Gardening connects us all again

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We know the fish are feeding hence near the surface but the barley straw may be working in the pond. It’s been two weeks and we can see a little bit of difference as you could only see the tips of the fishes mouths before. We will keep you posted!

Big thanks to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv, Ukraine for the excellent picture of one big palm tree in the glasshouse of one of the two botanical gardens there. Wlad was saying his good friend Sergiy UT3UFD (whose banana plant we’ve featured here and here) loves going there and Wlad said the thing that he personally likes when he’s also there are the tall palm trees as they are “Perfect antenna masts” brilliant Wlad! Links to both botanical gardens here and here.

Great to hear from Gerry Hectic who sent a recent pic of his pond. He was saying the water levels have gotten a little low and weeds have seemed to taken over but “I thought I’d just heard a frog croak!” Great stuff on that Gerry!

We also heard from Rich R again from the Lake District who showed us his great garden with breathtaking views at the end of March here. The picture above which locals call fox and cubs are all over his garden. He was saying the flower which is in the family Asteraceae is native to alpine regions of central and southern Europe. There is a theory that they may have been brought over by the romans alongside other plants including some fig trees in the area that are very old now. His garden is next to a roman road and about 15 miles from the west end of Hadrians Wall. Who knows but it’s interesting stuff!

Well it’s the longest day today so happy solstice to one and all and thanks to our mates all over for sending us some great pictures. We are always interested in plant and gardening related pics so do send them over!

We heard it on the radio

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Cheers to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing this chilled out piece of summer inspired balearica from John Beltran called La Hermosa Vista on his excellent Monday morning radio show “The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room” (all shows available here). If you want two hours containing some great tunes from chilled, funk, reggae, jazz and a lot more on a Monday morning you want to be tuning into IDA Radio – Tallinn from 9-11am UK time. Here’s this week’s show:

A little bit of give and take

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And found yesterday outside a garden wall was this nice plant pot even though it was on the heavy side and took a bit of effort to take home. As soon as we got it in the garden we plonked in a smaller pot which has a potato plant growing in it and it looks like they were made for each other. Keep ’em peeled!

Crimson and clover

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Here’s the audio from last night’s Imaginary Stations show on WRMI, a tribute to all things Hippie/Hippy called WHPY. Tune in and turn on to some mind blowing sounds from the Imaginary Stations crew including at 18.50 a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the wallies out there”. Here’s the tracklist:
Can – Vitamin C
Bongo Isaac, Itekted, Dread I Benji – Perfect Love and Peace Dub 1
Emma-Jean Thackray – Ley Lines
Richie Havens – Going back to my roots

Greetings, tomato pickers

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We must have a lot of time on our hands at the moment as we’re giving the tomato plants a weekly dose of comfrey liquid and as the plants aren’t of the bushy variety we’ve been religiously  sideshooting (aka pinching out) each plant (we’ve just noticed in this photo we missed one near at the top, damn!) We need to get out more, we really do!

All sideshooting is, is where the plant is trying to grow another stem, you nip it out so all the goodness goes into making the fruit. For God’s sake when you do it make sure you’re not nipping out the flower trusses. We’ve just looked online and it said it’s better using your fingers than a pair of secateurs as the plants form scar tissue better making less chance of any diseases forming. We can’t believe that fruit are actually forming now, God is it June already?

Talking of tomatoes here’s a brilliant Bob Flowerdew talk on tomatoes that contradicts what we’ve just said (he says don’t grow them on single cordons try two or three). We’ve put this video up a few times but it’s well worth watching.

We still would like to know what Bob Flowerdew’s top 10 all-time tunes are though. We reckon it may include some interesting stuff and possibly a bit of “More Yes, Genesis and Floyd”, not ‘alf pop pickers.

This one goes out to all plant givers and seed swappers

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One thing’s for sure is that the whole idea of seed/plant swapping, finding stuff in the street and the idea of giving not to receive (but then someone gives you something out of the blue) is well up our street. It cheers up the garden for less pence and there’s a possibly that you’ll be growing stuff you’d never even think of growing. This morning we noticed some fruit on one of the chili peppers we were given the other week. We reckon the weekly dose of liquid plant feed helps and we were just thinking even the comfrey plant we made the feed out of was given to us by a mate earlier this year.

Sometimes you don’t have to look that far to find stuff. Once we awoke up to a lovely empty champagne box on our doorstep with no explanation here that is now looking a bit older with some mint in it by the pond.

Or the time when we found a silver birch seedling in a plastic bag in the street here when we were on the way to a mates. That was back in 2017 and it’s grown a fair bit since! And here’s the tree today.

A big shout to everyone who has swapped, given and received and all the tweeters that have put us in the direction of cheap seeds at the likes of Lldl and Ebay. We salute you and may your garden be abundant and we hope someone leaves a gardening gift on your doorstep, gives you a pot of something out of the blue or you walk past a garden wall that has something interesting with a “Take me” note on it. Big up the “Giving circle” or whatever it’s called.

Calling all Wallies, calling all Wallies

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What with all this great weather we’re having at the moment, we’re reminded of the old free festivals that used to be about. Festivals like Stonehenge and Deeply Vale where The Fall used to love to play and also where The Ruts were formed. If you love all that free festival business have a look at this site here. It’s a brilliant documentation of when festivals didn’t have 30 or so big name DJ’s/Bands playing each day and where you weren’t searched for cans of Carling Black Label on your way in. There were certainly no artisan bread stalls and WI tea tents selling home-made victoria sponges in those days though there was some alternative home-baking going on. RIP to Wally Hope (above on flyer) who was a part of getting the punk band Crass together and the nude dancer William “Jesus” Jellett. There’s a great bit in Paul Gorman’s blog where “Jesus” is pictured dancing at an early Sex Pistols gig here.

Sort of related to all of this Free Festival malarkey, Imaginary Stations bring you WHPY this Sunday 18th June 2023 at 2200 hrs UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. They’ll be broadcasting a special programme live from the Skybird mobile studio van parked up in a free festival in a car park in the hippy haven of Woodstock. They’ll be a mix from One Deck Pete called “For all the Wallies out there” featuring tunes by Can, Bongo Isaac, Itekted and Dread I Benji, Emma-Jean Thackray and original Woodstock artiste Richie Havens.

So don your best 1970’s long afghan coat even in this heat, grab something strong to drink if there is anything still left in the communal fridge and play your imaginary recorder or shake a home-made tambourine along to the far out sounds of WHPY.

 

We wanted summer and we got it

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Blimmin eck! How hot was it today? These two poppies which we’re sure we grew from seed a couple of years ago are blooming again. We gave them a good watering this morning as at its peak it hit nearly 29 degrees C today here in SE23.

We’ve got two trusses of flowers on our tomatoes (above), the gardening calendar is cracking on this year and it’s nearly summer solstice. There’s now warnings or a time marker which says “You have just reached the end of spring” or anything, time marches on as Jungle Wonz once sang.

Also we’ve been nipping out any sideshoots on our tomatoes and read in the Vertical Veg email newsletter about using the sideshoots on tomato plants as you would cuttings and we have one which looks like it may have taken root, well it hasn’t gone droopy yet (above).

And something else we love here as well are suprises. Here’s some oregano we don’t remember sowing growing underneath a rosemary bush (above). Now that’s a bit of a bonus as we do love oregano here! We bought a marjoram plant a few years ago as an oregano alternative which is doing great but it’s not the same. 30 degrees C tomorrow you reckon?

Where am I? In the pond

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This morning we received our three logs of Barley Straw to sort out the murkiness of the pond. It’s an mad looking thing isn’t it? Very Patrick McGoohan! We won’t be worrying about any Rover type shenanigans as that netting we have to keep the Ladywell Heron out will stop it coming out of the water.

Shut that (garage) door

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Now up online, last night’s Shortwave Garage Sale featuring some out there psych and garage from The Imaginary Stations crew of DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 18.24 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “Live from the Psych-cle Shed 2″ featuring:
The Gaslamp Killer & The Heliocentrics – Brain Cell
Benyamin S. – Superman
Timebox – Beggin’
Texao – Swlabr
Gloria Ann Taylor – How Can You Say It
Los Raymi Zodiac – Lagrimas de soledad

Tune in and drop out as they say.