Tag Archives: Wlad (US7IGN)

A message from Kyiv

Posted on by
Reply

As always, it’s good to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Ukraine. If you remember, Wlad was featured in a Radio 4 documentary called Lights Out in an episode called Call Signs (here) which was about life as a radio amateur living and working in Kyiv during the Russian invasion. He also has two books out about his experiences and they’re well worth reading if you want an insight on what is life is like out there. More about the books here.

Wlad was telling us that his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) is not only growing a banana tree (more on that here) and bonsai but he’s also growing seeds from fruit he eats. The photos above and below are his avocado plants, brilliant stuff. Thanks for keeping us updated, Wlad, and as always, our best wishes to you and Sergiy over there.

We’ve found something on the RHS website about growing avocados plants from seed here. It’s interesting stuff.

Even more pictures from Kyiv

Posted on by
Reply

Great to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) from Kyiv as it’s been a while and thanks for sending us some wonderful pictures from a local park (outside and under glass). There’s a great selection of plants here!

His good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) who if you remember is growing a banana plant (here) is now trying his hand at bonsai (below). The tree looks great and we do love the flowers!

Thanks for the pictures Wlad and do keep in touch!

More pictures from Kyiv

Posted on by
Reply

Great to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv and tanks to him for sending us some new pictures today. The above and below are from his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) who if you remember has a banana plant growing indoors and they’re great images of the plant that is looking well healthy at the moment.

And Wlad’s green onions on the windowsill are doing great! Cheers Wlad, more pictures please and good to hear from you!

Pictures from Kyiv

Posted on by
Reply

Cheers to Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv for sending us some pictures a fortnight or so which we’ve only got around to posting now. The first is how his good mate Sergiy (UT3UFD)‘s indoor banana plant is doing (above) and as you can it’s looking healthy! Love to know how his date palm is getting on.

And here’s a nice picture of how Wlad’s Dill and Potatoes make a good combination in the same container. We’ve sowed some Dill here a few years ago and actually got it to grow but didn’t really do anything with it sadly as we weren’t into the herb at the time but the Dill above is looking healthy. More on how to grow Dill here. Cheers for the pictures Wlad.

Where there’s a will there’s a way

Posted on by
Reply

A big thanks goes out to our good friend in Kyiv, Wlad (US7IGN) for sending us some more great pictures. This time it’s his indoor grown potatoes, from harvest to serving!

We seem to forget that to garden you don’t actually have to have a physical garden and Wlad proves this point really well with this great little harvest of potatoes which they look tasty too! All served with a bit of tasty dill that he grew indoors too.

And Wlad has written a great book which we featured (here) a while ago called War Diaries: A Radio Amateur in Kyiv which is available here. It’s a great read and well worth getting, even if you’re not interested in ham radio. Cheers for the photographs Wlad and hope you’re bearing up well out there.

More lovable spikey tops

Posted on by
Reply

If you remember recently, we had a post about cacti after our friend in Ukraine, Wlad (US7IGN) sent us some pictures of his cacti here. A big thanks to Debby H for passing on some great pictures from her friends in Arizona of some super examples of cacti out there.

The pictures she passed on include a couple from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near to Tucson which looks such a great place. See more about their cacti garden and the many interesting plants they have here and here.

Thanks again to Debby H for passing on the pictures and we’ll post up another couple later this week. All we can say cacti are great!

Cacti calling…

Posted on by
4

Another big thanks to our friend in Kyiv, Wlad (US7IGN) for sending us some pictures of his cacti. As Wlad told us “They have been making me happy for the last 10 years and there’s never any problems with them.” Great stuff Wlad and great pictures, they are appreciated as always!

Over the years we’ve posted up a few pictures of cacti, in this case more of a succulent in our back garden (below) that flowered for one day only back in 2018 here.

And in 2014, Nic G The Fellow Traveller from California sent us a pic of a cactus in his landlord’s (Mr Gonzales) garden here. Crazy stuff!

Also from 2014 Haji Mike from the beautiful island of Cyprus wrote a piece called Reggae and the Cactus here. Here’s the mentioned well-traveled cactus (below).

And the final one from 2014 (seemed to be a good year for cacti stories) is from Nic Egan artist (Including the cover art of The Clash’s “White Man In Hammersmith Palais” and “Tommy Gun”) and film director from his garden in Hollywood here. How we actually once met Nic Egan in 1978 is a mad story, it’s one where he saved our bacon so to speak, the full story being here.

And here’s another cacti, one more recently here from Debby H in north London of a flowering cactus she owns which looks great.

Cacti are great and thanks to Wlad and everybody again for sending in their pics over the years! Do remember that it is going to be a bit nippy this evening around these parts and possibly where you are so don’t forget the frost protection.

Our friends in Kyiv

Posted on by
4

A big thanks as always to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv for sending us some more excellent pictures. The first is his Dill seedlings (above) that look like they’re doing very well.

Wlad also wrote of the other plants he started off as well “The garlic also remained small for a long time, but then simply dried out” and his potato plant is growing but seems to have stood still for a while (pics above).

It’s funny as we’re having problems on some of the seedlings on our windowsill too, we’ve got some chilli and tomato seedlings and they are not doing much else after growing their seed leaves and one set of a normal leaf. There looks like there’s some sort of greenfly about but they don’t seem to be bothering any of the other sunflower seedlings or sweet peas. Any ideas?

As for his Wlad’s good mate Sergiy (UT3UFD) his banana is doing very well! It looks well healthy and so does his date palm (above). Great stuff!

We always think of Sergiy’s plant when we pass the banana plant that is in a front garden in SE23. We have no idea if bananas are supposed to survive the british weather but this one seems to! Cheers again to Wlad and Sergiy for the pics and we look forward to seeing more.

Radio (and Gardening) connects us all!

Posted on by
4

Thanks to Wlad (US7IGN) from Ukraine for getting in touch this week with some pics of his germinating dill seeds and sprouting garlic and potatoes that are all looking healthy. For some reason the old trick of cutting up seed potatoes in two so you can have two potato plants instead of one just came to mind. We are sure it was a reader of the blog who sent us that tip many moons ago.

His good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) has now started off a date palm and he’s also got that great looking banana plant and the both are growing well. Brilliant stuff and good to hear from you Wlad, keep us up to date how the plants are getting on!

Around the garden and SE23 this week

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s some mad pictures from a week around the garden and one from the locality of Forest Hill. The first (below) made us think of Wlad (US7IGN) and his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) in Ukraine who is growing a banana plant in his apartment (post here). We are sure that this is a banana tree growing outside in a front garden in SE23. God knows how it survives the winter here, we could be wrong but it looks very much like a banana with fruit on it as well. We love the flower as it looks like someone’s carved it out of wood or it could even open up and start talking.

And the other day we were complaining that we weren’t getting much action from the courgettes (zucchini) in the raised beds until we moved a leaf and found this giant in hiding.

And in the tiny bed at the bottom of the garden there is some sort of melon (we think) and some peppers and chillies. Now it looks like there’s a self seeded cape gooseberry in there too and it’s only a tiny bed as well. A good example of square metre gardening gone wild!