Got any time to spare (and ‘andy with a drill)?

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Big shout to Lewisham Gardens for letting us know about this worthy cause! If you’ve got a couple of hours to spare in the week, love gardening and fancy helping out (and meeting like-minded souls in the process) get in touch at the email below about this great food growing project in South London. Here’s more about it:
Bring out the beans!
Miriam Lodge is a 125 bed hostel on Dartmouth Road, Forest Hill and it’s setting up a kitchen garden/hen-keeping project in the grounds this spring. It’s modelled on a successful project in another hostel in Hither Green (photo’s above and below) where residents and local volunteers grow, fruit, vegetables and herbs for the hostel. Any excess produce goes to other local projects.
Hands off me spinach!
The lodge need a group of enthusiastic locals to come in and work with the residents helping them through their first growing season. Also the walk-in chicken run will need building and raised beds putting together amongst other things. So if you’re a keen gardener or a bit handy with a drill and have some free time during the week (and live around the Forest Hill area or don’t mind travelling) contact Jackie on services@hqproperty.net

A seedy sunday night in SE13

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Seed swap sunday

Thanks to Lewisham Gardens for letting us know well in advance about their Seed Swap Sunday event in Hither Green on Sunday 23rd February in conjunction with the Golightly Gardens blog. Admission is a pound donation or bring seeds to swap and it’s held in a nice pub, how good is that? We’ll be there and I’ll be searching for some Brandywine Tomatoes and Cherokee Trail of Tears beans. Please spread the word on this great event!

Old punks never die, they just stand at the back pt2

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She's got a stranglehold on me...

Big up the one and only Charlie Harper (good bloke) and ain’t he looking good at 69! The last time we mentioned him was a couple of years ago (read here).

We found this by accident last night from Pete Davies’ website (the original drummer in The UK Subs) about a musical project he was involved in called Charlie Harper’s Harbour Rats. It sounds well mad stuff with Charlie on vocals and a band including double bass and mandolins and that even cover “Warhead” in a punk/folk stylee.

They sound like a band that you should be listening to at your local pub on a Sunday night sending you into a nostalgic frenzy, doing the punk kicking dance (not for too long though as the heart can’t handle it!), feeling sick and shouting things on the way out like “I’m not going into work tomorrow, I’m no sell out” then buying a packet of chips on the way home and refusing to put the chip paper into the litter bin shouting “F the system” and feeling very silly the next morning. Here’s to more years Charlie!

Chit them up!

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Chitting in SE23

I’ve been ill all week with the dreaded flu so I treated myself with a nice big bag of seed potatoes (earlies) for £4.49 from Shannons and stuck them in a cleaned out seed tray to give them a head start. They’re in a cool dry room by the window getting some light and they’ll sit there for a good few weeks while they develop some nice small green shoots (aka “chits”) which aren’t those horrid long yellow ones that old spuds get when they start sprouting in a dark cupboard. Just stick them in an egg box/tray with the blunt end (the one’s with the “eyes”) upwards in a cool, light room and wait until the danger of frost has gone (late spring) then stick them out.

Thanks to Lewisham Gardens for getting in touch about their forthcoming seed swap, the actual date is still to be confirmed but they are looking at possibly Sunday 23 February in Hither Green and it’s FREE! More details nearer the time. We’ll be there!

Also thanks to Mick Matthews who emailed us today about the Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group (CSSG) Potato Day/Seed Swap on 15 February 2014 and it’s at The Commemoration Hall, 39 High St, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE29 3AQ and also FREE, so if you’re in that area, support it! There’s 40 varieties of Potatoes available at £1.00 a kilo and children’s activities as well to keep the little ones happy while you swap your unwanted seeds. Cheers for getting in touch, Mick.

***STOP PRESS*** We’ve just had another email from Mick who mentioned: “Our potato day is not only free but we sell by the kilo so people can buy enough for a row or two without breaking the bank. It’s £1-00 per kilo and that’s been the price for the last four years. We did have a young lady visit the year before from Croydon who had missed the South London potato day and she commented that it was the best potato day she had been to and we only had 25 varieties that year!” Brilliant!

Also he passed on a great tip which is: “Spray the tubers with a weak solution of liquid sea-weed once in the egg trays just enough to wet them, this encourages stronger shoots and roots. Also if necessary plant out with sections of the tray attached as the roots sometime grow into the trays” Cheers again Mick, very helpful!

Sunday steppers business

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Zion Train/Jazzmin Tutum – Political Ting
Big thanks to our good friend and musical collaborator Jazzmin Tutum for sending us her new tune with the great Zion Train. A lively uptempo steppers number with snatches of warrior charge horns, great stuff! A tune for blasting out loud while looking at the frosted over back garden with a cup of tea and toast out of the kitchen window first thing on a Sunday morning!

Sydenham spud no more

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the umble spud

Thanks very much to Ann Other who contacted us this morning with information that the Sydenham Potato Day and Seed Swap event later this month has been cancelled according to the Potato Days 2014 website. I am gutted as I was well looking forward to it!

On the site it mentioned that the next London event is the one sponsored by the RHS in February. It’s free to RHS members but I wonder how much it is to non-members like myself? I will contact the RHS and Potato day website and see what info can be gleamed.

RHS Potato Day
In conjunction with London Plant & Design Show
21st-22nd February 2014
RHS Horticultural Halls
Vincent Square, Westminster.
Free to RHS Members.

While we’re on the subject of seed swaps, someone at work yesterday let us know about a site called Garden Swapshop which looks well interesting! The seed swap page is here.

STOP PRESS: Chris from Pennards Plants on the Potato Day website emailed me today: “I do not organise this event and was told last week by the organiser that he was cancelling as he could not get the venue. We are involved in The London Potato Day being run in conjunction with the RHS at the Lindley Hall, Vincent Square, Westminster on 21st/22nd February where we will have our full range of potatoes (which we could not do at Sydenham) as well as our Heritage seeds, onion sets, shallots etc.” There is NO seed swap at this event!

Throw mi corn

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Witherspoons

A couple of posts ago (Cloches over the Westway) I mentioned seeing The Clash at The Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds many moons ago. I’ve googled the venue to see if it was still there and was shocked to find out it’s now a Wetherspoon’s! I’m very glad though to see it has 5 Star food hygene and WiFi and that the interior is very posh (see below) but there are a few questions I would like to be answered. What are the quality of the Sausages included with their all-day breakfast like, has DJ Derek ever had a pint in there and is there a dress code? I am on the phone to JD Wetherspoon now…

Witherspoons 2