Seaside special

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Last weekend we were away in the land of glorious sunshine, Camber Sands. You’d honestly think you were somewhere exotic what with the glorious weather there. The picture above was taken down the road from where we were staying, and it’s an ingenious way to use a boat in the garden!

While I was at camber I took home a carrier bags worth of seaweed to use in the garden (I’m not sure about the legality of doing that) alongside tasteful bits of driftwood, shells, stones and the odd old beer can to stick around our pond. All I got off my kids was “why are you bringing all that rubbish home for, Dad?”, brilliant eh?

As soon as I got back to London I gave the seaweed a good hosing down to get the salt off and left it at the bottom of the garden. After a couple of days in the hot sun it frizzled down to such a tiny amount there weren’t enough left to use as a mulch. I could have always make a seaweed plant feed but as there’s already a bucket of foul smelling liquid stinking up the garden it’ll be bunged into the compost heap. Seaweed is a great compost activator and adds minerals and trace elements to the heap. Nowt wasted then!

Here’s a tune that got played a few times while chilling in the sun at Camber. It’s from a while ago but a tune all the same!

Emperor Tomato Ketchup

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The garden seems to be going mad of late. The courgettes and the spuds are doing well and we’re seeing a bit of action on the climbing french beans and tomatoes.

I know it’s a bit late, but here’s a couple of tips when it comes to those tomato plants. If you’ve got the cordon type ones (not the bush or tumbling varieties) make sure that the side-shoots are pinched out regularly so all the goodness can go into the plant and the production of the actual fruit. I’ve a couple of plants in the raised bed that I have forgotten to do that are now going wild and a bit uncontrollable. Also when my plants get to about four or five trusses (the sets of flowers that later turn into fruit) I nip the tops out, so again the energy will go back into the plant (but keep an eye on the side shoots a while after you do this as they will tend to go mad). I do give them a regular water but not too much and a feed every ten days. I’ve had to buy some plant feed in, as my home-made attempts are still not ready yet.

The wormery (image above not to be viewed on a full stomach!) is cracking on and there’s a build up of nice looking compost at the bottom and the liquid in the bucket below is starting filling up too. All for recycling kitchen scraps, plant waste etc!

Also I have started to leave a combination of comfrey, nettle and borage leaves to rot in a small amount of water in a bucket at the bottom of the garden. It’s funny as sometimes it’s a bit like groundhog day. I go down there every now and again to have a check, lift up the slab of concrete that is acting as a lid on the stuff and have a sniff as I’m sure it’s supposed to pong a bit. A microsecond later the vile stench hits me… bang! When will I ever learn. If only the image below had a scratch and sniff and then you’ll know what I mean!

Also I heard a good potato tip on a podcast called “Gardening with Tim & Joe” from a show on BBC Radio Leeds. It can be a bit like 1970’s Radio 2 at times (“what’s the recipe today Jim?” etc) but there’s some great tips to be learnt there. The other week they were talking about harvesting potatoes. It was said you should go in once with a fork to pull up what you think are all the spuds, then go in another three times and you’ll get all the spuds you’d have missed previously. Good stuff!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/gwtj

I belong to the blank generation

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Bells Group – Kingston 13 (Blank) 1962
A lovely little number from the Bells group on a blank 7″ later to be released on the Prince Buster label in 1962. This excellent bit of Jamaican Shuffle/ RnB was found at the bottom of a box of extremely scratched singles in the back room of a Peckham nail bar for 50 pence. The same day I also picked up a copy of an early Wailers single on the Island label which in good nick would have been worth about thirty odd quid. The one I procured was so knackered, it looks like it’s been stood on a few times and even has a phone number scratched into the grooves. Not one to stick on the Bang & Olufsen!

http://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/bells-group-kingston-13-blank

200 metre tunage

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Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka – No One

I heard this on a strongroom alive podcast this week and it’s been going around my head since. A nice atmospheric tune with a warped vocal which builds into a bit of a bonkers monster! One to play while watching Jamaica taking all top three positions in the 200 metres on replay on the telly (with the sound turned down) again and again. Big up to the Jamaican runners for loving the people of Birmingham!

There’s some great stuff on strongroom alive including a child of the jago and ross allen shows, well worth a listen! http://www.strongroomalive.com/listen/listen-again/

 

More Genesis, Floyd, Jethro Tull, Yes? Not arf!

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Thanks to Will for sending this youtube clip that features the permaculture king, Mike Feingold in his allotment. He looks a right old character with his bonkers hair and overalls, but knows a thing or two about gardening. He even has a roll-up on the go while showing people around his polytunnel. That’s not healthy is it?

Anyway seeing this clip reminded me of a bloke I used to know in my late teens in Coventry. He was about the same age as Mike Feingold then, always wore a green boiler suit, had ginger hair in a ponytail, and loved the band Gentle Giant. He was a lovely bloke, lived in bedsit, always had a pot of tea on the go and his door was always open for visitors. He wasn’t overly keen on the work ethic though and had his unemployment benefit stopped for a while after an interview with a dole office official when he said “getting a job would interfere with my social life”. Not a great thing to say in a interview with the dole! Wonder what he’s up to now?

In a love ballad stylee

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Jimmy James – My request (WIRL) 1962/63
Here’s another seven inch that breaks the “if it ain’t got a middle and has Jamaica on the label, it’s reggae” rule. This was bought in the late 80’s from a second hand record stall in a damp smelling arch in Brixton Market for Fifty pence. I had no idea when I bought it that the singer was Jimmy James of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds “I’ll go where the music takes me” fame. This one is in remarkably good nick and has a lovely cover too! Months later off the same stall I picked up a Jamaican pressing of a Stylistics single which was covered in red dust which I was told was authentic garden soil from Jamaica, yeah right! This a ballad of the loving kind. Love the slow trumpet solo!

http://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/jimmy-james-my-request-wirl

Wild world of sports

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A strange thing happened to me on my way home from work last Friday. I was outside Charing Cross station and saw the doorman of the hotel there laughing with a happy guy about to get into a smart looking car. He seemed to be ribbing the bloke about something who just smiled and laughed back. Anyway as I passed him I noticed around fifty pounds worth of tenners in his back pocket flapping about ready to fall out/be nicked. I tapped the guy on the shoulder and said “Oi mate, watch your money especially around here” to which he thanked me profusely, shook my hand, pushed the tenners deeper into his pocket and got into the car and I thought no more of it.

It wasn’t until a few hours later watching the opening ceremony of the olympics on the telly I spotted the guy walking into the arena holding the olympic flag with a few others (including Stephen Lawrence’s mum and Muhammad Ali). Only turns out the bloke was the Ethiopian long distance runner Haile Gebrselassie. How bonkers is that? I know zilch about sport so didn’t have a clue who he was at the time. Can I claim my free olympic family tickets now?

Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that pallet in your hand?

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As the weather was so nice last week, I walked from London Bridge to work a few times (cheers for the idea, Marc!). The things you see at 8 in the morning on the Southbank. Thursday saw dodgy flag sellers setting up shop to catch the tourists waiting for the Olympic flame to arrive (low quality union jacks for £2.50/£3.50, a bargain!) and on Friday at 7.55 am on the Millenium bridge, 20 or so bell-ringers standing around waiting for st pauls to “ring in” the olympics. The only thing that stood out about the gathering was a baby on a papoose facing outwards with the biggest “number 11’s” dripping out of it’s nose I have ever seen. Urghh! Poor kid.On the way over I did pass some great wooden pallet planters which were dotted about Jubilee Market around the corner from Southwark Cathedral. I was told local school kids had made them, not sure if that meant they actually got the black & decker workbenchs out or the kids just designed them. Some mad ideas though!

Ital feast

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Popped into Robert Dyas in the strand today to see if they had any decent seeds in their “half marked price” sale and found these two packs of “Italian Kitchen” Basil and Leaf Salad for the combined price of £1.84. These still can be sown outdoors and if you’re thinking of growing indoors (ie. in a pot on a kitchen windowsill), you can sow them anytime. If anyone tells you this gardening lark is expensive, they’re lying!

It’s alright this gardening lark, innit?

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A mad day to say the least. The weather was first rate and conditions that inspired a day of gardening and then later, chilling in the back garden. My petrol mower was chugging away at 11am with no complaints (the guy across the road had his going at the ungodly hour of 9am on a Sunday morning without the police being called, the power of sunshine eh?)

Today I dug up the spuds that started off in the home-made cold frame which were later served up for dinner. Not as many for the two plants as I thought (earlies aren’t supposed to be massive harvesters) but enough roast spuds for a sunday dinner for a family of four. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but quality far out-weighed the quantity. Comments on the produce from the family were along the lines of “these potatoes taste like real potatoes”, too right! There’s still the rest of the bag of seed potatoes-worth of plants to go, so there’s a good few more roasters to enjoy.

There’s even a second flower on the water lilly in the pond, and for the last couple of years we’ve been cursing the bloke in Lewisham’s premier pet shop as all we’ve got is the odd leaf or two. Shame! The above pic shows the water lily that cost us a fiver about 2 years ago, a few oxygenating pond plants I got off ebay for about £3 which is spreading like wildfire and two of the goldfish of the 13 my wife got for the price as 11 (£7ish) at the Lewisham pet shop after she listened intently to the bloke chat on about his own pond. Bargain!