Cheers to our mate Will for sending us this musical recommendation, a collection called Bootlegs II by Tribilin Sound and there’s 34 tracks for 10 US dollars which is a bargain. The opener The Poor Man Cumbia has a bit of the warped out sounds of an off-centre pressing and is a do over we think of Barrington Levi‘s Poor Man’s Style. Wonderful stuff!
And we love the mad remix of José María Arguedas’ Carnaval De Tambobamba. There’s a little bit of everything on this set from Massive Attack and Madonna and well worth investigating.
Our favourite gardening trowel went missing this week. It was a christmas present a good few years ago, survived nearly every day use (and numerous knocks and scrapes) and it’s almost like a good friend. We even had to put some plants in yesterday using a large dessert spoon, the shame of it!
We did a daily lap around the garden lifting up leaves and looking behind pots just to see if it have fallen behind something (using the same route every day and lifting the same leaves). The cupboard under the stairs (its usual resting place) was inspected a few days in a row, the Lewisham Garden refuse bin was emptied out twice and we even dreamt about it (the metal part was coming away from the wooden handle in the dream. Was this a sign?)
Today whilst getting the flymo out of its home (a large waterproof plastic outdoor box bought at Argos) we spied said trowel sitting at the bottom of it. What the hell was it doing there? Who moved it to such an odd place? Is it to do with our advancing years? We do rather hope not.
Lost anything in the garden of late and it’s resurfaced somewhere daft? Please let us your tale.
Cheers to Mike & Julia (great photographs as ever Julia!) for sharing a garden update of their roses and ceanothus“popping out to see us”. Excellent stuff and hope all is well in the Midlands.
The other Saturday we spend most of the day at an event at the Crystal Palace Subway. You’ve a good few stairs to traverse and have to squint until your eyes gets used to the light when you get into the covered area but it’s an interesting place to view. More on the venue on a great YouTube clip here.
On nipping back and forth from said event (to get supplies of bacon sarnies and cups of tea that had to be consumed outside as the organisers didn’t want the subway’s floor to be discoloured) we spotted a plant stall set up outside the park belonging to a local community gardening group. The selection was wide and the prices cheap so what more do you want? We spent a tenner and got a good handful of plants.
All the pots came with details of the plant printed on paper sellotaped to the side, so we were in no doubt what they initially were until we took them out of said container. We’ve now forgotten three apart from a large lily and another Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ we bought to stick up by the pond.
The first one (above) is not a dock but is very close to one (the new garden volunteers regularly mistaken it for the weed) and supposedly sends up long flowers or seed heads perhaps? Any ideas what we purchased or have we been diddled into buying a dock for a quid?
The next we wrote on a label but the only pen on hand was a silver thick marker and we can’t really make it out properly (could it be Sweet Rocket?) We are sure when we first read up about the plant it said it was invasive, so we just left it in the pot.
The last one (above) Plant.id reckons this is Atriplex hortensis aka Purple Mountain Spinach. We recall being told something like that (French Spinach perhaps?) at the time but not 100% on that. We think we’ve done well for a tenner but just unsure about the names on the last three. Any thoughts on what they are would be appreciated.
Here’s an excellent chilled out tune we found last week on our search for “space” tracks, that is perfect for a Sunday morning. It’s bySpace Afrika out of Manchester and called Self.
And another track called Bobbies Reprise (feat. bobbieorkid) from Rainy Miller x Space Afrika. Well worth investigating further.
STOP PRESS! Thanks to all invoved in the excellent Go Gardening Facebook group (Including Graham P, Jane H and Jackie M) for IDing a couple of the plants above.
Plant picture 1 – The dock looking thing is Persicaria. “It’s a perennial & once established spreads quite rapidly. It sends up tall..usually red…flower stalks with small flowers.”
Plant picture 2 – Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis) “it’s a biennial or short lived perennial.”
Thanks for Debby H for getting in touch again and sending an update. She has just sent us a picture of her Zephyranthes Robusta and said “Each year, I store the bulbs in the garage over the winter. In late spring I bring them out and they grow again. Isn’t nature wonderful!” It really is Debby!
And what is fantastic is she has attached a picture of the first flower on one of her cosmos plants. How wonderful is that for May? Cheers Debby!
We were compiling some tunes for a space leaning shortwave mix and came across this belter of a dub. It’s off a set called Moon Dub EP by Invadread. The track is by Baodub and called Dub of the moon and it is one catchy dub and has a touch of the Keith Levine’s in there and a bit of a Doctor Who vibe somewhere. A tune!
Another moon themed tune…
As the lyrics go “Neil Armstrong the first human on the Moon and the Pan Afros the first men to play the tune”. Brilliant!
A big thanks to Mike & Julia from outside Coventry for some snaps from their great garden. As before we are going to let Julia’s brilliant pictures do the talking, and there’s some wonderful stuff here as ever. As Mike said in his email “Things are happening in our garden”. They certainly are!
Cheers for sending these pictures over and may your garden carry on looking great for the rest of this year!
STOP PRESS: Julia has just come back with the plants featured in order as in the blog post. Thanks Julia!
Allium
Salvia – hot lips
Alstroemeria
Geums with wallflowers in front
Geums with a lupin type bush which I have never seen before and am not quite sure what it is
I think it’s a penstemon
Yellow poppies and geranium
Thanks to Debby H for sending us an update today. Above are the Marconi Red peppers and the dwarf sunflowers (below). “These are the plants from the house in the next street to ours” and the plants looks healthy. The peppers have a few flowers on one of them as well.
Below are the peonies in her garden (below) which have great looking flowers! We’re only at the start of the growing season and the garden can only get better. Cheers Debby, thanks for sending the updates!
The weather looks like a bit of rain later this week by the way so they’ll be another growth spurt out of our plants in our gardens we reckon.
Cheers to Kit, G0JPS presently on a boat on the Grand Union Canalwho told us earlier he was listening to the “Alt Universe Top 40” on 9670 kHz on his XHDATA D-808 portable. As he reported: “Lovely reception. Hot Butter’s seminal track, “Popcorn” is currently playing.” Brilliant stuff Kit!
Then around the same time we heard from Debby H who picked up a couple of pepper plants from a few streets away (there was a mixture of plants on a wall with a sign “please take me” on it) and guess what one of the varieties was called? Marconi Red. Radio (and gardening) connects us all!
Thanks for Vintage Obscura Radio for putting this up on their bluesky feed and what a tune. It’s from Fadoul aka Bob Fadoul and it’s called Fi Jamique. Yes it is a familiar rhythm (None Escape the Judgement) but it’s a lovely take on it! And there’s more!
STOP PRESS: Julia has just come back with the plants featured in order as in the blog post. Thanks Julia!
Weeds up to me knees 