Tag Archives: bamboo canes

Unavailable at the garden centre

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A couple of years ago we found a very odd looking hand-made coat stand in the street that had been thrown out and since obtaining it have tried with little success to try and grow something up it. We’re trying again this year with some sweet peas. We’ve put some small bamboo sticks in to give the plants a way to get to the main truck and we’re hoping for some climbing action. Perhaps we should just bin the thing but it’s so odd we have to keep it and at least it’s a alternative to the normal bamboo tripod. Who said gardening had to be conventional anyway?

And talking about oddness this thing has just popped up through the soil very close to the pavement in the side bed that has the new fence behind it. We have no idea what it is and we can’t remember sticking anything in that area. It’s a robust looking thing whatever it is. Any ideas?

Don’t forget this Sunday 2nd May 2021 at 2300 UTC (Midnight UK time) Radio Lavalamp will be taking to the shortwaves on 9395 kHz via WRMI which will include “The Purple Nucleus of Creation 004” mix by One Deck Pete with tracks from Floating Points, London Symphony Orchestra and Pharoah Sanders, Betelgeize ft. Ilya Chistyakov, Tranquility Bass and Hrair. Like the weird and wonderful and tunes like the GATS track below? Well tune in on Sunday night and see if there’s more stuff to your liking. If you haven’t a shortwave radio click here at the allotted time.

That’s the dad corner sorted then!

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Today’s job during lockdown was to tidy up “The Dad Corner” at the back of the garage. There was all sorts of rubbish there earlier including a big pile of clippings and prunings that were far too big to be put on the compost heap. There was also a pick-up sticks pile of bamboo canes and a fair few weeds.

It’s now tidy as, and it may not look a big deal but it means a lot to us! We can actually walk around that part of the garden now and don’t have to risk life or limb tripping over bamboo canes to reach the veg beds!

And look at this tidy pile of clippings/sticks all cut to OCD regulation-length drying out in the sun ready to be stuck in the firepit when things return to some sort of normality. A time when friends can come round and sip alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks around a fire pit in your back garden. And a time when sneezes, dry coughs or sore throats aren’t treated with suspicion. Those days will return again before you know it!

What a bam bam

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It was some bamboo canes and a couple of old Belfast sinks that saved the day at Weeds HQ last weekend. The builders are in next door and they’ve erected a 8ft high chipwood berlin wall type structure between us. To say it was initially a sight for sore eyes is an understatement so something had to be sorted.

A couple of the heavy Belfast sinks left behind by the previous owners were moved about a bit. The climbers that were growing a bit wild in them were given a prune with some secateurs and then trained around some bamboo wigwam canes. Then after a good water and a bit of a wipe down a visual compromise was reached early Saturday afternoon (above). Bamboo canes are also in use at the veg patch at the bottom of the garden as a bit of a cat deterrent thrown over the now “earthed up” seed potatoes that have now started to come through the surface. The canes will hopefully keep out the local moggies (including our own) that like to use the bed as a cat loo.

Also last weekend we put in some seeds of the Echium ‘Snow Tower’ which we bought off ebay. We love anything here that is described as “rare”, “giant” or “unusual” and I reckon this flower might at least fit two of those descriptions. It’s a hardy biennial that in the first year grows a large rosette of silver-grey leaves and then in the second a tall white flower spike of up to 15ft high. Now you’re talking!

And here’s a couple of tunes that will come in handy if you ever have to move a couple of heavy sinks. The first is a 12 minutes well jazzed out tune from Kamasi Washington called “Truth” as heard on the Tom Ravenscroft show and over a redo of the Queen of the Minstrel rhythm Sycorah with “Undercover Lover” as played on the Rt Hon David Rodigan show. Both are tunes!

 

Keeping the cats out and the seed spuds in

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The last few days haven’t been that warm but they’ve been nice enough to go out  and catch up on a few jobs in the garden. I know we mentioned we weren’t going to put in those pre-chitted spuds on Good Friday as per tradition but we cracked yesterday (Easter Sunday) and stuck in a couple of rows of maris pipers just down from the onion sets and broad beans just peeping through (pic above). Some comfrey leaves were put in the hole beforehand and some bamboo canes and rose prunings flung on the top to keep the cats off. More on how you sow seed potatoes from an older post here.

Typically a couple of hours after the spuds went in we heard that later this week it may get cold at night (below) so it might be out with the fleece or those old net curtains.

 Talking of protection there’s a couple of tomato plants under the tipped up terrarium (pic above) we found in the street a few years ago but if it does look like it’s going to be really cold we’ll be bringing them back indoors.A couple of rows of spinach and basil seed even went in (yes we’re well optimistic about the weather) under a homemade cold frame type affair made out of an old window and some old wood. It was really a ploy to get rid of a “bargain” obtained at B&Q the other day; a massive sack (125L) of multi-purpose compost for £6.50. As soon as we opened the bag we knew why it was so cheap, it honked to high heaven and it’s not something you want to be putting in pots indoors for certain. As the old saying goes “there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or a compost bargain).”