Category Archives: Pondlife

To all our friends across (and in) the pond

Posted on by
Reply

Last Friday we tore open the box delivered to us by DPD and excitedly put our new solar powered pump into the pond that was looking a decidely wrong shade of green. Our old pump went for a burton last year and we decided to treat ourselves to a new one. After a couple of hours to fully charge up the battery the fountain was in full flow and we reckon the goldfish, the minnows and whatever else is in there are now a lot happier.

We’ve already ordered 3 logs of Barley Straw that is supposedly a great natural algae and green water treatment instead of throwing some chemicals in. We’ll keep you posted when we get them and take some pics and see how the water is looking like after a week or so. Supposedly takes three weeks or so to clean up the water but we were told you see results after a few days.

And we’re already seeing some flower trusses on the tomato plants grown from seed in the side bed that had a good load of leaf mould and compost put in earlier this year. It tends to dry out quickly but hopefully the addition of organic matter and a good watering every morning helps. How’s people’s gardens getting on? Do send us some pics as we’d love to see how things are progressing!

Tune of a Thursday lunchtime

Posted on by
2

Cheers to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending this deeply dubby recommendation (above). It’s from Aspartate and it’s called Apart (Version). All we know about it is produced by someone called Mark Bailey and it’s on the D.Construction label out of Germany and their Bandcamp is here.

And talking of chilled out dub, here’s another lovely example. It’s by Dub Addiction and it’s called Ecological Dub (Calm Down Remix). It will be featured on a lounging mix on the shortwaves very very soon.

Little and often they do say

Posted on by
Reply

The weather turned out to be good again this morning so we decided to do another short stint of weeding out the back. We did it at a council worker’s “job and finish” speed as we honestly don’t know when we’ll be able to get out there again what with the weather and also returning to work tomorrow.

We managed to collect up a lot of leaves from the path so per the advice given to us by the people who supplied us with the giant garlic we’re using the leaves as mulch in the raised beds as we haven’t got 4″ of grass clippings as suggested. Reckon we’ll be okay with leaves? We’ll find out in the spring.

We also took a lot of rotting leaves off the netting over the pond that was being weighed down and going into the water. We’re sure that rotting leaves ain’t that good for the pond (have a look here why they’re no good) and it is looking a lot clearer now. Roll on the next time we can get out the back!

This post was written whilst listening to this excellent collection of hip-hop instrumentals by N&L from Norway from 2015. Some good tunes here!

Like something out of the generation game

Posted on by
1

This week we found some wonderful examples of custom-made wildlife ponds on twitter by Bill Shimmers (above) @shimmers58. His ponds are works of art and look brilliant!

We’re always looking for new things to do in the garden so we had a go on an Airfix model scale using Bill’s pond as inspiration. Our bottom of a crock-pot mini-pond filled with some left over pond plants just looked like a bottom of a crock-pot filled with some left over pond plants until it was given a bit of a mini-overhaul using some wood from a woodpile, some old bark and whatever else we had lying around.

Of course our attempt is no way as grand as Bill’s brilliant creations (and it’s about a 50th of the size) and we won’t be winning any Chelsea awards this year with our microscopic version with some wood just thrown about over the top of it but it’s made the old version look a tiny bit better. We even caught the cat having a drink out of it and there were some bees buzzing around it earlier so it must be alright!

Cheers for your inspiration Bill and we’re going to have another go in the “wild bit” at the bottom of garden and we may even use something bigger next time (a dustbin lid perhaps?) Well it’s best to start small until we get the gist of this wild pond thing.

Pictures of lily (and wood)

Posted on by
Reply

A big shout out to all of our music/gardening friends from around the world! Thanks to Justin Patrick Moore in Cincinnati for an update of his Hugelkultur bed (above). It’s certainly looking great!

A few months ago it started off as the below (mentioned in the post here) and now has been filled with straw, soil, and underneath that, layers of compost and leaves and below that waste wood. It certainly looks like the plants like it! It may be worth having a go. Great stuff Justin! More on the practice of Hugelkultur here.

And thanks to our other good friend Gerry Hectic for sending a pic of his healthy looking pond. Is that watermint alongside that great lily Gerry? Brilliant!

Do send us pics of how you’re getting on with the garden this summer, we’re well up for receiving them!

The Midsummer Mysteries

Posted on by
Reply

That’s what’s mad about gardening, one week you’re worried about the chance of frost and before you know it you’re coming up to midsummer. Where’s those other weeks gone to?

We’ve been promised some hot weather this week so we’ll be out with the watering can in the morning. The great Joe Maiden used to say it’s much better watering the garden in the morning than at night as the dampness in the evening only helps attract the slugs and snails and he may have a point. It’s not a bad experience being in the garden early (we’re not talking 6 am though or the neighbours may mistake you for an intruder!) Another watering tip we heard many moons ago on Gardener’s Question Time was if you’ve invited friends around for a day in the garden, give it a good soaking about an hour before they come and it will look great when they arrive. Top tip!

The wild bit at the bottom of the garden is looking great and it’s a lot livelier than when it was just a veg patch. There is a line of spuds and some cardoons by the fence but it’s mainly a mixture of beebombs from the other year, random sowings of poppies and various wild flower seeds including a woodland mixture from ebay as it don’t get a lot of light down there.

There’s now an addition of a micro pond made out of an old slow cooker bowl filled with plants thinned out from the main pond. We’re not expecting much wildlife in it but as we’ve a few tadpoles in the nearby pond perhaps it may be a frog holiday home later this year. Who knows?

And finally a big thanks to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor (who does a wonderful weekly show on a Monday at 9-11am on IDA Radio Tallinn here and all his past shows are archived here) who told us about the Patate Records Bandcamp which has some brilliant tunes up on it including this wonderful one from a good few years ago from Jah Mason.

And as they say on Gardeners Question Time, may the weather be with you. And get some lollies and cold drinks in the fridge for later this week as 31 degrees was mentioned.

Say hello and wade goodbye

Posted on by
Reply

Big thanks to CatfaceMcMeowMeow for recommending this great tune from Mike L called Wade in the water. We’ve never heard of this before and it’s a bit of a chilled out cracker for a Friday night. Cheers for that as we’re always up for musical recommendations here at Weeds.

And talking of garden pond related tunes here’s a couple here. Any more garden pond/water feature tunes are welcomed, just pop them in the comments.


And talking of ponds, here’s a nice pic of our pal Gerry Hectic‘s water feature that is looking great! Talk about clear water! Pics of garden ponds are welcomed here too.

UPDATE: CatfaceMcMeowMeow has just sent us details of a mix from Mike L and it’s free to download. Thanks for that as it’s a great mix!

Wade in the water

Posted on by
Reply

We hope you had a good Easter and all is well in the garden now that the good weather is upon us. We’d still advise to take it easy putting tender plants outdoors as you never know what the weather will be like and it’s still only April. We’ve been hardening off the veg plants (pic below) by sticking them outdoors for most of the day to get them used to what it’s like out there in the real world.

The pond (top pic) has really woken up now with some frolicking frogs, the odd newt and goldfish sharing the space. The Lewisham pet shop bought water lily is starting to sprout and we welcome a new addition to the pond, some bare rooted stuck Watermint procured off ebay in an old chimney pot which was elsewhere and now submerged in its rightful place (above).

And we’ve gone right off the idea of the Dalek type compost bin as the old fashioned wood version is doing well and giving off some warmth from the grass clippings after a good old weekly mix using a garden fork.

And while we were writing this post we’ve been listening to the latest This is a music show as recorded by @DazDude4000. It’s a lot better quality this week. Enjoy the Bank Holiday!