This morning I was repotting oak seedlings. These were grown from acorns I picked up on Hampstead Heath. Cosmos, and in the foreground courgette, also felt the love.
My own compost is fine for established plants and, well, filler – but you need something proper if you’re cherishing something.
So few of these courgette seedlings survived. I’m not taking any chances with them.
I don’t like to get into the whole G.A.S. thing with growing like I did around music. Of buying stuff. I have enough. Too much in fact.
Horticulture and agriculture are the same as the music business to some extent. Make no mistake, there’s no end of accessories and toys that are marketed to growers and farmers. To say nothing of the cost of land itself. But nowadays I’m a bit weary of being a consumer, and wary of being targeted as one.
Some products, however, are justifiable purchases. I couldn’t simply heap a load of rotting mulch into a corner of my roof garden. It would be exposed to the elements, stink, and be a magnet for pests. So in October 2022 I bought a Hotbin Mini so as to start my own composting. Here is the inside of the pristine bin which is starting to see a lot of wear and tear now.
It’s an ingenious system which drains leachate to a tank beneath it, is insulated by design (accentuating the thermal generation of the composting process), and it doesn’t require turning. The first thing you do is layer a bunch of sticks into the bottom.
Then you load, in layers, green and brown waste.
As I understand it green waste is: food scraps (uncooked vegetables, no meat) and garden waste (weeds are fine). Brown waste is: cardboard, paper and woodchip. This layering of the two kinds of material means that you preserve aeration. If you are just using green waste it tends to coalesce into a sludge. The technical term for this latter effect is anaerobic composting and it generates a lot of foul-smelling methane.
Your aim is to establish aerobic composting which is seen as being the way to get a superior compost. It evidently wasn’t always so, however, as I have recently been reading some sixties’ gardening books which, suggest t’other over the one.
Here’s a rather fetching full bin at the end of last year. [I don’t think those are flowers I grew actually.]
At the top of the bin there is a thermometer. I have never managed to get my heap to the heady heights of 50 degrees centigrade, but when everything is steaming away I have reached 40 degrees. A compost heap is, essentially, a bonfire…
After a straight sixty days last year, just as we were heading into winter, I pulled the plug on the process so as to download my black gold. [A note in passing: you can see the blue leachate cap here at the bottom. I emptied this liquid out and used it as a plant feed a lot last year – but I wasn’t convinced of its efficacy so this year I haven’t bothered.]
I believe that 2022’s compost broke down anaerobically a lot. Looking at it, it does appear a bit putrid. I had a few bad smells out in the garden which this year I have totally avoided.
However, I still got three large pots of excellent compost out of it. I dressed the surface with a good commercial compost to create a tilth and planted in them. Today these pots have an Ash Tree, a Dahlia, and Amaranth growing in them.
To solve the issue of the anaerobic effect I was having, I reasoned that I needed to get more aeration through the Hotbin. This March I went to a hardware store and bought a measure of plumber’s copper pipe.
This I drilled regularly-spaced holes in.
And sunk it down the middle of my new burgeoning heap.
This must have made a difference to the aeration. There are many accounts of people creating this style of chimney in compost heaps. However, the ones I have read of are created by building heaps around pipes (without holes in them) and then removing the pipe once the heap has reached its summit so as to create a natural cavity. Of course, it is highly unlikely I have pioneered a new technique.
Here is the pipe in situ. Towards the end of March I needed some more compost so I opened the bin up to see what was cooking.
To me this looked like a less noxious concoction than my previous batch. No, it doesn’t have that fine, chocolatey, crumbly, look of professional compost. However, mine is not ground up in any way or dried.
I have looked at grinders but reason that’s just another gadget that would sit on a shelf and only be used twice a year. What counts is its richness and biological liveliness – of which I have no way of measuring.
This time I needed to fill two pots to plant on Calendula seedlings that I had started indoors at the end of winter.
Again, the surface is dressed with commercial compost. Here are the Calendula seedlings, or Marigold as they are sometime called, moved onto my own compost.
This time I only emptied half the Hotbin with a view to keeping it running like a perpetual stew.
Here it is again, more recently, running at full capacity.
The Calendula is thriving off it.
[Updated] There were complaints that the Black Cat didn’t get any written spiel. The black cat is, unfortunately, a bit of a pest in the garden. By nature much wilder than her frenemy the Grey Cat, she hasn’t yet acquired her elder’s manners.
She will clamber all over seedlings, dig holes, and eat plants. Still, it’s important to note that she enjoys herself outdoors in the garden. I wish they both had more space on offer to them – but sadly, for the time being at least, this is as much as I can offer them.
I can never get over the miraculousness of plants growing. Look how scrawny these beetroot seedlings looked just two months ago. And look at them now!
I’m well on my way to a bumper crop. Those worms can’t have done any harm.
Peter Saville, the legendary designer best known for his work for Factory records, is our most-esteemed EC1 local luminary. In the past I had the opportunity to briefly meet and work with Peter at his studio on this Colorcalm DVD in 2005. He’s extremely charming and has a particularly inspired working method. At the time I took the opportunity to get a copy of “Closer” signed for my friend Mark Fisher which present I gave to Mark. I think in due course Mark went on to interview him. I see Peter around our neighborhood or down the shops from time to time, sometimes stopping to say hi to him. I don’t think he really knows who I am, which is no problem really. I hardly know who I am myself.
In 2006 it happened that our local St Luke’s Gardens were renovated. Seeing as how he was a local resident, the planners asked Saville to design something for the space. Inspired by the area’s traditional role as a centre of printmaking the idea was for beds with Cyan/Yellow/Magenta/Key (Black) plantings of flowers. Nice concept.
Fast forward eighteen years. As with these things so often the execution hasn’t kept up with the vision.
The first thing is that a slightly unsightly bird feeder has been installed in the middle of the centre “puck”.
I don’t really mind this so much, because I happen to like birds, but it’s a bit of a car crash.
Easier to address is that the planting has gone awry. I can see Magenta, Yellow, and Black here – but the Cyan definitely needed a hand. This would be so simple for Islington council to rectify but quicker to fix myself.
I ordered a small pack of Blue Cornflower seeds from the reliable Tamar Organics (Centauria cyanus should anyone accuse me of messing with the concept). This is a flower that bugs love.
These are the most remarkable seeds I have ever seen, like miniature shaving brushes.
I put a little seed compost down, because these guys wouldn’t survive just dumped into the parched flowerbed, and gave them a generous watering.
Yeah, no worries, you’re welcome.
My Guinness traps have been very effective at snaring them but I still have to destroy slugs and snails every night. I’m out late with the torch on my phone and some repurposed kitchen tongs. Often I find these slimy critters clustered around these home-made devices where I intercept them. It’s one of the downsides of having to do this before bedtime that the activity has been threatening to permeate my dreams.
Apart from this, although I have lots of insect activity I’m really happy about, bees, wasps, hover flies, butterflies and now worms, I have had precious few pests. That’s a benefit one reaps from looking after the soil and keeping it healthy (organic compost, no pesticides, no dig) and also having a diversity of planting (which includes some weeds that I have encouraged). The less diversity the weaker the ecosystem and the greater the need for pesticides.
One of the weeds I have let grow in pots is Dock. I never gave this much thought. Although I uprooted it from some pots, for instance I ripped out a massive Dock which had sprung up where I am growing an Apple tree, in a few spots I have left it. What I could not have foreseen was how this would benefit me so dramatically.
For some reason a swarm of Aphids chose one Dock over and above any other plant in the garden to settle on. Even better, there they are being farmed by some Ants.
Farmers sometimes use what is called a Trap Crop to draw pests away from valuable ones. A classic example is how Alfalfa is planted to draw the Lygus bug away from Cotton plantations. Weeds can apparently function in the same way.
After I finished writing Retreat I kept reading a lot of books.
I followed leads that led me through marketing (the ideas I explored in TPM) and by reading I consolidated my thoughts about music (covered in The “S” Word). These days, researching my next book, I’m looking at literature that might be obvious from the content posted here at Sick Veg. Nuff said.
Some texts, however, I’ve continually found myself being referred back to. One comes across them again and again. No doubt about it, the world of written thought has a definite pyramidic structure. And at the top are texts (poems, prayers, mantras, sutras, tracts, lyrics, books) that have a few things in common. Most often they are a bit weird. Frequently they are difficult. But sometimes extreme concision can be a factor too.
The reason for their weirdness, difficulty and (in those cases usually blessed) concision is that they exist at the furthest perimeters of the usefulness of language. They are like the peculiar, tiny plants that survive in inhospitable deserts and tundra. With varying degrees of success they try to make manifest concepts that have a shape we’re not equipped to visualise. [Obligatory quantum new age observation: The best example of this dilemma in maths would be the four-dimensional cube.]
It would be theoretically possible to create large objects out of this luminous, other-worldly material but the larger they get, the structurally weaker and the less internal consistency they have. The Bible, for instance, is a huge hodge-podge of separate smaller individual attempts – where maybe a handful really stand out and are necessary: Genesis, The Book of Job (strictly for fun…), Revelations, and the Gospel of Matthew (Sermon on the Mount etc).
To return to the earlier metaphor of plants. Traversing this inhospitable environment at the outer edges of language, how would you feel if you came across, not some puny weed, but a massive ancient tree, an oak for instance? The I Ching is like that.
Dating from 1000–750 BC it’s impossibly old but some of its central concepts are thrillingly contemporary. Most obviously it gives us the picture of a huge conceptual architecture built entirely from the humblest binary material (Yin = 0, Yang = 1). That’s like the digital universe in case you missed the obvious comparison. Do try and keep up… There’s interminable scholarship ancient and modern about the I Ching, however to get the epicentre of what it’s about it’s useful to look at the first two hexagrams.
This is the first hexagram Ch’ien, “The Creative”. It is a stack of six yang lines. It is the image of heaven. It represents dynamic force.
And this is the second hexagram K’un, “The Receptive”. It is a stack of six yin lines. It is the image of earth. It represents yielding.
Everything that the I Ching illustrates happens within a framework defined by these two complimentary principles. It establishes existence as we know it happening entirely on an axis of dematerialisation and materialisation. Its implicit central argument is that everything makes sense in these terms.
The book is an exploration of 64 key situations which come about in the interaction of these two fundamental states. But the I Ching doesn’t just seek to articulate what hexagram characterises the fleeting moment, it offers profound advice as how best to exist in each of those conditions so as to embody the alignment that the Taoists called “Li”, the Buddhists “Dharma”, and the Hindus “Rta”. As agony aunt it is sine qua non.
On a superficial and totally mundane level, whatever result you get with it as a divination tool, if you can see some relationship of its counsel to your situation, then what it tells you specific to that situation would be sensible. So for instance its perennial observation: “Perseverance furthers”. In what context can that ever be construed as bad advice? Just keep going. In both our brightest and darkest hours those might be the only words we need to hear.
I wrote quite objectively about the I Ching in Retreat. However, I find more and more that when I consult it it seems to nail both my circumstances and helps to specify the correct attitude to have towards them.
For instance, I asked the I Ching whether it was wise to write this post at Sick Veg about it and it gave me hexagram 17 Sui, “Following”. The Judgement read, “In order to obtain a following one must learn how to adapt oneself.” It’s like a manual for social media innit! So how does one adapt oneself? It says “…he must first learn to serve…” From which I inferred that I mustn’t forget my duty to you dear reader. And what is my duty? “If he has to obtain a following by force or cunning, by conspiracy or by creating factions, he invariably arouses resistance, which obstructs willing adherence.” From which I inferred that in this situation I should tell my small audience the truth, that I am fascinated by and use the I Ching.
This is a picture of my little I Ching kit which I have enjoyed for a number of years now. The matchbox we found in Senegal in the nineties. The coins are from Japan. The dice reminds me of happy times playing Dungeons Dragons. The ba qian method specifies an equal probability of getting either a Yin or Yang (you can do this by tossing a coin) and then (using an eight-sided dice) you calculate the probability of the moving lines. According to statisticians this reproduces the probabilities of the previously most common traditional method, the yarrow stalks.
The moving lines, or “the lines” are an extra layer of interpretations which add on top of each of the individual yin or yang in the hexagram. So for instance you could have as many as six extra notes added on top of the basic hexagram. I’m always relieved when I get no extra lines because I like things simple. However, in themselves the lines are conceptually interesting. They’re like a weather forecast which specifies of the wind “south-westerly becoming southerly” because each hexagram is a snapshot of a dynamic situation.
I would imagine if you could see the hexagram to which the lines specified the one you had thrown was changing into, then this added interpretation might make sense. If you get me…
Ok, I’ve never looked into this before, but let’s try that! When I threw Sui – “Following” I had a change specified in the fifth line. When I looked that up in the Sui lines, of my question it said: “Every man must have something he follows – something that serves him as a lodestar. He who follows the beautiful and the good may feel himself strengthened by this saying.” I took this to refer to my interest in the I Ching. And this was added like a notation to my reading.
If we look up the hexagram that Sui was turning into it is 51: Chên / The Arousing. Here the judgement specifies: “The shock that comes from the manifestation of God within the depths of the earth makes man afraid, but fear of God is good, for joy and merriment can follow it.” And yeah I can see that making sense as a transition…
It was this Taoist appreciation of the dynamic cosmos that so fascinated Werner Heisenberg when he invited new age physics guru Fritjof Capra to present him his working notes for the enchanting The Tao of Physics (1975). Capra said of Heisenberg:
…he had been unaware of the dynamic aspect of the Eastern world view and was intrigued when I showed him with numerous examples from my manuscript that the principal Sanskrit terms used in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy-brahman, rta, lila, karma, samsara, etc.-had dynamic connotations.
These days there are I Ching apps you can download but there’s something very wrong about them. To go back to this fundamental distinction between the first and second hexagrams – the I Ching is about life on this material plane. And in case you hadn’t realised it, in an app, or even browsing a website like this you are partially dematerialised, tethered to a higher plane. Notwithstanding this, and my love for the I Ching, I was still very amused to read this review below from Casey on the App store complaining about the poor divinatory result he got from one app. Call technical support!
Throughout my reading of books on the counterculture I’m persistently coming across descriptions of people consulting the I Ching. Most recently in Stewart Brand’s new biography. I am always delighted by the faith people put in it. Didn’t Mark Rylance turn down Spielberg on its instruction? It didn’t seem to do his career any harm… And in actual fact the I Ching is usually preoccupied with very prosaic things such as careers.
Certainly, I don’t tend to ask it terribly serious questions. These days I find it works best, not if I ask it whether or not to do something, but what my attitude should be towards certain matters. Though I did once ask it whether I should delete my LinkedIn account and was delighted when it told me to do so. OBVIOUSLY that was the right thing to do.
A few months ago when I asked it about something in particular (before proceeding to do completely the opposite) – I regretted not heeding its advice…
A few years ago the nursery that was run out of a portacabin on Mitchell Street, wedged between the local energy centre and a football pitch, was closed. It had been sited on the grounds of the Finsbury Leisure Centre for over twenty years.
The plot was cleared of buildings and for a period before COVID the space was squatted. Those squatters have since moved on and now no-one goes onto the land. Walking past it the other day I noticed that a small gap had been opened up in the fence, so I went in to have a look.
If you click on the photo it launches a gallery view and if you leave it alone for a moment it loads the next picture.
Exploring Dandelions as I was, I thought I would try some Dandelion teas and approached the matter with my usual thoroughness. For the last eighteen months I haven’t drunk any tea and coffee so, given that I’m starved for tipple, this research had a practical aspect to it.
The Clipper Tea on the top left is, I think closely inspecting it, the flower dried. It doesn’t actually say on the packet what part of the plant. This is a bit like a Chamomile tea which, being truthful, I have never enjoyed.
The Dandelion Root on the top right is another organic product, this time from Poland. The Polish look like they have fields of the stuff. This was not roasted and had a slightly dank, watery flavour. Apparently often combined with Burdock for a proper witch’s brew.
My journey into Dandelion Teas started with this Roasted Dandelion Coffee on the left. I picked this up at the legendary health food store G. Baldwin & Co on the Walworth Road.
I really like this product which is packaged up by a company in Wotton-Under-Edge in Gloucestershire. It actually tastes very like coffee! It really does! Most like Nescafe instant in fact, which I was quite delighted about, given as how I’m not much of a espresso snob. What bothered me though was that it wasn’t organic. So picky!
After a bit of research I then found this last Organic Roasted Dandelion Root variant on the right. This comes in sachets, is nearly as tasty as the Cotswold Dandelion coffee, but has too many airmiles on its account, travelling as it does from “sustainably wild-collected meadows of Eastern Europe”, to be packaged in America, to then be delivered to the UK. Craziness. Yeah, that’s no good. So I will likely stick with the Cotswold.
Last year some Dandelions sprung up in the garden and I was delighted.
Rather than just let nature take its course I thought I would cultivate them. Here are the seeds I gathered last year.
I planted them in seed trays here on the far left. Then transplanted the most successful ones into pots. It was fun doing this with a “weed”.
They bloom very early in the season. This is them at the very start of April. They open in the morning and shut in the evening in a very pronounced way that, familiar as we are with flowers in vases, one tends to forget.
Just as quickly they transform into their “clock” form. This was taken on the 15th April a mere two weeks afterwards.
Here’s a close-up of the same head which image I’m using as an icon on my email account at the moment.
You can eat Dandelions and they are supposed to be good for you. I tried the yellow flower heads and the leaves. They taste ok but they might benefit from some vinaigrette.
One of my very earliest childhood memories was of eating Dandelion stalks. These are hollow tubes which you can split open and flatten out. Never did me any bloody harm I can tell you.
This photo, taken today on May the 5th shows how quickly the season is over. Perhaps they will flower again this year?
Again, I gathered some seeds. [David Attenborough VO:] And so the cycle repeats itself.
Rock nerds will know that Dandelion was the name of John Peel’s record label. Peel may have been aiming for the same free-wheeling, raggle-taggle vibe that characterises the plant but apparently the name came from one of his hamsters at the suggestion of his then flat-mate Marc Bolan.