found a great link about seed saving here. Good luck Gerry.

International Report AKA a rose abroad

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks very much to Debby H for sending us some pictures from the south of France where she is staying at the moment where it’s been up to 34 degrees C since she arrived.

The first is of a lovely rose plant (above) and she said “This would be nothing special in the UK, but this plant rarely flowers after April or early May here. However, they had such a wet spring it seems that the rose is much happier this year.”

The picture above is of a strelitzia, the bird of Paradise plant which is looking well healthy, Debby has one in London that she started from seed about 6 years ago. It is a wonderful plant and we read that germination of the seed can be anything from 4-8 weeks to 6 months!
“The next is my prickly pear which seems to have gone bonkers growing along the ground instead of upwards as it should do.” We do love this picture, cacti are brilliant.
The above we think is a phormium tenax aka New Zealand flax.
And the picture above is of an oleander. Her own plant is still not in flower yet and we do hope it’s not long before it looks like the above.
Wonderful pictures as always Debby and do keep updating us. Have a good break out there! Ta for the “A rose abroad” headline as well.

It may be raining but who cares when this is playing

Posted on by
2

The clouds are going grey and that day of supposed gardening may be not materialise but we found this and things seem to be a lot brighter in our life. It’s possibly the craziest version of Sleng Teng ever! Hats off and umbrellas up to the great Center of the Universe. Cheers to Jesse Yuen for inspiring us finding this.

And if rumour has it, all the secrets to life (and sleng teng) are possibly contained in the first few seconds of this.

Never mind the brollies, have a good Saturday grapple fans.

Trowels and tribulations

Posted on by
Reply

Our favourite gardening trowel went missing this week. It was a christmas present a good few years ago, survived nearly every day use (and numerous knocks and scrapes) and it’s almost like a good friend. We even had to put some plants in yesterday using a large dessert spoon, the shame of it!

 

We did a daily lap around the garden lifting up leaves and looking behind pots just to see if it have fallen behind something (using the same route every day and lifting the same leaves). The cupboard under the stairs (its usual resting place) was inspected a few days in a row, the Lewisham Garden refuse bin was emptied out twice and we even dreamt about it (the metal part was coming away from the wooden handle in the dream. Was this a sign?)

Today whilst getting the flymo out of its home (a large waterproof plastic outdoor box bought at Argos) we spied said trowel sitting at the bottom of it. What the hell was it doing there? Who moved it to such an odd place? Is it to do with our advancing years? We do rather hope not.

Lost anything in the garden of late and it’s resurfaced somewhere daft? Please let us your tale.

 

More from north London

Posted on by
Reply
Thanks to Debby H for sending us an update today. Above are the Marconi Red peppers and the dwarf sunflowers (below). “These are the plants from the house in the next street to ours” and the plants looks healthy. The peppers have a few flowers on one of them as well.
Below are the peonies in her garden (below) which have great looking flowers! We’re only at the start of the growing season and the garden can only get better. Cheers Debby, thanks for sending the updates!
The weather looks like a bit of rain later this week by the way so they’ll be another growth spurt out of our plants in our gardens we reckon.

More from Tallinn

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve just heard from The Rhythm Doctor who sent us some pictures of wild garlic last post. “We saw this strange flower the other day in the same area as the garlic”, it turns out to be the common toothwort.

Turns out the plant is a bit of a parasite “The genus produces no chlorophyll and parasitises host trees, often hazel, beech and walnut, to acquire nutrients” more here. Cheers RD that is one strange looking plant!