Those chillies from Bristol

Big thanks to Kit G5KIT in Bristol for sending us an update on his chillies (see an earlier post here):

“Remember those Demon Red chilli seeds we planted here in Bristol? The tiny little seedlings eventually turned into lovely plants, and we gave most of them away.

The one we kept has produced plenty of the explosively hot little peppers, and we just finished what’s probably the last harvest of the year for it. A good haul of hotness, but now the plant itself is looking a bit sorry; it doesn’t seem to like the cold weather that’s setting in.”

“I’m going to prune it right back and see if it goes dormant, and with a bit of luck it’ll wake up next spring and start flowering again. The chillies have just gone straight into the freezer, and will get used a few at a time when some chilli oil is needed, or to liven up a curry.”

Brilliant stuff Kit, we love the way you gave plants away, giving other people the pleasure of growing them and then picking the chillies fresh off the plant.

That’s great you are going to cut it back and bit and let it rest over the winter. We’ll be doing the same with the two plants we have in the polytunnel but they still look alright at the moment and giving us chillies but perhaps in a week or two it may be a different matter as it is getting cold. Cheers for letting us know and keep sending us the updates!

Flowers may be on their way

Great news from Debby H in North London. It looks like her strelitzia (bird of paradise plant) may be going to flower! We’ve just looked online and it mentioned that, “Indoor flowering is rare in the UK and usually requires a mature plant (at least 5 years old) kept in high-light, warm conditions. Great stuff Debby, let us know how things progress.

Gardening is a collaboration

Cheers to our good mate Gerry Hectic for letting us know about Gardener’s World Episode 29 where as he says, “Never thought we’d get electronic music on Gardener’s World – about 30 mins in…” “Join Jason Singh for an unusual journey through the garden, exploring the hidden sounds of plants.” The episode is available here.

It really is bonkers stuff as Jason uses a biofeedback device to come up with some ambient soundscapes by hooking up plants to a laptop. Tune in above and below for some top biosonification business.

 

And we love this tune. Thanks again Gerry and wonderful stuff Jason, it’s well up our street!

 

Dubwise and otherwise

Big shout to our radio collaborator Jesse Yuen, for sending us last month’s and the month’s before Dubwise and Otherwise show this morning. Both shows are well worth listening to for some genuine Sunday morning chilled vibes.

The show is broadcast once a month on Radio Cazimi, an online community radio station based in Walyalup/Fremantle, Western Australia. (Walyalup is located at the mouth of the Swan River and of course Jesse’s other show was called North of The River Swan!)

We’re half-way through the Springtones show at the moment and it is cracking! We were scratching our head’s thinking “Where do we know the intro from?” and it’s The Aloof with Never get out of the boat, a tune we only had in our hands last night while rearranging our records.

We’ll check out the Soundcloud link in a couple of days for yesterday’s great show. Cheers Jesse!

Dub for a Saturday morning till 10am

Big shout to Jesse Yuen and friends Lia T and Rok Riley who are on the air via the internet for the “Dubwise and Otherwise” show from 8-10am on this Saturday morning from the other side of this world of ours. If you want to chill out indoors in the warm to some downtempo bass heavy vibes tune into radiocazimi.com here.

Dub for a saturday evening

A wonderful bit of dub just released out of the Jah Warrior camp called Lost Dub by I-Lodica. Excellent stuff.

 

Nolly was a great mate of ours

While we were putting together a shortwave mix we came across a cover of the Crossroads Theme Tune that we couldn’t stop smiling to by The Lost T-Shirts of Atlantis. It is some tune! (The cast above including Carney the Gardener, Benny and is that Buzz the hippy character with the long hair and beard at the back?)

Question of the evening is “What does hearing The Theme from Crossroads by Tony Hatch, mean to you?” Answers to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.

More chilli business

The other month we got this great multi-coloured Bolivian Rainbow Chilli Pepper plant from Herne Hill Market that is now housed in the polytunnel and seems to love it in there so much as we are now getting more great purple flowers. Great stuff!

Anyone want any tomatoes?

A bit thanks to Alan C who sent us up some great pictures of his harvest from his Corfe Mullen allotment down in Dorset. First off is his polytunnel that looks so abundant with growth even with this heatwave and lack of rain.

“The polytunnel is a bit messy as you can see (above) but the picture is after I had harvested so there will be plenty more. This is the side with cherry-type tomatoes (toddler), the plum ones are on the other side. You can just about see a couple of Midas chilli plants in pots at the back as well.”

He went on to say, “The extreme weather and ongoing drought hasn’t been good for some things, the peas and beans are struggling, and the potato crop was down with a lot
smaller spuds, but the squash don’t seem bothered.”


If you remember Alan has lots of tubs of potatoes on the go, which is a great idea. “I harvest twice a week, and this is today’s return (above) – over a kilo of spuds from the one tub I emptied (about 15 more tubs left to go) and nearly 1.5 kilos of tomatoes.  Plus, a slightly overgrown cucumber and a nice onion and beetroot.”

“We were already struggling to eat the tomatoes I picked last week so I now need to come up with some new recipes for them, we can give some away, but the neighbours don’t want any more and my daughter is allergic to them.”

Cheers for the pictures Alan and everything is looking brilliant down there and I imagine he’s put in a lot of hard work with everything, especially with watering.

Anyone on here know any good recipes for a glut of tomatoes? We’re thinking of a big pasta sauce and freeze it but it’s all about what space is available in the freezer isn’t it?

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

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.