We don’t like to give it large…

Posted on by
2

A big thanks to Medwyn’s of Anglesey for sending us a trial seed pack of the “longest leek”! The company specialises in some great prize winning vegetables that have won medals at Chelsea and the like. Exhibiting vegetables is well out of our league and don’t really interest us here but we’re going to give them leeks a go in the spring and will keep you posted on their progress.

How do people out there feel about long leeks, parsnips the length of a golf putter and onions the size of footballs? What we wonder is, when they’ve been grown to an expanded size, do they actually still taste nice? We’d love to know!

‘ere? ‘ave you seen me Solstice?

Posted on by
Reply

Happy Solstice to one and all! Think of today as “The beginning of winter’s death” (Den Ming Dao, 365 Tao #355 Winter) rather than the grey, drizzly day stuck in lockdown again, the Monday before Christmas 2020 it really is.

We are presently keeping ourselves amused by watching the replay of the Stonehenge Winter Solstice stream here on youtube where at the moment there’s a bunch of security guards in high visibility vests congregating in the upper right hand corner either having their own celebration or standing around a calor gas heater.

Big shout to all our gardening and music mates worldwide and remember, from today the days will be getting longer and the sunny days are on their way (well we can dream can’t we?)

Holding back the tiers

Posted on by
Reply

We go up another tier level this week, how are we going to cope with another lockdown? You can’t really go out in the garden as it’s a bit wet even though there’s been some warmer weather promised later this week. One job we will do is to get some gnat-free herb plants going on the kitchen windowsill after a summer of constant clouds of fungus gnats on our old pots. We’ve watered from the bottom and put up sticky traps and now going to admit defeat and starting again from scratch. More about the gnats and how to protect against them here.

We took some advice from the folks at Shannon’s and bought some indoor houseplant potting mix which should be free of any gnat’s eggs, put the old plants outside and give the actual pots a good clean with some disinfectant and then rinsed them through a few times for luck. It’s a bit early to be sowing anything really serious but we may start off a bit of basil (above: a few packs of seeds bought off ebay the other week) off in a pot with a see-through plastic bag on the top as a temporary greenhouse. As soon as the seeds show signs of propagation we’ll take the plastic off as to stop any damping off occurring.

Next summer we may be experiencing “a new normal” in the kitchen (ie. without clouds of gnats flying about or those sticky traps that don’t look too nice with lots of dead flies on them!)

Pigeons have a voracious appetite for brassicas

Posted on by
Reply

A big shout to Jon and George of the excellent Coughing Pigeon Radio Show on Brum Radio that plays “Not just sounds from across THE spectrum, but sounds from across EVERY spectrum” as the Brum Radio website desribes the show and they’re not wrong there!

On last week’s show they played at 19 minutes in Jazz’min & Madtone’s “Return to the branches” and at 42 minutes Stefanosis with Remembering Augustus off the great FREE Echo Chamber – Around the World in Dub Volume 11/12 on Dan Dada Records available here. Cheers Jon for plugging the compilation! Give Coughing Pigeon a listen if you’re looking for a great cross-genre listening experience!

Punk Rock That’s Yer Lot!

Posted on by
Reply

We’re not usually one’s for punk rock nostalgia here (there is some punk rock nostalgia here by the way) but we picked up this fanzine on ebay the other day for just over a tenner. It was something we can remember from the time it was featured in an NME feature on fanzines around 1977/78 and the cover image has always stayed in our memory.

We love a good fanzine here as you know and this is an excellent example of one (this one features The Clash, Sex Pistols live at Notre Dame Hall plus an interview with Howard from The Adverts and lots more) especially with an article entitled Music Papers… Will they ever take over from fanzines?

But we were very shocked at the hostility aimed at its readers from its editors (below) as “It’s just not cricket” as they say. We’d also love to know the relevance of the “Any of you xxxxers want to become film stars and/or lend equipment. Ring Rough Trade and leave a message”. Wonder what’s that about? And shock horror the Roxy is playing funk and heavy rock, gawd help us…

And on that note we will drink some more cans of strong lager, (try to) do the punk kicking dance and then go to bed feeling sick at 9pm. Punk Rock that’s yer lot! #gardeningsnotdead #shortwaveradiosnotdead

The weather it is a-changin’

Posted on by
Reply

Wow, it’s December can you believe? No wonder it’s freezing out there and the rest of the week looks like it’s going to be getting colder. We’ve heard from our gardening pals in Cincinnati  (Cheers Justin!) and Freiberg, Germany (Cheers Jazz’min) where they’ve had their first dusting of snow so I doubt it won’t be long until we’ll get some.

Those dahlias were still looking fine last weekend but we reckon it won’t be long till the frost comes and blackens the plants when it will be time again to dig them all up and stick them somewhere frost free and dry for the rest of the winter, keeping an eye out for any rotting or mouldy tubers while they’re in storage.

We can’t complain as those spikey orange ones have been great this year, flowering right up until we last looked so going to the effort of digging them up and storing them indoors is a small price to pay for a few more years of the same.

And the nice plastic looking pink variety we were given this year was great too (cheers Marc).

And the beds in front of the Dad corner (that has been productive this year thanks to the new raised beds) have been tidied up a bit and now ready for the winter. In the pic you will notice a couple of cabbage stalks that we left when we cut the leaves off them. Not sure if it will happen over the winter but usually when you cut them off like that, the leaves grow back again. Value for money or what?

Is there anybody out there?

Posted on by
Reply

The bed at the bottom of the garden is always a bit of a problem as it only gets sunlight in the late afternoon. At the present moment the nasturtiums have taken over and so has the borage behind them. We haven’t had a hard frost yet so it’s looking a little wild to say the least!

If you can remember we were going to “rest” the bed and fill it with the Thompson and Morgan Beneficial Flower seeds mix then COVID 19 came along. We were so fed up that one of the local shops had a 3 potato per person rule we put in a couple of rows of spuds plus some onions and broad beans there (see the  bed in July here). After they were harvested in mid-August we gave the bed a good tidy up (here) and boy has it grown since!

The state of play at the moment is a Globe Artichoke root (1) we did a swap with a mate at a local community garden (for some Egyptian walking onion bulbs) is now starting to grow and the brilliant cardoons (2 and 3) we bought at Shannon’s a few years ago have starting sprouting again. Talk about value for money! And in the middle of the crazy nasturtiums are a couple of rows of autumn sown broad beans (4). When will the growing ever end?

The day the worm(s were) turned

Posted on by
Reply

We spent an enjoyable hour out the back this afternoon just before the light began to fade and the air got colder. We did have plans of what we were actually going to do beforehand but an unknown force (guilt perhaps?) made us get a garden fork and head down the Dalek bin and give the heap one last turn.

Things are slowing up down there and the egg boxes we didn’t rip up a few weeks ago had to be done as half an large egg box don’t break down half as well as tiny pieces of egg box especially now that winter is nearly upon us.

Whilst turning with the fork using an ungloved hand our knuckles were grazed on the side as usual. When will we ever learn that those Daleks are okay but nothing beats your wooden made square bin with some carpet thrown on the top as a lid.

Compost ingredients in the picture above includes (fact fans): guinea pig straw (plus waste), egg boxes and a couple of sprouting onions. We’ll lift the lid off in the spring to see how it has progressed.

The next job if we get the time soon is to clean up the pond a bit as it’s looking a bit rough. We think it may have sprung a small leak as the brick to the bottom right of the pond has been visible for a long while now even though over the past few months we’ve had a bit of rain. The oxgenating plant that has taken over needs a clear out too. Pond life eh? It never stops!

Misty in dub

Posted on by
4

The weather’s been alright up until last night when it felt more like winter. We even had a visit from the Lewisham Heron yesterday who couldn’t get any of the fish in the pond due to the fine pea netting thrown over the top and gave up his statuesque posing after a few minutes. This morning we woke up to the above, mist galore. We reckon they’ll be a few jobs to be done in the garden this weekend, digging up dahlia tubers maybe one of them!

And here’s a great tune for those cold dark nights indoors, A man called Adam‘s Tic Toc (Disco Rockers Dub). It’s excellent stuff indeed, a nice off the wall dub mix reminding us of those great dub B sides on scratchy seventies seven inchers.

Which made us think of another great interpretation of dub from Bronx Dogs of Sizzla’s Rain Showers another piece of clever mixer madness with some nice cut ups thrown in plus what sounds like Tubby’s “Squawky”. A nice tune that works very well even at 33!

And while we’re looking back a few years here’s a great tune Imperial from Lazy Boy that has a lovely dub interlude at 1.16 mins in which could go on for ever in our eyes!

Dub don’t you just love it?

Mouldy old dough

Posted on by
Reply

The sun was out so it was nice to go out for a potter in the front garden today. We only spent about an hour out there but It was enough time to rake up the leaves and stick them in some bin bags tied quite loosely. A rake was then flung down on them (to the amusement of passers by) to make some small holes in the bags and then they were thrown down the bottom of the garden to be forgotten about for a couple of years.

If you’ve never made leaf mould before you’re losing out on making some great soil conditioner. More about making the stuff here and here. You could also make a circular cage structure using chicken wire and just bung the leaves in there weighing the top down so they don’t blow away initially and then waiting for the elements break them down over a year or two. Here’s a video with some good tips about making the stuff too!

We know someone who was thinking of picking up the bags that the roadsweepers leave at the end of the streets in the autumn that are usually filled to the brim with leaves. Then again what else could be in there? Is it worth taking a chance? We think not!