To all our friends across (and in) the pond

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Last Friday we tore open the box delivered to us by DPD and excitedly put our new solar powered pump into the pond that was looking a decidely wrong shade of green. Our old pump went for a burton last year and we decided to treat ourselves to a new one. After a couple of hours to fully charge up the battery the fountain was in full flow and we reckon the goldfish, the minnows and whatever else is in there are now a lot happier.

We’ve already ordered 3 logs of Barley Straw that is supposedly a great natural algae and green water treatment instead of throwing some chemicals in. We’ll keep you posted when we get them and take some pics and see how the water is looking like after a week or so. Supposedly takes three weeks or so to clean up the water but we were told you see results after a few days.

And we’re already seeing some flower trusses on the tomato plants grown from seed in the side bed that had a good load of leaf mould and compost put in earlier this year. It tends to dry out quickly but hopefully the addition of organic matter and a good watering every morning helps. How’s people’s gardens getting on? Do send us some pics as we’d love to see how things are progressing!

We don’t give to receive but it’s nice to

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Earlier this year we were very kindly given some Comfrey roots by our gardening friend Ruth as the plants we did have went to pot when the new fence got put in. Before then we were regularly giving out Comfrey liquid as it’s super stuff but as we had no Comfrey we had nothing to give out.

Those roots have now grown into a nice plant and we’ve been constantly pulling off the leaves and letting them soak in a old bucket with a little water and now have some great plant feed ready. Here’s the first batch we gave out earlier today (below).

As if by magic this afternoon we were given two very healthy looking pepper plants which we’ll be putting in the ground tomorrow. We’re great believers in giving out stuff to people and you never know, you may receive something out of the blue. Keep the old circle a turning as they say!

We of the other planets…

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It all started today when we heard a great tune from Ronny called Don’t touch my hand on an excellent show called Tarmes #4 by Mud Creeper on Palanga Street Radio. The show is available here and is a very chilled affair and well worth listening to.

For some reason it put us in mind of a Joe Meek production that our good friend Justin Patrick Moore told us about a while ago. It’s called It’s hard to believe it by Glenda Collins and it’s one hell of a tune.

We tweeted it up in a “presently listening to” type post and a big thanks goes out to Denis H from JoeMeekSociety who replied to us with a link to an earlier demo of the song. This includes the original lyric “flying saucers are here to stay” instead of the familiar “bombs and missiles are here to stay” and what sounds like to our ears (but we may be wrong) some shortwave sounds at the start and finish. It’s a wonderful alternative take.

Radio connects us all

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If you remember earlier this year we got in contact with Wlad Gurtovy (US7IGN) after buying his book “War Diaries – A Radio Amateur in Kyiv” (on sale here). We originally heard about Wlad in the Radio 4 programme in the Lights Out series called Call Signs  talking about life in Kyiv on his own after his wife and children had to flee to Poland because of the present crazy war. The show is still up online if you haven’t caught it, it is a must listen. Available here.

At the time he sent us pictures of his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD)’s banana plant growing indoors in his apartment in Kyiv and it looked very healthy with all the care and attention it was getting from Sergiy. More on the post here.

We heard from Wlad last week alongside some updates of Sergiy’s indoor banana plant and it’s looking great and may even fruit this autumn! Perhaps we can have a word with Sergiy and ask about any tips and tricks about growing bananas indoors. As we’re not the best with identifying indoor plants we wonder if the bottom photo is another banana seedling or even a cutting. We await more info.

Thanks again to Wlad and Sergiy for keeping in touch with us considering what life is like in Kyiv at the moment. We at Weeds are thinking of them out there in Ukraine and hope that the war ends soon.

Bargains, bargains, bargains

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We visited Lewisham Lldl again this morning as per to get some £1.99 peat-free compost and nabbed these seed bargains too. Looks like they were priced according to the numbering on the packet. Anything that was 1 was 20p but we couldn’t spot anything, 3 was 49p and 4 was £1.49. Not bad! Get down to your nearest Lldl and grab yourself a bargain and as they say “when it’s gone, IT’S GONE!”

And talking of bargains, tune into KMRT this Sunday 28th May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. Expect some blue light and centre aisle 45 specials. We will also have a special appearance of someone you don’t know off the television from the 1970’s cutting the ribbon to open the doors of the broadcast. So tune in and grab yourself a great “once in a lifetime bargain”! All radios are on sale at 25% off while supplies last! (Subject to availability of course).

Run, run, runaway

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Whilst looking for suitable tracks for a forthcoming shortwave mix this week we found a couple of good tunes. The first is Anomie with Tradisi Urang (Anomie psychedelic reggae version). Excellent reggae related stuff out of Indonesia.

And out of Indonesia too here’s a wonderful tune from Benyamin S with Superman. This is just something else, it really is!

Seek and you may find

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Found last night amongst a pile of books on a garden wall with a “please take” note beside them was this one called “Delphiniums for All” published by The Delphinium Society. The address of said organisation as stated on the back is “Takakkaw, Ice House Wood, Oxted, Surrey”. What an address!

Any book that starts with “The title of this booklet is not a joke, nor is it a meaningless catchphrase made to snare a few extra members for the Delphinium Society” has got to be good in our eyes. This bit is classic too: “No, every gardener can grow Delphiniums and, indeed, millions do; the catch, if catch there is, lies in the subtitle “A guide to growing good Delphiniums”. Brilliant.

It’s not a bad book actually, containing 48 pages of info from obtaining the plants, soil preparation, planting and cultivation in some great detail. It must be from a long time ago though as the advice on slugs and snails is mostly about using chemicals that you don’t want get your hands on (and definitely not get on your hands) and probably not available anymore as they are well on the wrong side of health and safety.

They do mention anti-slug methods like using “abrasive material such as, sifted weathered ashes, sharp sand, egg shells, holly leaves as the slimey marauders detest gritty surfaces” which sounds a good idea unlike the nuclear waste-like chemicals.

As we always say, keep em peeled when you’re on your travels as you’ll never know what you’ll find.

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?