Dada gardening

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Tired of slugs and snails decimating tender stuff in the garden we thought of a daft idea, we wired a pot of Basil atop the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago and going to see how it work. We even stuck an old jam jar over it to give it a bit more warmth in the night. We’re not sure if it will deter slugs or snails and also even if it’s a good idea or not but you have to try sometimes. That’s the hat stand that already has a couple of seed potatoes in some old shopping bags on it. We may even run some climbing beans up it too. A bit unconventional but why not? It’ll make good use of space.

Also the Lemon Verbena in a pot that we thought was a goner is starting to sprout. It was a good thing we didn’t give up on it and threw it in the bin like we were going to. It’s an interesting plant and we got the idea off another Dub Gardener Haji Mike in Cypus a few years ago here after he mentioned it on a Facebook post. It makes a wonderful refreshing tea and there’s lots of recipes online on how you can use it too. Here’s a great tune from Mike from a few years ago.

The time has flew by this year, it’s nearly June and things are starting to crack on in the garden. Can we have more sunshine please?

Take a walk on the wild side

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It’s all gone a bit Johnny Morris over here in SE23 again. We’ve got a Magpie’s nest high up in the Pyrochantha with mum Magpie sitting on the eggs all day and dad on the ponce for food wandering about the garden and coming right up to the back window without a care in the world. We know it’s waiting for the right moment when the back door is left open so it can nick the cat’s food (we haven’t got a case of Hitchcockian bird paranoia as it’s happened before). They ain’t scared of the cats or us humans for that matter and may even be slowly sussing out where we keep the spare door keys as they are that smart here. In this picture below you can just make out the tail feathers of the Magpie in that large nest, it’s crazy stuff.

We had two tweeting Robins yesterday (one of them features in the main picture above) trying to tell us something as they perched very close to us on the fence. We were thinning out some plants in the pond (and leaving them on the side for a bit for any wildlife travellers to hop back in the water). The Robin chat went on for ages and started to get more urgent as afternoon changed into evening. Even though we aren’t that versed in Robinspeak we reckon they were telling us to make sure we put the netting back over the pond when we were finished as they had some information through the bird grapevine something bad was going to happen in the morning.

At 7am today while making a cup of tea the enemy of the garden pond and the Lewisham pet shop goldfish contained therein, the Lewisham Heron was spotted by the pond all still and lifeless. It’s a right old git but you can’t help looking at in wonder as it stands frozen on the spot. The first time we ever spotted it we thought someone had stuck a plastic bird in the garden as a joke. With its size, cockiness and cunning you know it’s got to be the King or Queen in the Lewisham bird world and left alone by the south London Magpies, Pigeons and Parakeets which are all up there in the “You wouldn’t want to be messing with us” birds league table. We once saw it in action “fishing” in the Quaggy in Ladywell Fields, well still yet very skilful when it caught his dinner!

One thing that makes us think every time we see the Heron flap off into the distance of Lewisham Town Centre, is it related to the Pterodactyl from times gone by when the caveman roamed around here?

Job done (finally)

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And we finally tidied up the front garden after much putting off and excuses (“We haven’t enough bin bags”, “It looks like rain later” and “We’ll do it next week”. We reckon it may have been a good year and a bit since it had a good tidy up and it was so bad we got a few business cards put through the front door from gardeners, the shame of it.

It took us about 3 hours, steaming through it pretending we’ve been given a “job and finish” task from the council. Now we have a clean slate to think about what can go in there. We’re alright with doing the work once we make a start but it’s making that start…

JNHK3 this Sunday

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This Sunday 21st May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz on shortwave the Imaginary Stations crew will be bringing you JNHK 3 via the services of WRMI. This is the third in the Japanese influenced transmissions and will feature tunes and mixes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore. There will also be mix from One Deck Pete called Big in Japan 2 featuring tunes from Casino Versus Japan, Gore, Solid Bronze and this corker fromTwo Lone Swordsmen. Tune in and turn on as they say…

Also a big shout to Takuji Sahara a long time listener of Imaginary Stations from Tokyo  for his contribition to last week’s JNHK 2 show. If you like recordings of radio in Japan you’ll love the show below:

Across the border

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We’ve had these plants in the soil for a year and a bit now and we are sure these are the penstemons we bought from QVC. Nothing happened last year and we were going to give up on them it now looks like they’re starting to give us a bit of a show. Here’s more about penstemons here. We’ve a few more of them dotted around the garden so hoping they all start taking off soon.

Here’s two tunes off the radio today. The first was heard on the excellent This is a music show (above) and it’s by Jackie Wilson and called You bought about a change in me and we don’t think we’ve ever heard it before even though it’s a bit of a classic and the B side of Reet Petite from a few years ago. It’s a tune! Cheers Your Host for playing it on the show. He’s right what he said that it put him in mind of The Supremes My world is empty without you.

And here’s something we’ve never heard before Sons of the Pioneers – Old Man Atom. Thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for linking us up to the Amsterdam Radio Collection (1991) on archive.org here. The track was played well speeded up on Maurice Di’s Happy Dirge Day recording at 19 minutes in. Crazy stuff!

And back to the garden, albeit the mad bit down the bottom, we’ve no idea what this wild plant is but it’s looking great and we reckon it came in on one of the Bees Bombs we got years ago or failing that a result of anarchic gardening, the scattering of seed from a random packet and hoping for the best.

More is less

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It’s funny, we’ve had a week off work and one job we specifically wanted to do was tidy the front garden. Well how come we spent so much time in the back then?

The other day we tidied up the bed near the house and we blocked off the end of it and made a small veg plot (above) using old crazy paving slabs. In the top right-hand corner of the pic you can just see the seed potatoes in hanging bags (off the strange coat holder thing we found in the street). We chose growing the spuds like that this year as we hoped it will be easier to harvest them rather than the usual forking them up in the ground only to accidently leave some in that’ll wind us up next year.

Today we cut down a load of overhanging branches of the Pyracantha over the pond and gave the Ivy which is holding up the back fence a light cut. The last time we removed Ivy in force was on the front garden wall during lockdown. It looked great after the job but a couple of weeks later part of the wall fell down so we’re taking no chances this time.

The pond area is now looking a bit bare but we now have a blank slate to think of what to grow between the cracks in the slabs. If you remember we had lots of broken ones to get rid off as we took up a large paved area in front of the back door which we subsequently grassed over. There was no way we could hire a skip to get rid of them so stuck them around the pond. It may look a bit sterile but at least it keeps the weeds down. Touchwood we may start on the front tomorrow. Or will we?

How much more can you fit into a raised bed?

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A few years ago just before lockdown we were given some ace pallet box collars which were ideal to be used as raised beds. The one above is packed to the brim now so God knows what it’ll be like later this season. The top contains some giant garlic, below that from left to right: parsley, the early tomato plant under one of the two cloches and in the third column an end part of some shop-bought celery which is regrowing. Below that some marjoram bought from Shannon’s years ago and a solitary egyptian onion. That’s one variety pack of a raised bed isn’t it?

Above is a simpler arrangement of some giant garlic with a seed potato stuck in the middle. We may get away with it what with hopefully harvesting timings but who knows. The seed spuds we put in a couple of large pots are doing well (below), fingers crossed we’re into the frost-free zone now.

Also we’re starting to use some of the nettle tea we made a few weeks and and starting to get some comfrey veaves going for a herbal compost brew. It all helps and it’s all free.

Imaginary vibes all served in a Collins glass

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Below is the studio version of Sunday night’s Skybird Supper Club Imaginary Lounge Episode 2 live from Paris, Maine programme on WRMI for your chilled out, silk dressing gown wearing, listening pleasure.

At 39.49 in is One Deck Pete with a mix called “There’s someone sleeping in my lounge again” mix and here’s the tracklisting:
Opal Vessel – Libidine
Sounds for the office by コディ (Kodi?) – Clocking in
Godspeed – Night crawling

So enjoy your complimentary totally free cocktail possibly the “73” (Premium Vodka, Vanilla Liquor and half a Guiness), slump down on the sofa and chill out to the show. To apply for your free cocktail there’s more details of the offer at 1 minute into the transmission above (*Subject to availability of course.)