Well it’s supposedly going to be the hottest day in London today “since records began”. And talking of records (or audio files in this instance) here’s a nice summery one a mate told us about yesterday. It’s one to chill out to whilst drinking gallons of water, eating choc ices, getting stuck under somebody’s sweaty armpit on the tube and other things you find yourself doing on hot days.
The other day we spied what we think are possibly fruits of the beefsteak variety on the Thompson & Morgan trial seeds tomato and (a possible further clue it may be a beefsteak) looking at the sheet accompanying the seeds it does mention that the “plants need side-shooting and support”. We love a beefsteak tomato here, please be one.
Talking of tomatoes, we always side-shoot the plants but the other week we watched Bob Flowerdew on youtube where he was advocating not to pinch out all your tomato side-shoots as growing on two/three cordons ain’t a bad thing. Have at the link look below as he’s very funny, educational and we do love his barnet!
Also we’re now getting flowers (and the start of fruit) on the spaghetti squash. We got what we thought was another spaghetti squash at the bottom of the garden (lower of the two pics) but now comparing leaves we wonder if it’s something else like a courgette (zuchinni) that we may have sown earlier? Only time will tell!
Also another spinach experiment is on the go (we’ve had the seeds sown between the earthed up spuds and inside a circle of broad beans which both sadly didn’t work), we sowed a row at the bed at the bottom of the garden that gets limited sunlight, let’s see how they do. The sticks are to keep the cats off (going back to Bob Flowerdew, on another youtube in that series above he says he welcomes cats into his garden and encouraged them to do there “doing’s” in a dedicated toilet space complete with straw and catnip! We do like his unconventional style!) Updates on the trial seeds to follow.
A year or so ago we bought a couple of cardoon plants at Shannon’s and stuck them at the bottom of the garden and duly forgot about them. We didn’t know much about them when we bought them (and still don’t know much now) but we do know we love the wild and whacky. This year has seen some mad growth spurts in the plants and now some mad thistle type heads. Reminds us of our punk days back in the seventies! #gardeningsnotdead
We here at Weeds swear by comfrey liquid used as a plant feed. Ours is made well out of the way at the bottom of the garden in a 1980’s Boots homebrew fermenting bin. A good few handfuls of the leaves of the plant are chucked in the bin alongside a few of borage and nettle and are left to rot in a small amount of water for a good few weeks weighed down with a housebrick, talk about simplicity!
It’s a brilliant feed used well diluted but what of the pong you may ask? Comments heard the last few times we’ve used it have ranged from “that smell is blxxdy awful!” to “that’s worse than the wiff of a thousand dirty ashtrays” to “urgghhh, that reminds me of body odour off a sweaty armpit stuck in your face on a tube at rush hour times ten”. Never mind the niff, it’s brilliant stuff, it’s cheap and works wonders! #comfreyliquidforever #comfreyplantfeediswhereitsat More comfrey info here.
Here’s an update to the seed trials we’re doing for Thompson & Morgan in the Weeds back garden. The most suprising thing to come up are the tropaeolums (nasturtiums), we’ve lots of self-seeded normal orange types going nuts at the bottom of the garden (below) but look at the pinkish/purple ones from T&M above, how good are they? We’re loving the colour of them and funnily enough nasturtiums normally don’t do that much for us here.
The spaghetti squash that is in the top bed is now making a break for it (below). Hopefully they’ll be more room when the broad beans beside it dies off. The squash is looking healthy and just started to flower. We’ve neglected feeding all the plants for a couple of weeks as the home-made comfrey liquid ran out (we gave Honor Oak Train Station a couple of bottles of it to help them with their station in bloom contest entry!), but we’ve now a new batch on the go. There’s another spaghetti squash at the bottom we sowed late but who knows the summer may go on for a bit longer this year.
The tomatoes (below) are in a bed which once used to house a greenhouse, the soil is not great there and doesn’t get the sun until mid afternoon and not for that long but the three plants there are surviving and there’s at least one truss of flowers showing. We won’t give up on them and we’ll be on it with the comfrey feed this weekend. Cheers again to T&M for the seeds!
If you’re in the Honor Oak Park area in London next Sunday (21st July) and fancy a bit of Tai Chi, there’s a great event going on from 11-4pm with a seminar from Rose Oliver over at the moment from Shanghai. It costs £40 and will be covering a whole lot of stuff suitable for anyone interested in Tai Chi, beginners or experienced practitioners. Her seminars are good fun and you’ll certainly come away with a bit more knowledge of the art and a couple of more friends. Contact Rose by email roseinchina2006@yahoo.co.uk to prebook or visit the Honor Oak Tai Chi Facebook page here. #SE23taichi #roseolivertaichi
Big thanks to DJ Frederick for including Weeds’ One Deck Pete’s Sounds of the shortwave at 15.38 minutes in on today’s broadcast of Free Radio Skybird “Music and culture for shortwave listening”. It also features Madtone’s Interval Signal Jazz as their actual interval signal. We’re glad to be part of the FRS crew!
Above is Sounds of the shortwave via the shortwaves with all the radio wave action! #freeradioskybird #shortwavesnotdead
A trip down the garden path tonight produced this trio of pics. Above: The fiver’s worth of water lily we bought from the Lewisham pet shop (whose website’s by-line is “For all your reptile needs”) a few years ago has gone mad this summer. We counted nearly 7 flowers on it the other day. The fish are using it as shade during the sunny periods and the tadpoles as mini swimming pools. The pond need a bit of thinning out this weekend as it would be nice to give the inhabitants more room. We now get our fish food via ebay, and you get double or treble of the volume of food for the price compared to what you get in those supermarket tubs.
The pink flowers shown above don’t look like much and as a plant it’s a bit on the scrappy side but disregard that and grow night scented stock for it’s evening smell!
And somewhere in the middle of the tomatoes and broad beans growing against the garage wall and the dahlias is the Thompson & Morgan trial spaghetti squash. We reckon it’ll outgrow the space in no time!
And finally a dubbed out one for the warm night we’ll be getting tonight (where it’ll be hard to sleep even with the windows are open!), it’s from Masis called Unearthed Dub and it’s the Frenk Dublin mix. Tune!
DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird returns to the 49 metre band next Sunday July 7th 2019 via http://www.channel292.de/ on 6070 kHz at 1400 UTC (1500 UK time). With a mixture of features and music (anything from jazz, avant-garde, ambient, folk, rock, indie and more) the hour transmission will also include One Deck Pete’s “Sounds of the shortwave” a ten minute shortwave radio inspired mix including tracks from Aljosha Konstanty (AK), Jay-Jay Johanson, Jazz’min Tutum and Rephazer. Tune in just after Gardener’s Question Time! #freeradioskybird
A nice bit of Friday night downbeat business first heard on On The Wire a couple of weeks ago. It’s by Yaaard off the album “How to download a glass of water” and it’s called “I Lit a candle” and it’s a tune!
Weeds up to me knees 