Thanks to Will for pointing us to the Lee Perry producers series mix on Test Pressing where this track was included. I hadn’t heard of this remix before, it’s excellent!
http://testpressing.org/2012/04/176-producers-series-17-lee-scratch-perry/
Yesterday I visited the friends of Horniman’s plant sale in Forest Hill. I got down there a quarter of an hour after it opened and I reckon I might have missed a few bargains as people were walking out with bagfuls of plants and there were a few bags stuck behind some stalls to pick up for “Ron” (later on).
Saying that, it wasn’t a bad sale, I got 4 Tomato plants (Gardener’s Delight) for £2 and 10 assorted Dahlias for £3, all very healthy looking with a little bit of root growth peeping out of the bottom of the pots. Good value or what? I also got a couple of houseplants, an Aloe vera for a pound and a medium sized Chinese Money plant (Pilea peperomioides) for a fiver.
The only down side was part of the sale was in their big glass conservatory. Not good considering the sun was beating down yesterday. I left after five minutes in there before the tempers got frayed, “What, you want three pounds for THAT?” “Plant sale rage” I can do without!
Also while buying the Tomato plants, someone told us a bonkers tip for deterring slugs. Put coffee grounds and crushed egg shells around your plants but also mix in some oat bran. The slugs go for it with gusto, go back to their lair to expand and explode. Not a very nice ending!
Old Bob Flowerdew was right, as soon as you produce some decent compost you can’t get enough of the blooming stuff! I’ve been helping myself to my second attempt of a compost heap for a good while now but today I filled up two barrow’s worth to mix in with some soil which I put in the second raised bed made with the scaffolding boards obtained free from our “Portuguese man with a van”. Owt for nowt for definite! If you can be bothered to collect up all your kitchen waste, turn it every now and again and wait a few months, it’s well worth doing for some top quality compost!
Great weather today so did a couple of hours, weeded around the salad bed and as it was root day, sowed some Carrots, Beetroot and Parsnip. If the weather keeps up I’ll do more tidying up and “tipping around with a hoe” tomorrow.
I’ve moved the portable cold frame (aka the old window frame I found in the street which stands on some old bricks from a skip) over a couple of Courgette and Squash seedlings to give them some protection and a bit of a head start.
I’m taking a risk with the Potatoes I moved the cold frame from as there’s still a good risk of frost, but I’ve covered them tonight with some horticultural fleece I’ve had kicking around since last year. Fingers crossed it won’t get too cold.
And I tell you what, I’m missing that “gloves in a bottle” stuff too!
This week’s post was written while listening to Friday’s Echo Beach on WLUW-FM Chicago with a great Pressure Sounds mix. http://archive.org/details/EchoBeachBroadcast05-11-12
We’ve had some mad weather over the bank holiday, it’s colder than last year and we only had the odd bit of sunshine (that I took advantage of and legged it into the garden to do the odd job before it changed it’s mind and rained!). Below is how the garden is looking at the moment after a good mow. The grass is not in brilliant shape but looks alright at a distance! I find if you spend a bit of time tidying up the edges it’s makes it look a lot better as it gives the lawn a bit of definition.
Saturday was spent at the Walworth Garden Farm for another one of their courses, this time it was for Growing Food in the City. Some great info learnt as always in a relaxed atmosphere in a small class full of nice people as per (cheers Scarlett!)
It covered loads of stuff including container gardening, growing spuds in bags (Top tip: use a potato sack from the market, the stall holder will gladly give you one as they only chuck them away and some of them can be quite decorative), crop rotation and to top it off we made a mixed edible planter. Much fun was had getting it home with a heavy bag of shopping on the busy bus back from the Walworth Rd!
As I’ve mentioned before the courses are free for the first time and then you have a to pay a supplement. As this was my third time I had to pay £25 but for a day’s course packed to the brim with info and a planter with veg plants in it, I’d say that is well worth it!
I learnt a few things to say the least and had my introduction to something called “gloves in a bottle”, a shielding cream that protects your hands and the dirt just washes off instantly. It’s gives you the added bonus of actually feeling the soil as you work. Whatever next? Spray on steel toe-capped safety boots? Another good tip learned was to put peas sticks between your rows of seeds to deter Cats. I have trouble with them wiping their behinds in my (OCD straight lined) seed drills after poo-ing, sending the seeds all over the shop! Hopefully that’ll work (below).–
Also at the farm, there was a plant sale that will be there until the end of May. It was full of bargains, I bought a Blackcurrant Sage Salvia microphylla for a couple of quid, well good. More information on their highly recommended courses: http://www.walworthgardenfarm.org.uk/introduction-gardening
Taking of plant sales I was told East Street Market off the Walworth Road has some bargains and also next Sunday at the The Horniman Museum gardens in Forest Hill they are having their annual plant sale which I have heard is a great place for getting some unusual plants at a good price. http://www.horniman.ac.uk/visit/events/event/friends-of-the-horniman-plant-sale-plus
Big up Bank Holidays!
“The new complete book of self-sufficiency”
John Seymour (Dorling Kindersley)
On Friday lunchtime I popped into Holborn Library to get my weekly fix of gardening books. I regularly flick through “The new complete book of self-sufficiency” from the late John Seymour and was well suprised to see it in the library’s book sale for a quid. What a bargain, so I got it there and then!
I’m not ready for “the good life” just yet (it covers everything from keeping livestock and poultry, weaving your own wooly jumper to making your own bricks) but it’s the gardening related pages I laid out all the readies for (and it’s all from the view of being resourceful and doing it on the cheap!). It has informative sections on how to grow food from your garden, a comprehensive guide to vegetables, fruit and herbs, composting and soil preparation and even has sections on home brewing & wine-making to getting food from the wild all explained in lay person’s terms and straight to the point. My favourite illustration from the book is above from the “pests and diseases” section. It could easily be retitled “every gardener’s nightmare” or “the last thing I saw before I turned…” and (below) a great worm composting idea from the book.
A book to get from your local library and keep on renewing until you can renew no more!
A couple of things to pass on tonight, one is Scarlett’s “i-Grow” piece this month, about annuals and perennials. http://i-donline.com/2012/04/i-grow-annuals-and-perennials/
And the other is this week’s Ross Allen’s show on Strongroom Alive in interview with the great Tom Moulton. There’s some great tunes played on the show including Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes “The love I lost”, M.F.S.B’s “T.S.O.P” and Lou Rawls “You’ll never find another love like mine” amongst many others.
http://www.strongroomalive.com/2012/04/ross-allen-chats-to-tom-moulton/
Two good things for a Thursday night!
A big cheers to Will for telling us about the programme last night on BBC 6 Music with Terry Farley talking and selecting records with Andrew Weatherall as well as giving a potted history of London’s clubland. Some great tunes and some great stories and it’s up on the web for six more days if you fancy it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g9cdg
All the talk about youth cults and fanzines on the show brought me back to the time I produced my first fanzine many many moons ago. Here’s an excerpt from it; a letter I wrote to the local paper complaining about the latest youth cult at that time. I was appalled!
How mad has the weather been this week? I’ve tried to make the most of it and popped out when I could to do the odd bit of weeding and have sowed the odd bit indoors. The combination of the sun and the rain is sending the garden crazy!
I tell you what else was crazy, last Sunday morning as I went downstairs to make a cup of tea I looked out of the back window to see a massive Heron standing motionless by our pond. It looked bonkers, I swear it was three foot high and it looked like it was made out of plastic and boy, the size of its beak! I legged it to get the camera and when I got back, you know it had gone. He must have been right disappointed, as all there is in our pond are thousands of tadpoles and the odd newt!
It was root day last Sunday too so put in the last of the chitted seed potatoes in the bed next to the pond which is mainly going to be just spuds with two rows of onions and a couple of bean poles in a tripod formation style.
As frost is still on the cards for a few weeks I planted them (chitted end up) about 4 inches deep and earthed up the soil around them which will help protect them from any cold snap. The super extra earlies I planted a few weeks ago in the cold frame are steaming on, I swear I am raising the thing with row of extra bricks each week. There’s a log wedged at the back of it now to raise it up even higher. They are doing brilliantly and it’s not even the end of April yet!
I’m off work this week as it’s the kid’s half term and spending a bit of time doing some DIY on the house. I started early on the painting this morning so I could treat myself to a bit of gardening if the weather perked up in the afternoon, which it did!
Between the April showers I “tipped about” with the hoe, cut the grass and sowed some courgettes and french climbing beans “under cover” aka a jam jar and having ran out of plastic seed labels improvised with a bit of wooden moulding (found in the street last week) and a saw!
I even had to raise the glass on the cold frame made out of the old window as the super early spuds are tearing away. It’s not ideal so I’ll be wrapping them up in fleece while the threat of frost is about and move the frame elsewhere. It’s certainly working well for the spuds and the biodynamic malarky seems to be helping too!
Everything is starting to take off now what with the combination of the sunshine and the showers. The raised bed made out of the scaffolding boards has been filled with plants and in front of that is the salad bed and the seeds sown there are starting to germinate. I ran out of fence protector so need to purchase another couple of tins and the second raised bed needs filling too. This gardening lark, it’s never ending!
I had a dream on Easter Sunday morning involving a presenter from a 1970’s TV gardening show (whose name escapes me, if he ever really existed!) whose last words to me before waking were “indoor lawns really thrive”. I don’t know about indoor lawns thriving this bank holiday but indoor activities have, what with the dreadful weather here!
Most of the weekend was spent painting the hall but I did find the time to sow and pot on some seedlings indoors but nothing much outdoors apart from chucking some veg peelings into the compost heap and feeding the worms in the wormery.
I found another couple of pics of our back garden a couple of weeks after we first moved in on an older computer this weekend while I was looping some shortwave stuff for some new Madtone tunage. I had forgotten how bad it really was. And sometimes I’m a bit hard on myself and think I’ve let the back garden get a bit untidy…
Weeds up to me knees 
