Chores

A list of garden jobs done/to do this weekend:

1. Moved some 'rosebud' primulas from the nursery bed to the raised bed in the back garden. Rest next week, a few are for mum - they are sooo small and pretty.
2. I put the largest Dicentra Spectablis into the front border and have another 3 on the way. 1 is for mum, 2 going spare - hadnt expected any of them to germinate after forgetting about them since last year, but they all did !
3. Removed loads of Herb Robert (aka 'Stinky Bob' !) which I hate, from the front beds. It looks pretty enough, but yerch the smell is disgusterous !
4. First sowing of parsnips are still hardening off, they will go in next weekend and then I will sow some more.
5. Last of the potatoes ready to be 'sacked up', so thats about 6 weeks between first and last, should give us a few meals worth. I might have done lots more, but blight was so bad last year I was relucatant to risk it this year. First sets are already showing good foliage so will be earthed up in their bags, at the weekend.
6. Steve is going to prepare the next 2 raised beds this week, so then I will be ready to sow lots of carrot varieties when I get back.
7. Havent done onion sets, but should have as we eat lots. If its not too late, will get some brown and red in for the weekend...
8. Must check regional sowing/frost dates again - its so much later here than London and most planting guidance doesnt allow for that. Not time here yet for the brassicas, so their beds are waiting.
9. Autumn rasps doing well, might have lost 1 of the 10, not bad. Summer rasps are still dead sticks in the ground - hoping to see some growth this month or I will worry that I have lost all of them !
10. Asparagus - green varieties are doing well, Purple Stewart not so happy - thin, small, some a bit brown at the tip. Must investigate incase soil isnt right.
11. Top/back garden has been rather neglected while we try to get control of the veg garden, so did a bit of emergency weeding. Attacked the thistles and a mustard thing that frankly grows like a weed !

Charlie in his England Kit

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="108" caption="Charlie for England!"][/caption]

Charlie chose to buy the new England Football kit with some of the money he received for his 7th Birthday.

Click on the photo or follow this link to see more photos.

Misc. Planting

We have received the 20 rosebud primulas  and 10 Ariane asparagus crowns, both will go in today, as will the sweet peas from Auntie Sue which have been neglected in their pot until now.

A couple more raised bed frames need making up, so Steve can dig/build/fill them this week, for next weekend when I  will start planting seeds.

First 3 potato sacks are done - with 4 tubers in each of Charlotte, Juliette and Anya. Next round of those in another weeks time.

Putting a small wooden border around the raspsberries, to protect them from the wind and to retain a bark mulch I plan to put down.

Thats going to take more time than I have so Id best get started.

Strawberries and woodlice

Last year we planted a few varieties of strawberry in a large planter, as we didnt have space anywhere to plant them out. This year, we have plenty of room, so I have transplanted them all into a 2x1m bed.

Biggest challenge now is woodlice - how to keep the little blighters out of the fruit. I dont normally bother about them, they are fairly benign, but they do like strawberries so they have to go ! I would normally use straw to mulch, but as that is a perfect home for woodlice Id rather not, but I dont know what else would work instead. Need to find something in the next few weeks, maybe something artificial that is less welcoming to wildlife ?

Asparagus

Our order was for 10 crowns each of Backlim and Ariane , plus 12 of Stewarts Purple.

So far the Backlim and Purple have arrived and are in two beds. 7 Backlim and 4 Purple in one, 4 Purple in the other waiting for 7 of the Ariane. The rest will go to Loulou and Booya for their lottie.

Beds are fab - Stevie dug them out, we put compost and cardboard in the bottom, premium topsoil above, with a few handfuls of FBB mixed in.

As much as one can do really to give them a good start. They were a little bit dry - left in the bag in the box for a couple of days while I was away, but not too bad.

Now though, we have an unanticipated problem. One of our blackbirds likes asparagus ! Maybe he thinks they are worms/caterpillars, but he is having a real go at them and has damaged 2 so far. I will have  to net the rest asap until they are strong enough to withstand his attention.

I got a name check on El Reg!

I tipped off The Register (Top IT News site) about some preposterous "strategy boutique" tosh for the naming of the new Palm device (Palm  Prē) and they ran a story and credited me for the tip. Shucks..!

Naming the Palm Prē: Strategy Boutique OD's on joss-sticks • The Register.

Scarborough - Charlie visits with Pam & Arthur

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="167" caption="The Windmill"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Tardis!"][/caption]

Pam and Arthur took Charlie to Scarborough and stayed overnight at the fantastic Windmill Hotel.  Beyond the fantastic Windmill itself it also houses a vast collection of Toys from the 1960's and on. I recognised some of my faves (Thunderbirds, Batman) along with tons of other cult classics (Super heroes, Star Wars).

I joined them for the first day and then brought Tinker home.

Click on the TARDIS photo or this  link to see the photo set.

Kudos to Liam and a great post on music, coolness and parents.

I bumped into Liam's nice music blog and really enjoyed this post: Fuzz Box: Help! My Parents are Cooler than Me!

It helps that I know the people involved - but it's great (and a bit strange feeling) when someone you've known since they were (what?) about 8 yrs old turns into a grown-up - and not only that but a wise and thoughtful one.

Nice post - great writing.

David Byrne @ The Sage - 1st April 2009

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="David Byrne - not my own photo - click to see a nice set at Flickr by user pebblesfromheaven"][/caption]

Alison and I saw David Byrne's concert at the Sage (Newcastle) last night (Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour tour).

It was absolutely amazing - brilliant, funny, heartwarming, touching.... and funky... great musicians, 3 dancers, that amazing voice, that back-catalog of songs in collaboration with Eno (Talking Heads & Solo) mixed with the new (Everything That Happens Will Happen Today) album.

It's hard to pick a highlight - there were so many...:

• The long funky grooves of the Remain In Light era


• The simple beauty of "Heaven" ("is a place... a place where nothing... nothing ever happens")


• The art-pop classic "Once in a lifetime" - one of Byrne's/TH's best known - still fresh and intriguing ("...and you may ask yourself.. how did I get here... where does that highway go to")


• The dancers (simultaneously all NY artsy pretentious and yet funny/quirky) - added to the spectacle and showed DB's love for presenting a "show" whilst avoiding "rock clichés".  Praise to him to take 3 dancers on a world tour... I'm sure it would be more profitable to tour without dancers.. but he chose to bring them along.


• The country gospel tinged new stuff... and the amazing "Take me to the River"...


• DB "being the sampler" and vocalising the sampled sermon from "Help Me Somebody"...
  
  
  
  • "There`s no escape from Him. He`s so high you can`t get over Him. He`s so low you can`t get under Him. He`s so wide you can`t get around Him. If you make your bed in Heaven He`s there. If you make your bed in Hell He`s there. He`s everywhere."
  
  
  
  


• All those great lyrics:
  
  
  
  • this aint no party.. this aint no disco....
  
  
  • I'M AN OR-DI-NARY GUY!
  
  
  • I'm changing my shape-I feel like an accident
  
  
  • Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
  
  
  
  

Wonderful evening - a priviledge to be there.

UPDATE: These 2 reviews (of other concerts on the tour) are fair and good:

• The Times


• The Guardian

David Byrne @ The Sage - 1st April 2009

Alison and I saw David Byrne's concert at the Sage (Newcastle) last night (Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour tour).

It was absolutely amazing - brilliant, funny, heartwarming, touching.... and funky... great musicians, that amazing voice, that back-catalog of songs in collaboration with Eno (Talking Heads & Solo) mixed with the new (Everything That Happens Will Happen Today) album.

I have loved this music since I first listened to Talking Heads back around 1980/81 - I was lead there via Bowie/Eno collaborations and the Talking heads albums were a continuation and extension of the Eno produced experimental art pop/rock... leading then to the wonderful My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and The Catherine Wheel. Up until recently most this stuff had become "orphaned vinyl" - lost in the loft and un-played. Fortunately Alison bought me the complete set of Talking Heads CDs (remastered, re-released with extras etc.) for my birthday a few years ago and I went through phase of listening to them all again... like old soul-mates reunited.

Last night's concert featured a fine mix of the older stuff and the new...

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Photo on Flickr (not my own)"][/caption]

Treee !

Ages ago, we said we would plant an apple tree in our garden, for Granny Pam.  Pending the new veg garden, we weren't sure where it would go but now that is all sorted, it was time to get it done.

So, here is the evidence - Granny Pam, ably assisted by Charlie, planting her tree. But not any old tree, it is a 3-apple tree. There are Gala and Sunset dessert apples AND Bountiful cooking apples all grafted onto one dwarf tree. Not sure how long before any of it will bear fruit, but we shall offer the first harvest to GP to make pie !

At the same time, we planted a dwarf dessert cherry nearby.

Germinating Parnsips

First parsnip seeds have been set to germinate, using the widely recommended kitchen-roll method. Basically, the seeds are put on damp kitchen roll, kept warm until they germinate and then moved out into a prepared drill by which time the soil has warmed up a bit more. The bed isn’t even dug yet so we need to get cracking on that asap.

If this works, I will start another batch off in a couple of weeks time for succession planting.

The wireworm risk is high for parsnips (and all roots), given that we are planting on land that last year had sheep and cows grazing on it, so I am a little nervous about how well they will perform, but we have to give it a go.

The parsnips (Picador) will share a 3m x 1m bed with a few different types of carrot – round ones - cant recall the name, came free on a magazine, as well as Purple Haze, a rainbow mix and Samurai (red). Some of the local kids want to grow the coloured and round carrots too, so in return for their help moving stones, I have set aside a 1m square bed for them to share and they can choose any of my seeds that they like. So far, all have gone for the ‘funny carrots’, with one considering a side order of yellow cherry tomatoes. I think a few pumpkins will be fun too, if only for making lanterns.

Asparagus beds - almost done

Having read in various gardening forums that 2009 asparagus deliveries are already underway, it was time to get the beds to their next stage of readiness.

Steve has moved a whole load of the topsoil from front garden to back – an ingenious ramp system on the wooden steps made it possible to get the whole way with the barrow without having to unload/reload it or use buckets, phew.

We now have both beds filled to ground level. We are allowing them a day or two to settle during which my job is to get the edges weeded and straightened up, line up the raised bed surrounds nice and straight, then fix them into position for Steve to top them up with more soil. We will fill them almost full, as they will sink down as the compost composts and we can top up as required from there. I will also add some fertilizer to the topsoil layer – probably bonemeal.

Planting will be in blocks, 11 plants to each 2m x 1m bed which is perhaps too many but I am hoping it will be okay:

X X X X

X X X

X X X X

I will use 7 of each green variety and an extra purple one. The rest of the order will go to BooLou for their lottie:

Stewarts Purple x 12 early, sweet, purple

Ariane x 10 (organic) early season

Backlim x 10 (organic) mid to late, can be grown as white asparagus after a few years

Bah Bah Bah... Ba-ba-ba Bah Bah....

Just watched West Ham 5 vs 0 Newcastle (Div 2 - 1979) with Charlie....

Yes we should have been doing spelling or reading I suppose... but.. it's Friday.. and... er...

Brooking, Devonshire, Bonds, Lampard.... Pop Robson.... standing on the terraces... jumpers for goal posts... Brian Moore... marvelous.

Even the Cardif City fans singing "We'll see you all outside" during their game with Stoke City had a bit of a nostalgic ring to it. A young Garth Crooks poaches a goal.

Interactive/User-generated content in 1979...?

Brian Moore holding the original letters sent in by viewers asking "just what was Alan Ball doing at the end of last week's League Cup final" (Answer - nicking a piece of turf as a souvenir)

The Big Match Revisited (The Big Match - Wikipedia)

Great Nostalgic 80's football video

The Guardian's online sports pages have a weekly selection of sports video clips (plenty of football) with a mix of nostalgia and current weirdness/sensational stuff - usually decent picks and worth a look.

This week's:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/mar/26/youtube-bbc-liverpool-lewis-hamilton

is a corker...:
"Featuring a Brian Clough left hook, Manny Ramirez swapping baseball for cricket and a belting simultaneous double KO"
And the very nostalgic: "...1987-88, the BBC did a Goal of the Season competition just for Liverpool."

Test Entry

This is a test to see if it propogates via FriendFeed... to Twitter.... then on to Facebook...

Garden Diary #8

We received our topsoil order today.

I also continued work on our raised beds - adding compost then covering over with old newspaper and cardboard (as per instructions from wifey).



The topsoil was delivered by a local company (Farnaby) who deliver via a huge artic. lorry (er... wagon in Yorkshire) with a 3-wheeled fork lift on the back to lift the large bags of soil off the wagon and deliver to the customer site.

Made me think... I wonder how much energy (joules, KW, calories - whatever) will have been used in "producing" then delivering the soil we received... and how much food will we need to produce to generate the equivelent amount of energy. Also... can you imagine the idea of shipping topsoil around the country - even relatively locally - without the aid of fossil fuel based transport and "mechanical muscles"? I guess I'll find out what it's like to shift 2 tons of soil about 30 meters at least... by wheelbarrow!

Garden Diary #7

The topsoil arrives Tuesday pm. I imagine Steves biceps are protesting already at the prospect of barrowing that lot down the garden path !
I am doing remote support by reading the latest 'Garden Answers' mag - free asparagus ! I wish Id known about that a month ago.

Garden Diary #6

Mothers Day :-)
Ordered 2 tons of topsoil from Farnabys, just down the road near Scotch.

This will come next week sometime, mainly to start building up the asaparagus beds once Steve has put in layers of compost, cardboard and any other organic stuff we can get hold off. I am now officially talking horsesh*t !

Recent Photos

Some recent photos sets [see ALL OUR PHOTOS AT FLICKR]

CVJFC Matches

Charlie as Four Arms

Christmas at the Mee’s

In the Snow - Dec 2008

London - October 2008