Category Archives: Wildlife

Ne’er cast a clout or throw anything out

Posted on by
Reply

We picked up another bag of Lldl’s best peat-free compost on Saturday and in between the rain and the suprisingly warm for the time of year sunshine we filled up an old washing up bowl (with some drainage holes in the bottom) and sowed some lettuce seeds. May not be classy but it works.

A good few years ago we did a great Saturday gardening course with our friend Scarlett Cannon and she us told of many ingenious ways of growing spuds including using carrier bags and such-like containers. An old shopping bag with holes in the bottom and a seed spud in it is now perched on a found in the street coat stand down the side of the garden. A bit unorthodox but why not?

And finally we had to put another layer of bricks below the old windowpane as those shallots are fast moving on! Keep your fingers crossed we get more sunshine that rain this week heading into May.

Fast and bulbous. Got me?

Posted on by
Reply

A couple of weeks after we featured them in a post here we can see that those shallots are coming on well. As we said last time, we haven’t had much success with them in the past in the raised beds but it looks like starting them under cover and sticking some organic matter in may have done the trick. We’ll keep you posted.

In the top right of this pic above you can just about make out the giant garlic. We stuck the sides of the raised bed (without the polythene on top) back on them as a bit of added protection as the wind seemed to give them a bit of knock last week. We’ll start feeding the garlic and the shallots soon with some comfrey/nettle liquid as soon as we can get some started and on the go. Hopefully that combined with some good weather to come may help them on their way.

Sunday morning listening to Dennis

Posted on by
Reply

We just found this recent show out of the blue (no pun intended), it’s Ross Allen doing one of his foundation music specials on his Meltdown show on NTS. This time it features the great photographer, PIL logo/Metal Box designer, Urban Shakedown/Basement 5 founder and many other things Dennis Morris. It’s not just an interesting listen, it’s a must listen!

We were reminded that in one of Dennis Morris’s books there’s a great picture of the Sex Pistols on an old-school coach (nothing as grand as having a loo or those tables with fancy lamps on it that football teams used to travel on cup final days in the 1970’s) on the M6 travelling away from Coventry the morning after their gig at Mr George’s in December 1977. It was a completely different world then, it’s all double decker coaches now and they have loos and even sarnies and tea and coffee on offer now!

Whilst the radio show was playing and remembering that photograph a tale came to mind and apologies if we’ve mentioned it before. It was a story we heard in 1978 from a chap we went to college with whose older brother was a car mechanic. This bloke did talk a lot of rot and this story beats the lot. He told us just before Christmas 1977 his brother got a call at his garage in Coventry to go to the motorway to fix a coach which had broken down. When he got there he saw it was a band on tour and was told it was the Sex Pistols. What was really odd though after a while he saw that all of the band (and their staff) were all dressed in suits and flared trousers and all of the punk image was a big act just for publicity (so he told us). Probably one of the best punk stories we may have ever heard. How the band kept that fact hushed up for all these years we will never know. You heard it here first.

Going back to reality and the radio show, the first tune Black Skin Blue Eye Boys from The Equals featuring Eddy Grant (Dennis mentions a couple of great Eddy Grant stories by the way) that starts the proceedings took us back in time to an excellent reggae 12″ influenced by that great tune (below the original).

Punk rock? That’s shallot

Posted on by
1

As it was a glorious day yesterday we spent much of it tinkering about in the garden (above). Notice the hessian shopping bags (mid-centre left) hanging on the found-in-the-street tree-like coat stand. Those bags will be filled with Lidl’s best peat-free compost and contain potato plants in a few weeks time. Dada gardening at its best.

The shallots we put in a couple of weeks ago “under glass” (which is just an old window frame found in the street balanced on some house bricks) are off to a flying start. We’ve tried growing shallots before but they rotted even before they got this far so we must be doing something right this time.

We tided up the side bed by the Dad corner (below) and replanted a couple of penstemons we bought off QVC a year and a bit ago and also made some sort of bug hotel (there isn’t a roof on it so is that more of a bug campsite then?) Those giant garlic bulbs are now coming on a treat as well.

Also we cleared a little area by the pond (below) and added a mini veg bed. We stuck some large wire mesh (originally some shelves from our old mini-plastic green houses) over the top of it to deter the cats, putting in a line of old house bricks in helps visually section the area off too. It gets a bit of shade so we’re thinking the lettuce seeds we put should be okay as in full sun they tend to go to seed. Let’s see.

Hopefully we’ve another couple of days worth of gardening to do over Easter if this lovely weather holds out. Have a good Bank Holiday weekend!

Listening to last week’s On The Wire which has a deep dubby bias while we write this post. Well worth listening to as per. Big shout to Steve, Fenny and Jim.

This Easter go West

Posted on by
2

This Easter Sunday 9th April Imaginary Stations will be going in a Westerly direction at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. In one word they’ll be going WEST, there’ll be some Westbound trains, themes from Westerns and even some spoken word from Adam West. So get your compass out, tune in your shortwave radio and enjoy everything Westward Ho! from 2200 UTC on Easter Sunday.

At 2.42 into the show One Deck Pete will be presenting a 15 minute mini-mix called in true Pete “Alright treacle?” Beale style “We’re going up West”. Tune in for an Easter Western treat!

A tune for a frosty morning

Posted on by
Reply

It was a lovely day yesterday, the sun was out and it looked like spring had finally sprung but the lack of cloud last night gave us a bit of frost this morning. As Shaw Taylor used to say about watching the weather forecast especially after putting plants in “Keep ’em peeled”. And here’s a nice tune…

International Herb

Posted on by
Reply

Suprise Chefs – Rosemary Hemphill – Big Crown Records

Thanks again to The Rhythm Doctor for pointing us in the right direction of another great tune, this time within a week of the last one! The Suprise Chefs bring us some bright vibes with a great track called Rosemary Hemphill which he played on his show (below) on IDA Radio (Tallinn) last Monday at 50 minutes in.

While the track was playing he decided to google Rosemary Hemphill and to his suprise what he found was another music/gardening connection (and as you know there’s a fair few of them about!)

Turns out Rosemary Hemphill is an “Australian writer of cooking and gardening books, who has long been recognised as one of Australia’s leading herb and spice experts.” She was born at “sunrise” on “April Fool’s Day” in 1922, in Broome, western Australia and in her childhood spent some time at her grandparents in Bromley, UK who had a big herb garden which was a big influence on her. More on the great lady here. She’ll be 101 tomorrow. Happy Birthday!

The big question is are the Suprise Chefs keen gardeners then?

Can you get a better view than that?

Posted on by
Reply

Big shout to Rich R for getting in touch with us after a good few years with pictures of his garden in the Lake District. We don’t think you can get a better view than that from a back garden. We all moan about the winter but there’ll be no more moaning if the pic below was the view from your front door.

We get a bit frustrated here with the Ladywell Fields Heron, Lewisham Parakeets and the south London sliced-bread snaffling Fox posse but up there they have proper wildlife to contend with: badgers, deer and rabbits which eat everything veg wise if they were to grow it. So Rich grows wild fruit and strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and a bit of marjoram. The back garden is literally on the side of a mountain, made up of 5 terraces and rises to about 500 ft. How good is that?

It’s a good looking garden Rich and the carpet of bluebells look great and we’re loving it here, more pictures please as the season cracks on!

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.

London Bridge is burning down

Posted on by
Reply

Big shout to our very good friend The Rhythm Doctor (of The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio – Tallinn on a Monday morning here) for telling us about this excellent collection on Bandcamp from Don Cavalli.

It’s called Don Cavalli chants down babylon and what an EP it is! There’s 4 top tracks including this above, his interpretation of The Wailers Fire Fire AKA Bunny Wailer’s Love Fire. We implore you to listen to this EP and make a purchase.