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.
Earlier this year in March, we germinated some Marvel of Peru (AKA the Four O’clock Plant) seeds that we purchased from Real Seeds as it sounded like a strange plant. As it said on Wikipedia, “The flowers usually open from late afternoon or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o’clock), giving rise to one of its common names. The flowers then produce a strong, sweet fragrance throughout the night, then close in the morning.” Well, we had to have some of that!
We started off a few seedlings, gave a few away and kept a couple for ourselves. The above picture is one from our good gardening friend Adrienne who said “The flowers are getting better and better. Must love the heat!” It looks brilliant.
Here’s the couple we have kept (above). There’s a small one to the left of what we think is a larger version of the plant (with no flowers as yet) in the reused food bin. The small version has started to flower and hopefully will bring us more! Fingers crossed that it is a Marvel Of Peru in the bin.
We’ve read that the plant is invasive in hotter climates but thankfully not in the UK as the annual frosts kill it. We may bring in the one in the food bin over winter as it seems a great plant! Interesting stuff about the plant here.
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!
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.
Big shout to Dr Strangedub for featuring the mix called “We love shortwave” from One Deck Pete on this morning’s Echo Chamber on KFAI here at 83 minutes in here. Track listings are as follows:
Radio Sweden Interval Signal
Triptica – Mysterious Radio Signals
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – This Frequency
Shortwave Sounds – Reflections
Madtone – Spoken Words from Ibiza
Holger Czukay/Jah Wobble – Hiss n Listen
Gregory Morris & The 18th Parallel – Dub In Your Stereo (dub of Message in your radio by Kumar)
It’s lovely to hear Radio Sweden’s old Interval Signal over the airwaves alongside some great dub and downbeat on a Wednesday morning from 8-12am. Tune in and enjoy the show every week here at the allotted time! Cheers again to Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss.
And talking of the Echo Chamber here is the person who actually told us about the show many years ago, WIll Jeff. Here’s this month’s show from him called Lingua Franca show on Love Will Save The Day FM (below).”Songs from around the world you can sing along to” indeed. Some wonderful stuff on here in a balearic summery worldwide style. Tune in!
Cheers to Justin Patrick Moore for letting us know that Tele Novella have a new tune out and guess what it’s called? Ring of stones. There’s too many coincidences here! Cheers Justin. And as the band say themselves “Supernatural Medieval vibes!”
And someone mentioned this series from many many years ago (below), we have never watched it but know it is a bit bonkers and involves standing stones and has some out there music featured in it.
We are ending the standing stones blog series now.
Until the next time we mention it.
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.
A big shout to our old friend Dr Strangedub Radio DJ and Dub Gardener who presents the great show called The Echo Chamber (with DJ Baby Swiss) on KFAI from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. It’s on every Wednesday from 2:00 to 6:00 am (8am-12 noon UK time), if you love dub, reggae and all sorts of bass business you’ll love the show. Tune in live at the allotted time here.
Thanks to the good doctor for sending over some snaps of what’s growing in his yard at the moment. We love the tomatoes (everyone else’s is doing better than ours, we are not jealous, honest!), the herb container and the raised bed and the stairs look like a good place to sit and chill on a summer’s evening. Cheers Dr Strangedub, keep in touch and update us through the growing season! Cheers for the plays of the One Deck & Popular, Madtone and Jasmine & Madtone tunes throughout the years.
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.
Cheers to Gerry Hectic also in Dorset for sending us a picture of his potato plants, he said “think I might have got a bit enthusiastic about the spuds, I’ve some in an old water butt and a big plastic pot; got a bean growing up the fence too!”. We think they look great Gerry, you can never have enough potatoes!
Weeds up to me knees 