Ace, very ace!

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Thanks to our good friend Will J for letting us know of a great community project in South London called Ace of Clubs. It’s a day shelter just behind Clapham High Street that does all sorts of great work for the homeless, in as much as providing cheap meals, giving out advice on benefits and finding accommodation, IT lessons and internet cafe sessions amongst other beneficial activities.

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Also, out the back they had a great allotment style garden that Will kindly snapped for us whilst spending a day there volunteering. The centre gets donations from the big supermarkets and others of potted herbs that they then plant out plus bulbs, bizzy lizzies, and various seeds. Everything they grow is purely from donations. How brilliant is that?

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I think we have to give it up for the gardener there who took over the plot last year when it was an overgrown mess and has made it what it is today, a brilliant space! Big up Ace Of Clubs. 

Come into the strange (dub) garden

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Thanks to our good friend Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI in Minneapolis for sending us an update of his garden this year and it’s looking well healthy!Strangedub_garden_collage2The good doctor writes: The collage above features my vegetable garden. In the top left is some type of chilli pepper; the bottom right is a bit of herb (oregano and thyme) in a planter; the other two photos are of tomatoes and peppers (and my drip hose.)strangedub_garden_collage1Above is my perennial shade garden. The largest image shows a couple of hostas, a bit of ornamental grass, raspberries in the foreground and some tiger lillies (no flowers as yet) near the upper left corner. The two smaller photos, some ostrich ferns and some hemp.

The shade garden is low maintenance as all the plants are perennials, so there’s no planting in the spring unless I’m adding something new. In the spring I clear out any leaves that have fallen from my big oak tree the previous fall and I do a bit of weeding as and when if needed and that’s about all.
As for climate, in Minneapolis, winter can be pretty brutal, and some years (like this past winter) can be damn long. This winter we got our first substantial snowfall (nearly 1 foot) just before Christmas and it stayed until late April. There was no mid-winter warm spell so my backyard had at least a foot of snow covering it for about four months!
Our summers can vary widely, one day could be 20 odd degrees different than the previous day and our hottest days can be 90+ degrees or even hit 100 (or near 40 C)!