The Garden Monkey

We Will Remember Them

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:24:00 +0000

So much about today is moving.

This story mentions "the wastage of Loos", just a line in a story, but one of my family members was amongst that wastage. We have just a blurry photo of him. No known grave. No children. No legacy.

He was killed, along with two-thirds of his battalion, before 8 in the morning during the Battle of Loos 1915.

Such a waste.

What brings it closer - he so much looks like my brother.

Garden Monkey's Guide to the Idiot Box and Radio Ga Ga

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:04:00 +0000

A couple of things made me smile recently.

Firstly, on Friday's Corrie uptight shopkeeper Norris wanted a tool to get the weeds from between some paving. Of course you and I know that such things are called patio weeders or weed knives. The street's resident idiot savant, Graham Proctor "Garden Doctor", told him that what he needed was a "Crack Hoe". So off Norris toddled to the garden centre to ask for one - with predictable results. Obvious, but still amusing.

The second thing was an email I received Saturday morning about my least favourite GQT presenter.

"Listening to Danny Baker this morning they were talking about the Haye-Valuev fight. Then Peter Gibbs came on to do the weather and opened with the comment "rather him than me." Don't know about you but I'd pay good money to see a Gibbs-Valuev fight."

I think I would too.

Garden Monkey's Guide to the Idiot Box

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:20:00 +0000

King of Concrete, Diarmuid Gavin is appearing on Market Kitchen tomorrow (7pm on Sky 249 & Virgin 260).

Apparently he is talking about worms.

Presumably as it is a cookery programme we can expect Lumbricus terrestris Pad Thai.

Garden Monkey's Guide to Foraging

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:23:00 +0000

I've been reading and hearing so much about this foraging malarkey that I thought I'd give it a go and headed off, bright and early, to my local park in search of wild food. I did think about going out to the country, but I thought it better to a) start small and b) not get shot by a farmer for trespassing.

It's quite a large park, overgrown in places, and although I started out hopefully, after twenty minutes I'd drawn a blank.

There were quite a few conkers, but I thought I’d better leave them. The conker gratin I made last year was not a success and a number of people were very ill as a consequence. Although, in my defence, I would point out that only one was hospitalised. Still, it taught me what I like now to think of as the Porridge Oats Principle, namely if horses eat it then we shouldn’t.

I was about to give it up as a bad lot when the foraging gods smiled down on me. There on a park bench was an almost full bottle of vodka. Normally I might have had some qualms about taking it, but it still had a security tag on it, so had probably been nicked in the first place. Quickly gathered it up into the large wicker foraging basket I'd bought especially.

Next time I will take something smaller, as the basket made it hard going to outrun the wino who appeared from some nearby bushes and started swearing and chasing after me.
He was not happy. In fact he was livid. Perhaps that’s why they call it wild food. Anyway finders keepers.

BTW Don't let anyone tell you that sixty-year old alkies can't move when they want to. Still I guess that's all part of the fresh air and exercise that makes foraging such fun.

I decided not to go back to the park and instead headed for a nearby precinct of shops. I was hopeful at first, but a giant puffball that I spied on a traffic roundabout turned out to be an old kebab wrapper, and after an hour’s fruitless wandering I’d foraged a bit of small change from the coin return slots of some phone boxes, and nothing else.

As sat on a wall staring at the vodka and the ninety pence worth of coins I had a inspirational moment. Recalling somewhere that sloe vodka was in fact better than sloe gin, I set off in search of sloes. None of the local shops had any. Clearly I would need to use some other fruit. The trouble was the cash was not going to go far, Again inspiration struck and I soon had 2 packets of Fruit Pastilles tucked away in the basket and was off home.

So now for the recipe:

Forager’s Autumn Fruit Vodka

Ingredients

Some vodka- the cheaper the better.
Some Fruit Pastilles.

Method

Pick out your favourite colour, I mean, flavour of Fruit Pastilles .

Chop them into small pieces and add to the vodka.

[Spare Fruit Pastilles can be stored over-winter in a box of damp sand.]

Note: if you have a full bottle of vodka and not one stolen from a wino who's already taken a generous slug from it, you will need to pour some off to allow for the pastilles.

Shake gently and leave for the fruit to dissolve.

After a couple of days it will be ready - the amount of time depends on how small you dice the pastilles.

Add ice and a suitable mixer - I used dandelion and burdock to keep to the Wild food theme - and enjoy.

If you find it’s not to your taste you can always use it for the basis of a large bowl of Forager’s Punch - the recipe for which I’m saving for next time.

Additional note: This does count as one of your five-a-day. And a large one counts as two.

Garden Monkey's Guide to Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:03:00 +0000

As any of you who've visited Martyn Cox's blog will know, today is National Poetry Day.

There is a theme of Heroes and Heroines.

This poem, which I did post way back on the old AOL blog, is by a very flawed hero of mine Spike Milligan and is one of my favourites.

Spring Song, March 18th 1972.

Spring came haunting my garden today -
A song of cold flowers was on the grass.
Tho' I could not see it
I knew the air was coloured
And new songs were
in the old blackbird's throat.
The ground trembled at the thought
of what was to come!
It was not my garden today,
it belonged to itself.
At the dawn smell of it -
my children fled the house
And went living in that primitive dimension
that only they and gardens understand.
My dog too lost his mind
And ran in circle after canine circle
Trying to catch himself -
and do you know what? - He did!
It was that kind of a day.

Written in China to avoid Income Tax

Garden Monkey’s Guide to Hyacinths

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:11:00 +0000

It may be that around the coming time of year you are thinking about buying, or forcing, some hyacinths for yourself, or perhaps as a gift.

There are a couple of points that you may wish to bear in mind.

Firstly that they look really, really horrible - like some kind of attachment to go on the end of a rod for cleaning drains.

And secondly, that they utterly, utterly f**king stink.

But, then, if there is someone you hate, who is prone to migraines they are just the ticket.

You see, as always, it's just a matter of right plant, right place.
.

Garden Monkey's Guide to Blogs and Websites

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:47:00 +0000

Nigel Colborn's superior blog Silvertreedaze is a year old today.

Congratulations to Il Cappo, and I hope there are many more.

It was a little shocking to be name-checked by the Dapper Don in his anniversary post, and to tell the truth even having re-read it I'm not sure if he started blogging after reading this one because it inspired him, or just appalled him so much he thought "I can do better than this tripe".

That he can is obvious, that he does is something we should be grateful for.

You see I've stopped reading a lot of blogs over the last six months, because many have become a bit, well a bit, meh, but Silvertreedaze will, I'm sure, never fall into that sad state of affairs.

Salute!

(PS and before anyone starts moaning, yes there are still lots of really really smashing blogs out there)

Can You Feel The Force?

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:19:00 +0000

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Landshare project is worthy of considerable admiration and praise in helping people to find land to grow on, after all its no use relying on the puffed-up plonkers of local government, at whatever level, to conjure up the slightest amount of urgency on any topic, except apparently their own self-aggrandising schemes.

I have thought about signing up as one of Landshare's Veg Doctors - and not just for the free stickers (wondrous though they are).

After all it's along similar lines to having US style Master Gardeners in the UK, which I put forward as a good idea a while back .

But, and it's a big but, recently Corrie's pantomime idiot savant (and possible Titchmarsh lovechild), Graeme Proctor set himself up in business as “Graeme Proctor - Garden Doctor“.

Since then I have had second thoughts, which is I admit very shallow of me, after all Weatherfield is not real life.

But, once again the general media shorthand for gardener is "slightly, and strangely, gifted village idiot".

Don't get me wrong I don't really care what people think of me, but I'm buggered if I'm going to adopt a title which allows divots to freely mock me in the street - especially if it involves wearing an identifying sticker.

I really shouldn’t be so sad - after all what’s in a name.

But how about Veg Jedi?

Now that would be cool.

Garden Monkey's Guide to the Idiot Box

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Be sure to tune into ITV1 tonight when celebrity gardener, or should that be gardening celebrity? Diarmuid Gavin, appears on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

As it's all for charity, let's hope that Morrison's chief bread-botherer does a shade better than he did on Celebrity Mastermind. And a little better than he did on Strictly Come Dancing. And a bit better that he did on..... Actually I'll stop there, or I might be here all day.

He's been teamed up with Samantha Bond, the actress who plays Miss Moneypenny.

For my money it would have been far more entertaining if he'd been paired with Joe Swift, but perhaps Mr Rotavator has his eyes on a bigger Celeb TV prize and is being groomed by fellow Celeb Masterchef loser Jan Leeming, with a view to appearing on that Jungle Get Me Out Of Here nonsense.

I'd imagine she'd have had him eating earwigs on a regular basis in preparation for the Bush-
Tucker thing.

Although, there is a very strong possibility that I have dreamt all of this, after eating some eye-wateringly strong cheese, just before going to bed.

Again.
.

Backdoordaisies

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Those with either long or encyclopedic memories may recall me mentioning my fondness for the hawthorn genus.

(Now brace yourselves - this link has all the subtlety of some rubbish DJ on local radio).

Another of my favourite hawthorns is Deirdre Hawthorn.

(Told you it was bad)

She is a talented artist, whose work I mentioned a quite while back.

Well she now has a dedicated website which includes a gallery of her amazing plant sunprints and also her ceramic work, which I personally was previously unaware of but also like very much.

And what has the title of this post to do with all that?

Well, you'll have to go and have a look to find out.

Please don't use this image without Deirdre's express permission

Incoming!

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:33:00 +0000

I do quite like the new incarnation of GW. It's not perfect, but it's so much better than it was.

Give it time.

Anyway I've done a little guest blog to that effect.

Of course what GW should do is have the odd guest presenter and give them carte blanche to do what they want.

If they gave me a turn I would organise a Scrapheap Challenge meets It's A Knockout segment where 2 teams have to make gnome-firing bazookas and use them to destroy hanging baskets.

If the hanging baskets were full of spider-plants, even better.

One From The Archive..

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:46:00 +0000

From October 2007....

Garden Monkey’s Guide to the G word.

Some things are just plain wrong. Putting 'garden gnome' into Google is one of them. I'm sorry, I'm weak and fallable - it doesn't make me a bad person.

Typically I was looking for amusing and found disturbing. Yes, yes, yes, I know; gnomes and amusing go together like roast beef and custard. The only saving grace was that gnome pages/blogs do not contain cats, in the way that far too many gardening blogs do.

Anyway I did find this.

http://www.vitaminliving.com/products/gnomes/

These are apparently garden gnomes.

Can't really see it myself. I think the problem is that if you remove all traces of gnomishness, what you end up with is not a gnome.

What they do share with traditional gnomes is an excellent target opportunity for small boys.

Don't forget....

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:09:00 +0000

The Good - Kelmarsh House and Garden Book festival this coming Sunday.

The Bad and the Ugly- Joe Swift is on Celebrity masterchef on wednesday. Celebrity? That's bloody stretching it.

Love the photo here mind. I reckon either Jayne M is grabbing his buns, or Jan Leeming has hold of his walnuts.

Imagine being stuck in a lift with those three.

Note that poor old Joe is shown just as a "Participant" and not "Key Talent". 'Twas ever thus.

May Flies

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:48:00 +0000

May is a mad, fast month and gardens show this more than most anything. You turn your back on them for five minutes and all sorts of things spring up and previously inch-high growth is suddenly charging towards your waist.

Similarly Jane Owen's blog has burst into life - plenty of Chelsea stuff for those still unsated by the whole spectacle.

Jane is near to my heart since her old Times blog was influential, if not instrumental, in the beginning of my own blogging, but please don't be put off by that rather shabby compliment. Her own blog is worth reading as a kind of masterclass in blogging - crisp, succinct, ephemeral if necessary and leaving you wanting more - I reckon that if she started blogging proper-like, she could have that JAS's GMG blog crown this year (mind you asking me to guest blog might put the kybosh on that).

That said, I do reckon The Guardian blog co-operative is a shoe-in for 2009, unless Emma T sets her mind and considerable skills to the task of winning it.

Aware that I am now wittering, when I should simply have said "Jane Owen's blog eruption* is fab" I will shut up.

PS - I should add that I am aware that I have been pipped by JAS on this topic, but in my defence did draft my post last night before I fell asleep on the sofa and awoke to find that I had somehow pressed the remote and an old On The Buses film was on TV. I thought I had been transported to some inner circle of Hades, and I have only just recovered enough to tart this up and post it.

PPS - *I have only just realised that that sounds a bit salacious. Not intended I assure you.

Enjoy yourself.....

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:02:00 +0000

...it's later than you think.

The End is Nigh

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Sun, 17 May 2009 17:18:00 +0000

Voting for the 2009 Fork'n Monkey awards closes in just under 6 hours folks - click on the pic to your right if you haven't voted yet.

Kew, Kew, Barley-me-grew, Crocus, Dibber, Grub.

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:54:00 +0000

Attention all horticultural devotees.

Fall in for the once every 250 years behind the scenes tours of Kew.

Also, please tip the guides as heavily as is possible.

What a load of pants.

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:20:00 +0000

When I was growing up there was an irascible old bloke in the village who did not suffer fools, nor mince his words. In case the subject of his ire was not around to be berated he took to carrying an indelible marker pen which he would use to inscribe messages at the scene of whatever had provoked his displeasure. One of his favourite was "This is the work of a ****".

This is an RHS Press Release.

Double D to jockey pants – the RHS wants them all

As part of its drive to encourage Britain’s gardeners to garden more sustainably and grow their own food, the Royal Horticultural Society is putting a call out for all unwanted bras, boxer shorts and jockey pants to be donated to its fruity summer Grow Your Own campaign.

The donated underwear, along with stock contributed by leading retailer Marks and Spencer, will be turned into a fruitful display for the ‘good life’ themed Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, open to the public from 7 - 12 July 2009. Visitors to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (19 – 24 May 2009) will be able to place their spare (clean) undergarments in a ‘laundry basket’ located at the Show, while those who can not make it in person are asked to post their clean briefs and bras to GYO/Bras, RHS, 80 Vincent Square, London, SW1P 2PE.

Georgie Webb of the RHS, said, “Due to their conical shape, bras are ideal containers for turning into hanging baskets, and if you sew two together, you have what is best described as a ‘hanging bra-sket’. Once filled with compost you can grow salad leaves, herbs, alpine strawberries and even tumbling cherry tomatoes in them; the bigger the bra the more you can grow. But the serious message behind the ‘bra-skets’ is that you do not need a lot of space or even a lot of money to start growing your own food – just a bit of imagination.”

Following a small trial of bras donated by RHS staff last month, the UK’s leading gardening charity discovered that the non-padded, bigger cupped sizes were the best for growing in. To date the charity hasn’t had the opportunity to test out men’s underwear to the same extent but it is hoped that with some tidy sewing, they too can be turned into a container that will sport more than just radishes.

Has any woman, other than Madonna worn a conical bra since 1959?

And as for pants? They are best used to contain bollocks - much like this press release.

Who thought this wheeze up? Timmy Mallett?

Compost Corner

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:24:00 +0000

We used to have a teacher at school we called Compost Corner (courtesy of Tiswas), because of the overwhelming floral notes of her perfume.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

I haven't thought about her for ages.

It was rumoured that she and the Head of History were swingers.

Anyway I digress.

The post before last was a by-product of my attempts to find humour in compst.

Here's another.

Fork'n Monkey Awards 2009

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Time once more, dear friends, for the silly garden blog awards.

I wasn't going to run them this year, but was persuaded by James The Hat to give them a go.

And indeed he has very generously lent a hand, for which I am grateful.

I can't help but wonder whether this isn't just a ruse on his part to further enhance his mountainous collection of awards.

But then these awards are so very rubbish, that he wouldn't stoop so low.

Would he?

Mind you he seems to think being crappier than Joe Swift at flower-arranging* a bad thing, which I'd kinda see as a badge of pride .

*Rumour is that this year Joke Swift has in mind a 20ft Wickerman floral spectacular made from couch grass roots.

Mrs Slocombe’s pussy.

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:28:00 +0000

Funny how the meaning of words change.

I recall back in the 1990’s the comedians Baddiel and Newman commenting on that very subject. They said that back in the innocent days of the seventies, when Molly Sugden appeared on "Are You Being Served" talking about her pussy, the meaning was 99% about her cat with only about a 1% undertone alluding to her nether-regions. Over the next 20 years the sense of the word had entirely shifted so that that percentage was reversed, which made watching repeats of the programme rather alarming.

This came back to me recently whilst I was trying to track down something humorous (with little success) about compost*, and I found the following quote from 1956 and "We Made a Garden" by Margery Fish:

“For the kitchen refuse I keep a big brown pot (commonly known as ‘the gash’) on the window sill behind the sink, and into it go all the tea-leaves, apple peels, onion skins and coffee grounds. Also crushed egg shells. Walter made a great fuss about the egg shells, he disliked them so and contended that it was silly to bother about them when I could get all the lime I wanted for a few pence. But I think my plants enjoy a mixed diet and I would not deny them little tit-bits of shell, but I did see that they were crushed very finely so that they did not intrude too forcibly on my lord’s eye.”

I couldn't agree more - you don't want a bit of egg shell intruding on your lord's eye.

*for Compost Awareness Week

Snooker Loopy

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:11:00 +0000

Who watches this old toot?

I had in mind to do a humorous post linking well-known snooker players to TV gardeners - the trouble is I got as far as:

Willie Thorne ("his hair's all gorn") = Joe Swift

...and that was it.

The thing is I don't know many snooker players, so it all fell to bits. And it's a crap idea in the first place.

Dennis Taylor = Christine Walkden?

Not working is it?

Making Waves

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:51:00 +0000

Guerilla Gardening Generalissimo Richard Reynolds is on the radio tonight

I Hate You So Much Right Now...

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:07:00 +0000

I’ve made no secret that I think GW improved immediately Tiger Buckland took it over.

And the new garden, despite naff name, is quite exciting.

Imagine then, the sensation that washed over me, on discovering that just 3 episodes into the new series they had a feature on gnomes.

Gnomes? Gnomes! GNOMES!?

Jeeping Feck - I hate gnomes. They are part of the reason that non-gardeners think we are all a bit bloody simple.

I assume some dimwit thought it would be amusing. It wasn't.

I can’t bear to talk about it anymore.

It was like finding a stranger’s knickers in the glove-box of your car.

I feel ill.

I’m off to do the Bridget Jones, Chardonnay, 20 Marlboro’ Lights and high volume rendition of “I Will Survive!” thing.

Mean while YOU Buster (and I mean all of you at Greengrass, or whatever the bloody hell you call it).

You Buster, are sleeping in the spare room.
.

Green Grows The Acre

noreply@blogger.com (The Garden Monkey) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Everyone has an opinion.

What say you?