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!
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!
At 2.58 above is a tune that made us smile this week while putting together another shortwave mix for Imaginary Stations. It’s called Beatles and the MBE from Lord Short Shirt & The Silhouettes and even if you’re not keen on the Fab Four this’ll cheer you up.
Sometimes it’s small things that make you think. We were just reading the “What to do in the garden in May” piece on Penny GoLightly’s excellent blog here. She mentioned “The month has started with a mini heatwave, but I’m not rushing to plant out most of my seedlings too soon” and we have a bit of a realisation and checked the weather forecast for SE23 and thought “Ahh, she has a point”.
Its looks likes there’s going to be a little bit of a change in temperature this weekend to say the least. From those glorious summer vibes to a humbling 13°C tomorrow. Funny enough we just found a pic (above) from May 17th 2020, look at those sophisticated forms of frost protection and thats in mid-May!
To be honest we did get a bit carried away and put a couple (and more to be honest) of tomato plants out and yes there are some chillies seedlings that have been repotted and left out overnight. We’ve even dismantled a cold frame (aka took the bricks off holding down the polythene and folded up said polythene and chucked it in the bin). Looks like all of that will have to change this evening, alongside the flip flops and shorts going back into the wardrobe.
We’ll be bringing the chillies in tonight just to be on the safe side as it may drop to 4° C and we have a massive roll of bubble wrap purchased initially for selling stuff on eBay that will come in very handy.
We feel a bit sorry for the bloke on Facebook the other week who put out all his 30 odd tomato plants saying there won’t be a frost. He may be alright, but it does seem a bit nippy in the evenings next week. Good luck and may the (frost) protection be with you and enjoy those rays of sun rays today as you may have to put the jumper back on tomorrow.
Thanks very much to Adrienne N for sending us some pictures of a great looking bleeding heart plant (above). It’s one we’ve seen before but never known too much about. What’s interesting is that she has tried growing the plant multiple times in the soil outdoors, but it always dies after one season and has had more luck growing it in a pot. The flowers themselves are great (close up below).
After a little bit of research on the web, we found out the bleeding heart belongs to the poppy family which is odd as it looks a bit fuchsia-like if anything. It’s native to east Asia (including China, Korea, Siberia, and Japan) and is quite hardy too. The plant tolerates drought and is fire resistant. Now that is mad!
One thing we also did read about the plant is “All parts cause stomach-ache if ingested, the foliage may aggravate skin allergies. Wear gloves and other protective equipment when handling.” More info about the perennial here. We just remembered that there was a picture of a bleeding heart in Mike & Julia’s garden a short while ago here. Thanks for the picture Adrienne as it’s one lovely flower!
A big thanks to Debby H who sent us some pictures of how things are getting on gardening wise in north London. First are the cosmos (above) which are looking healthy. Those inner toilet tubes seem to be working well as plant pots by the way.
And above are the tomato seedlings which are sown in an interesting way as we usually sow one to a pot, but this method seems great. The tomatoes as well as the cosmos are ready to be repotted, and Debby has given us a great idea for further sowings.
Above is the azalea in her garden is looking great. As she wrote “I just found that the azalea is a type of rhododendron.” We didn’t know that.
And Debby has just got back from a break in Suffolk. “By the coast near to Dunwich the whole area was covered in the most amazing yellow flowering gorse bushes” “It went on for miles. I have never seen it looking quite so spectacular.” Brilliant stuff Debby, cheers for the update and we look forward to more pictures this year.
In a post the other day here we were discussing our impatience about putting tomato plants outside in the garden. Yesterday we saw a Facebook post where someone down here in London had taken a picture of their tomato plants outside in the garden with “Now there’s a good job done, all of my 30 odd tomato plants are outside in the ground. I doubt if there’ll be a frost now…” Looking at next week’s weather, it looks brilliant during the day and not too cold in the evening so we’re now even more confused than ever.
We had a plant on the kitchen windowsill with two flower trusses begging to go out and today we gave a broken council food recycling bin a good clean out and put a few holes in the bottom and now the two trussed plant is in it and up near the house. It should be well hardened off anyway and tonight it’s covered in bubble wrap just in case. It’s one less plant on the kitchen windowsill.
Above is the food recycling bin with the tomato in it and funnily enough it fits in with the other plant pots including one of the cuttings from Honor Oak Park station geraniums (we now think they are really pelargoniums) which is now flowering!
A big shout to our good friend Dr Strangedub who presents The Echo Chamber (with DJ Baby Swiss ) on KFAI out of Minneapolis, Minnesota for playing Jasmine Tutum & Madtone‘s Earth Citizen on this morning’s show at 37mins in (tune in here).
As we have said many times before, the Echo Chamber is the show to tune into on a Wednesday morning at 8am UK time for 4 hours (count them) of reggae, dub, downtempo and all sorts of bass heavy stuff and more. Cheers again Dr Strangedub!
And here’s a great track from the show called Don’t worry what the people think about you (Dub) from Dubblestandart & Jasmine Tutum.
Thanks to Kit, G0JPS in Bristol for letting us know he did a bit of garden clearance yesterday (Easter Sunday) which included “removing a huge tangle of cleavers (if the name isn’t familiar, you’d know what they are straight away when you see the picture of them) and the sad deceased remnants of a fuchsia bush.”
“Found this nice little sectioned off bit (above) under the wreckage; so gave it a good hoeing, sowed it with foxglove seeds, and rehomed a small thyme plant rescued from a supermarket car park. And pinched your idea of sticks and things to keep the cats off.” Brilliant Kit, we love your choice of metal sticks and wood that will keep the cats and probably the foxes off too we reckon.
He added “Thinking that it’s a bit of a blank slate now, the words Tabula Rasa popped into my mind so here’s a couple of tune suggestions:”
They are two excellent tunes that we’d never heard before. The first is Tabla Rasta who were from Crete with Mystic Dub and Brother Dan from Sweden with Bay Leaf and Thyme Dub. Excellent musical recommendations Kit, do keep them coming!
Weeds up to me knees 