A foxtail lily and New York City

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We’re expecting some cold conditions this weekend in London town (with a possible low of 1 degree) so the cloches and covers are still in place in the garden. The terrarium found in the street many moons ago is nearly being lifted off by the foxtail lily growing inside it (post from February here). We don’t want to take it off yet just in case. Look closely and you can even see the flower stem ready to reach up to the sky, and it’s not even Easter yet!

Now here’s a mad tune for a Friday night, very New York 80’s sounding, think New Order, Jah Wobble and ESG. This is one big tune! It’s off the Poli-Ritmo E.P. (available here) by Internal N.Y. Rhythms on Optimo Music and a belter it is, tribal with some added dubwise goodness! One for blaring out loud while hunting down that horticultural fleece!

A message from the Wirral

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We’ve just heard from an old workmate, Fran Sandham who has done a fair few things since we parted company at the workplace many moons ago. One being trekking across Africa on his todd, writing a very entertaining book about it “Traversa: A Solo Walk Across Africa” (half of the way through at the moment and it’s excellent stuff), owned a donkey and a mule for a short period of time (not many people can say that) and worked what looks like a miracle on his garden in the Wirral. Most of the work was done by himself but as he says “I could have done with the Time Team to dig it all up.” 

We love a before and after pic here at Weeds but the “before” pics sent to us by Fran made us think “blimmin’ ‘eck” and a few more choice words too! I know Weeds HQ was in a bad way when we moved in with its mummified underpants, handfuls of lurid coloured plastic clothes pegs and knackered pushbikes lurking in the undergrowth (a reminder here) but that’s nowt compared to what Fran must have experienced looking at the pictures here.

If you look at the “After” pics below you’ll agree with us here how much hard work went into the restoration of the garden as it originally would have been (in a 1930’s Art Deco style). He described the work involved as “one of the labours of Hercules.” It looks brilliant but I can imagine there were a few wheelbarrows worth of rubbish have been moved and a few skips involved. Fran we salute you!

Capsicums from Canada

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Big shout to our good mate Ciarán over in Vancouver for sending us more pics of his chilli seedlings (see previous post here) and they’re looking even better than they were last month! As he told us “We’ve just had one of the driest and warmest March’s ever. We had loads of days in 20’s and they were loving it.” We are well jealous here as it’s cloudy and grey outside this morning and looking at the BBC Weather for SE23 it’s saying “Light rain showers and a gentle breeze”. Damn! Great Chilli pics by the way Ciarán!

We welcome all gardening related pics here, just drop us a line at onedeckpete(at)gmail.com

Good companions?

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Wow! It clocked nearly 19 degrees here in London today and what a pleasure it was to be back out in the garden! The newly transplanted silver birch (originally found in a carrier bag in the street two years ago post here) is now surrounded by a circle of broad bean seedings (masterpiece green). Cleverly inspired companion planting or just plain daftness?

Weeds were taken out and beds tidied up with a hoe. The grass was cut, some seeds were sowed: a row of white borage and some night scented stock. Whether they’ll take as you never know what the weather will bring over the next few weeks but it’s worth a chance.

Thanks to our good friend Nancy B for recommending the lovely clematis montana to go against the grey fence (this fine specimen was bought from Shannon’s last year) which is now making a bit of a growth spurt complete with flower buds! There was plenty of splashing around of comfrey liquid around all of the garden too so all of the plants could get a spring feed before the gardening season properly kicks off.

And indoors there’s a few varieties of tomato seedlings on the kitchen windowsill suprisingly not as leggy as they’ll usually be if we’d have sowed them at xmas which is customarily for us here at Weeds. Here’s hoping they grow up strong!

The big question is though, will the sun be out tomorrow? And do remember to adjust those clocks tonight.

Reel out me hose…

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So spring has finally arrived! It’s now time to scrape the mould off those gardening gloves and that inch of dust from your kneeling pad. When you’re next out in the garden dangle a speaker out of the back window and play some tunes as we all know music and plants go well together.

The first recommendation is for all who love a certain brassica from Helsinki-based composer Jukio Kallio featuring some tinkling on the old Joanna. This’ll get those broad bean seeds a germinating!

The next is a lovely piece called Garden Dub for the tripped out gardener in us all from Pale Rider, a solo project featuring one half of the Nashville/New York dub duo Phase Selector Sound. Lovely stuff! Leave the top window open in the greenhouse so the treble can escape and float around the neighbourhood.

Tuesday’s shorts

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Things are moving on in the garden, the foxtail lily is starting to burst out the terrarium now (above pic) and it’ll be lifting the blimming thing off by the weekend!

A big thanks to Thompson & Morgan for including Weeds on their new public twitter list “Great grow your own blogs” here. It also includes The Propagator, Life on Pig Row, The Quest for Veg and more. A list to subscribe to!

Here’s a couple of great tunes heard this week, the first on this week’s Tom Ravenscroft show and the second a great tune by Lila Iké that samples Dennis Brown & Aswad’s Promised Land heard on (a new show to us called) Reggae Got Soul on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire. Roll on the sunshine that’s hopefully coming this weekend!

 

 

Shaw Taylor was never a sailor

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Found in front of Weeds HQ on St. Patrick’s day morning (below) this strange home-made hat stand/large cat scratcher is now in place in the garden for use later this season. What do you think we should have trained up it? A clematis, some sweet peas or runner beans perhaps? Let’s see how the mood takes us. To its left is the window frame we found years ago and to its right a mirror originally left out for the bin men. Isn’t it great what you find in the street?

 

Greenhouse classics (revived)

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Cheers for Justin Moore for starting us off again on the search for gardening related music with his recommendation for Mort Garsen‘s Cosmic LP “Mother Earth’s Plantasia” last week here. Also a big thanks to the good Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI for his mix a few years ago below and Pete Haigh from the monthly Funkology radio show (on “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire) for his gardening-related chart here. We’re now looking for more. Know any deep house classics that mention “potting on”? Or some dubstep that mentions dephiniums? Or just some fine tunes you like to like to prune the roses to? Send us your nominations please. Remember music and gardening do mix!