Category Archives: Plant sale

Gardening all over the world (as Status Quo may have sang)

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Thanks to our Downbeat on Shortwave collaborator and gardening friend Jesse Yuen who was out and about in his garden in Perth last weekend and sent us some pictures. (Top Picture) “It’s about 4.30pm in the afternoon, but there’s beautiful light because there’s a bush fire burning somewhere, so the smoke is giving everything a bit of a golden hue.”

He’s just acquired a new plant, a yellow flowering kangaroo paw. “I salvaged them from a house down the road about to be knocked down as I was on my way to DJ at a bush doof. I’ve been keeping it alive in a pot in the backyard until the weather cooled down and I had a chance to plant it.” That’s a find! More on the plant here.

He also got himself a eucalyptus macrocarpa for his garden. As he told us “This one is an absolute beauty. We’ve been on the waiting list at our local nursery for about six months, but some people wait for over two years. It’s a native, but it’s rare to buy it at a nursery. Check out pictures of it in an adult form to see how it gets.” See pic below, blimmin ‘eck!

And related to the kangaroo paw, here’s some pictures of the bush doof Jesse was DJing at and it looks a looks a great one!

He also said, “I’m gardening to the sounds of the preview of an amazing sounding downtempo album by local Australian artist Freda” and here’s a track from it.

 

Cheers for keeping us updated Jesse and the garden (and the bush rdoof) looks great!

Have you ever seen a rubber plant pogo?

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A big thanks to The Rhythm Doctor and Gerry Hectic who both told us this week about Brian d’Souza (AKA Auntie Flo) who makes music with plants. He says on his website: “I entered the world of biosonification which allowed me to listen to nature’s internal rhythms – analysing electrical biodata and converting it into sound information that in turn can be subtly manipulated and heard as a type of generative music. I created bioelectrical music for vertical farms, mycelium pavilions, mushroom dens and even Vinnie Jones’ vegetable patch!”

The above is a live ambient set on the My Analog Journal channel where he hooks a modular synth to the plants and combines the sounds harvested with some ambient tunes. We don’t know that much about his stuff but will research more on this artist as he sounds well up our street!

More on his Plants Can Dance project here. Thanks again to RD and Gerry Hectic for this.

A mullein in Cincinnati

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Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us a picture of the mullein plant in his garden. Justin mentioned “I let the plants grow when they pop up, even though some consider them a weed. People smoke the leaves for lung issues and make an oil from the flowers for ear infections. Its a medicinal weed, that in its second year, goes up past the knees!”

And thanks to Justin for forwarding a great tune named after said plant from MF Doom. Cheers Justin!

Picked up from a plant sale

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Last year we picked up this Mullein from a community garden’s summer fair, which we have just read that it may also be known as cowboy’s toilet paper. We were told in its second year the plant will send up a stem of yellow flowers and it looks like it is on its way with them now. It was only a couple of quid as well. More pics as they flower.

We’ve just tapped up AI and it gave us another few names for Mullein: “velvetplant,” “blanketleaf,” “hare’s beard,” and “flannel plant.” Thank you AI.

And here’s the lily we got for a couple of quid at  Crystal Palace the other week. We were expecting something quite large but do you know what, it isn’t all about size is it? Great for a couple of quid.

Please send us details of any plant sales you know about and ones you are involved in and we’ll give them a plug and it doesn’t have to be in south London either.

Local news

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Thanks to Penny Golightly, here’s news of a great little plant mart in Lee next Saturday May 17th from 2-4 p.m. outside 2-6 Micheldever Road, Lee SE12 8LX and the event is a fundraiser to get money to plant more trees in the area. There’ll be a wide range of plants for sale at a good price as well as lots of other stuff (cakes, books and CDs, cream teas and 2 botanical watercolour workshops at 2.30 and 3pm). Looks great! Cheers Penny!

Since you’ve been away

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You go away for a week and when you come back the garden has grown a little. We have a pair of cheeky cardoons at the bottom of the garden that have survived whatever is eating the leaves for the last couple of years. They are looking quite majestic!

As we didn’t have much luck with our pepper and tomato seedlings earlier this year, the plants we bought from B&Q are doing well and the few bargain ones we bought at Blythe Hill Festival are starting to grow a little even if they were a little late being put in. We can’t remember how many we got but it was 5 or 6 for £2, what a bargain!

The above was another plant bought at a summer fair. We think it may be Lambs ear, Mullen as we were told next year we’ll get some tall yellow spear flowers. It’s technically a weed but one that attracts pollinators galore. If it’s something else do let us know.

This blog post was written whilst listening to this wonderful soundtape put up by the great Dave Brown (in Mississauga, Canada) from November 1980 and a brilliant tape it is too! If you love the older soundtapes do have a look at his mixcloud.

And if you want to hear a slice of Jamaica from 1977, listen to the great Jah Love Muzik below.

Bargains, bargains, bargains!

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We’re always up for a bargain here at Weeds and a few weeks ago we found this great looking geranium (above) on the plant stall in a local summer sale in a church hall in Hither Green. The stall was sandwiched between a retailer of hand-made baby clothes and a vendor of grape juice from that famous grape growing region called New Cross. The geranium cost us the whopping sum of a fiver but we were happy with that as it really has come on a treat. Strange flowers as well.

This weekend we were at a local park for their annual festival. Earlier in the morning someone mentioned in reply to the horrible weather forecast for the day that “they” could be wrong, “I mean remember Michael Fish got it wrong in 1987?”, sadly “they” weren’t. It turned out to be a right washout but the sun did come out an hour before the festival was meant to close but by then it was far too late, sadly.

There was a upside to the downbeat day though when we obtained some 4 small tomato plants for £2.50 from a stall ran by the local allotment society which we didn’t notice until right at the end. Pic above: you can see the plants are pretty small in relation to the big tomato plant at the rear and the chilli pepper next to it and it is July now but you never know what may happen especially with this strange weather we’ve been having.

The comfrey liquid will be applied, a few prayers said and we’ll see. Let’s raise a glass of grape juice (preferably New Cross Nouveau) for more bargains!

Coming to the end of the road

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It’s cold and miserable out there and the garden is in a right state even though it looked a lot better earlier this year. The butternut squash (above) that was making a late start has fallen by the wayside and now looks a right mess.

In the forthcoming weeks there may be a day where it may be dry enough to give the lawn a cut and even give the beds a tidy over. Remember the more work you do now means less work come the spring and the garden will look a lot easier on the eye over the winter. Trouble is when the garden looks a bit ropey you have less chance of putting on those gardening boots but we will try as the wild bit at the bottom (above) does look a bit wild and look at the pond (below). The word neglect comes to our guilty gardening minds.

Got any ideas of what you’ll be growing next year? We’re now on the lookout for any seed swaps, seed bargains or plants on the cheap. If you know of anything as in cheap seeds or events do let us know and we’ll blog them up.

Not another product withdrawal

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Yesterday we took a trip to Lldl to see if there were any “When it’s gone, it’s gone” bargains during this week’s special: “Flavour of the week: Eastern & Central Europe”. Alongside some wareniki and cherry jaffa cakes we bought another pack of Tulips. We did like the graphics at the top especially the “No knife and fork should be used to plant these bulbs” sign. Which got us thinking…

Years ago whilst waiting for a large bag of chicken breasts at the Butchers in Leather Lane EC1 we were told a silly tale from one of the market guys which went something like this: “A mate of mine was taken into hospital the other week as he had food poisoning” to which we replied “Sorry to hear that mate”. “Yeah he made himself a spaghetti bolognese and he didn’t have any onions so he cut up some tulip bulbs and used them instead” said the cockney bloke. “He’s okay, the doctors said he’ll be out in the spring”.

Have a good Sunday and enjoy the great weather today!

Why ain’t plant varieties named after punk bands?

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Here’s some pics taken around the garden in a week that has has some varying weather to say the least! What was funny was that last Friday the night of a torrential downpour, a couple of hours before that we were meticuously going around the beds with a watering can. Exactly the same thing happened this week across the pond to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore (just before an almighty storm).

The tomatoes (below) we think are the San Mirzano variety we obtained a couple of years ago at a seed swap at Glengall Wharf Gardens SE15. They’re fine tomatoes and wish we had some more! Now these tomatoes appreciate water and also a regular comfrey liquid feed.

And at the bottom of the garden (below) there’s a small bed that has a right mixture of stuff in the tiny space include chillies, some mini-melons and these peppers that we think we may have been given when we swapped some plants earlier this year.

And in the wild bit down there you can’t forget those proud cardoons that are as spikey topped as you like. Punk ain’t dead in that part of the garden, it really ain’t. Why in the world hasn’t anyone named a variety of cardoon Charged GBH or Charlie Harper yet?