Category Archives: Wildlife

Blame Jimi Hendrix or Humphrey Bogart for these!

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Growing giant sunflowers come with various different problems. You have to stake them up to stop them snapping in the wind, keep the slugs and snails off them and there’s also the pigeons and squirrels to contend with. Now the Peckham parakeets are onto them.

It’s not the best photo as it had to be taken clandestinely but there’s at least three birds on the nearest sunflower the one with the multiple heads and one perched on the one furthest away (which hasn’t any flowers) on lookout duty.

It’s funny as when these birds appeared the pigeons and squirels were nowhere to be seen, the same as the cats. You just can’t win! More on those pesky parkeets and the origins of where they may have come from here.

Breakfast in Hokkaido

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A big shout to Stevyn Iron Feather Journal‘s Towne Club Records collection of remixes and alternate versions of Pink Floyd’s Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast which are all up in their glory here. It features a remix (below) by our very own Madtone called Pete’s Ambient Breakfast.

This tune later formed the basis of Jazz’min & Madtone‘s Earth Citizen which was featured on Echo Chamber – Around The World In Dub Vol 9 & 10 by Dan Dada Records a set well worth downloading here and it’s all for FREE as are all of the Around The World in Dub series are.

Stevyn has informed us that they are still seeking remixes, dubs, edits, extended, cover versions, mashups, etc. of this song done in any genre or styles. There’s no rules so give it your all and send him your creations. If you like a good read of all things on a different tip have a butchers at Iron Feather Journal here.

Odds and ends

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There won’t be many words in this post just mainly pictures from the garden earlier. The first (below) is the result of the random throwing around of seed when receiving them from ebay (This is possibly from a wild flower mix). With the flowers we very rarely mark out seed drills and stick down plant labels, it’s straight out of the bag and onto the bed.

And the second is a rather strange and wonderful freshly picked tomato. It seems a shame to eat it!

And the third is the super tall Sunfower looking down on us ready to flower. This one next to the garage is nearly 10 foot. Bonkers.

And on in the background whilst we were writing this post was this week’s Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio Tallinn (every Monday from 8-11 UK time and archived here). There’s lots of musical goodness on the show as udsual and at the start some works from one Vladimir Tarasov teased in and out of other downtempo gear. A idea “stick it on the stereo” midweek summer evening listen.

Tales from the heap

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The other week we cleared out some grass clippings and recent vegetation from out of the dalek compost bin and stuck it into the old fashioned “out in the elements” heap of old next to it. Up until a few days earlier the wooden frame was full of a few years worth of sticks and ivy that had never rotted down but we moved that into the local council’s garden refuse bin leaving the bottom of the dalek with a load of brandling worms chomping their way through some well rotted warm debris.

Well we looked in the “Open to the wilds of SE23” compost area today (we took off the once stylish now mouldy, bath mat cover first) and gave it a good fork over and it seems to be rotting much quicker than it was in the dalek, not sure if it’s the weather or just being outdoors but whatever it is, it’s working well (see above).

The quarter full darlek (above) is also doing well, there’s less brandling worms compared to last time we looked which means it’s on its way to maturing. Composting well is a bit of a science but it’s worth delving into (no pun intended) as your garden will thank you for it!

More Sunday night radio fun

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This Sunday 22nd August 2021 is a transmission called The Return to KMRT broadcast on WRMI (also home to the excellent This is a music show) at 2300 utc (12 midnight UK time) on 9395 in the 31 metre band. If you haven’t a radio of a shortwave type you can always try a online SDR here at the allotted time.

Talking of supermarkets the original KMRT broadcast from earlier this year is up on the KMTS mixcloud site featuring at 28 minutes in a mix from One Deck Pete called “Buy one get one free”. Tracks from Tyler Newman, Allen Ginsberg, Anima Universalis, Japanese Sound Portrait, Beatz for Food, Lullatone, Cantoma and Z Lovecraft. Tune in and grab yourself a bargain!

Caught in the act

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We now have proof that it is indeed the squirrels that are having a go at the sunflowers (the giant “10 feet”ones we got off ebay) when we caught one today feeding off the flowerhead. At least they’re actually waiting now until they’re in flower as it was the buds they were nicking previously but surely it’s the seeds (that come after the flowers) they should be waiting for. Who knows?

For hands that do dishes…

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Here’s a container that came available today for the current batch of Comfrey liquid (nice video about making the stuff here) we tipped out from the bucket at the furthest end of the garden today. It’s well handy to tell you the truth when it comes to squirting it into your watering can. Less chance of splashing about we hope. Get this stuff on your clothes or hands and the smell will be with you for days, months and years.

We had heavy rain on and off most of today so the neighbours must have thought we’ve lost the plot (again) if they looked out the window at 7.30 pm and saw us with a watering can giving the plants a feed. At least the plants will appreciated it!

Shaw Taylor we need you!

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It’s been a funny old week, the weather did’t know what it was doing and we have sunflowers reaching silly sizes which is brilliant. As you know we love any seeds that say they’re “giant” or “massive”, half the time they don’t live up to their promise on ebay but the ones we got this year have.

The sunflowers down the side bed are doing well they’re well over 8 feet, a few have flowers. The ones that don’t have, have been the victim of the squirrels. They seem to be going for the buds this year rather than waiting for the large seed heads, very strange. We awoke this morning to one of the largest ones that was well over 9 feet, broken in half (below). To say we’re fed up is an understatement but they’re next to a fence so what can we do?

On a brighter note our Sweetcorn plants we got from Shannon’s and Chilli’s (Jalapeno) we grew from seed are coming on great guns! Whether we get any cobs on the corn to eat for ourselves are another thing. Squirrels aren’t keen on them are they?

And if you look hard enough you can see the Jalapeno’s we’ve already had a few off them and they’re great. Well worth growing.

This blog post was written whilst listening to This is a music show 125. Thanks to Dazman for putting it up on his cloud and cheers to Your Host for the selection. Some great stuff as ever including a lovely bit of reggae and some nice dub including the version of this.

A show always worth listening to and it’s on the shortwaves! Have a listen below, you won’t regret it!

Wild Style

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It’s been an action packed week out in the back with a good bit of watering in the morning and sometimes the evening. The late great Joe Maiden used to say the later hours weren’t the best time to water as it attracted slugs and snails but what can you do when the ground is parched and we do enjoy a stroll up and down the garden path with a watering can. It’s a bit of moving meditation innit?

The wild part of the garden (above top) where we put in some seed bombs plus additional borage, poppies (above) and nasturtiums is now looking a bit wild but not in the organised wildness of the great Horniman’s Gardens locally (pic below). As some gardening mates have told us, it takes time and a lot of care to make a wild garden look good. That’s a paradox is there ever was one.

That reminds us, years ago we stayed in an Airbnb in Ireland where the owners were very much into nature (not the stripping off in your back garden type nature but the bird watching type nature) and since they moved in (they’d been there 25 years) they just left their garden to its own devices to attract as much nature as possible (again not the stripping off in your back garden type nature but the bird watching type nature).

The space looked mad and a little unkempt to say the least but each to their own. What was funny though they did say “We do try and make a point of taking care of the lawn though. We have a farmer’s horse come in for a feed once every few months”. Oh that’s alright then!

Freedom blues

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Since the relining earlier this year things have gone a bit haywire (in the best sense of the word) down the pond. The water is a hell of a lot clearer, the fish seem happier and we’ve seen far more wildlife in and around there.

We usually get frogspawn, then tadpoles and then usually nothing after. This has had us scratching our heads thinking “Where have they gone then?” expecting to see lots of “something” but no, nothing, just an pond full of fish and plants, nothing frog-related at all.

It’s been different of late as there’s a load of mini frogs sunbathing, swimming and some even making the trip out of the pond out to the surrounding jungle (it’s going to look like a jungle to something so small!) We’ve been watering around the pond recently as we usually just leave it to go dry so we wonder if that’s helping matters too. Nice to see a frog sitting down comtemplating what to do next (above) on this the so called “Freedom Day”.