Category: This and that


Money in art

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10/08/2015

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I’m in Portugal at present, so you can expect some unusual posts in the next week or so. Yesterday we stumbled across an Alladin’s cave in nearby Cacilhas.

A wonderful gent called Eduardo Dinis Henriques invited us into his home to view his collection of art created using coins: mostly redundant from around the Euro zone, but featuring some currently circulating British coins.

He’s been creating these for many years and his house has been overtaken by these pictures, which are a mix of natural subjects and historical scenes or references from Portugal’s past.

He proudly told us about the collection, one of which holds the Guinness Record for the largest picture created from coins: he used over 37,000!

Further information: www.artcoins.wordPress.com
Old School Gardener

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PicPost: Here comes the Bride

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08/08/2015
Cosmos by Ilona E. Stefan

Cosmos by Ilona E. Stefan

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Dear Walter: Letter from Old School Garden, 31st July 2015

Filed under: Dear Walter - letters/info from Old School Garden, Gardening techniques, This and that — 10 Comments
31/07/2015

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31st July 2015

To Walter Degrasse

Dear Walter,

Ticking over. Or rather, ‘just about coping’ in Old School Garden, this month. In fact I’ve just spent 11 hours wallpapering our stairwell as part of our (it seems, never ending) decorations, and just dashed outside to take some pictures so that you can see how the garden is looking. It was quite a surprise as I haven’t been out there seriously for a good while. Still, things don’t look too bad, proving that nature can take good care of herself! (I did pull up a few large weeds, though).

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The harvest continues with good crops of potatoes (I will dig up the second row of Charlottes over the weekend); strawberries; raspberries (though the Autumn Bliss seem, once again, to have put on no flowers towards the back of the row); courgettes; calabrese; onions; and our first squashes (New England Sugar Pie- just hardening them off). And the greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers are doing splendidly I’m mightily impressed with my new aquaponic growing system for the tomatoes which seem bigger and more plentiful than I’ve ever had them. I’ve sown some carrots and parsnips recently and these seem to have germinated and now require a weed. Also, the apples and pears on my ‘super columns’ are really plentiful. I’ve also managed to summer prune my trained fruit bushes and planted out and netted some cauliflowers and purple sprouting broccoli.

Though it’s been quiet in general in the garden, I have managed to do a bit of tidying up- especially resurrecting our fire pit. Though we’re away a good deal in the next couple of months, perhaps we’ll get round to using it before autumn sets in.

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About this time last year (and for some time before that), I was complaining about moles in the garden, especially how they wreck the lawn. Well, as I hinted recently, I bit the bullet and got a pest controller in. He set around 10 traps and caught just two moles (the body of one, complete with trap was taken away in the night, probably by a fox). Though I feel a tad guilty about killing these little earth movers, it would appear, for now, that mole activity has ceased, so I shall be raking off the remains of the mole hills and cutting the grass in the next couple of days, hoping that we’ve seen the end of the damage; at least for the rest of the season.

The last of mole hills?

The last of mole hills?

Well, old mate, sorry that there’s not much new to tell you, but you know its been full on with the decorating in the last few months, so the garden has taken a back seat.

WP_20150731_20_11_41_ProAll the best for now,

Old School Gardener

 

 

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Sustainable Intensification: Radical measures and new paradigms for achieving food security in Africa

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30/07/2015

canwefeedtheworld's avatarOne Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?

Stephanie Brittain

InfographicLaunched today by Agriculture for Impact, a new Sustainable Intensification database aims to explain the ecological, socio-economic and genetic approaches that together contribute to the Sustainable Intensification of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa in an easily accessible way, illustrated by more than 80 case studies.

Never has there been a greater need for a new paradigm for improving African agriculture. Worldwide, more than 800 million people suffer from chronic hunger. Meanwhile, Africa’s population alone is set to double to 2.4 billion by 2050, putting additional pressure on our planet’s resources to achieve food security for all. A 2011 FAO publication estimated that 1.2 million km2 of land will need to be converted to agriculture by 2030 to meet the increasing demand for food; most of which will need to occur in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. On top of that, climate change is likely to…

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The LCC and the Arts II: the ‘Patronage of the Arts’ Scheme

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Municipal Dreams's avatarMunicipal Dreams

Last week’s post looked at the LCC’s open-air sculpture exhibitions but arguably the more significant contribution to the worthy attempt to bring art to the people lay in its ‘Arts Patronage Scheme’ inaugurated in 1956. By 1964 when it (and the LCC) were wound up, over 70 works of art had been purchased – adorning schools and housing estates across the capital.

Henry Moore, Two-Piece Reclining figure No. 3, the Brandon Estate, Lambeth © Steve Cadman and made available through a Creative Commons licence Henry Moore, Two-Piece Reclining Figure No. 3, the Brandon Estate, Lambeth © Steve Cadman and made available through a Creative Commons licence

Many of these were significant pieces by some of the leading artists in the country. Nearly all were modernist works and its efforts were not, therefore, without controversy but they remain: (1)

outstanding in their ambition and coherence…In this respect, the LCC may be said to have assisted in the democratisation, if not the socialisation, of art.

The origins of the scheme are marked by their time…

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Picture of the Day- July 30, 2015

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Natalia Maks's avatarNatalia Maks

Evening sky over Vicenza, Italy.

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PicPost: Packed Plot

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27/07/2015

My friend Jen sent me this picture of a floriferous garden in Hastings she saw yesterday on a rain-soaked walk. Thanks Jen!

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Old School Gardener

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In the pink at Blickling

Filed under: Blickling Hall- rebirth of the Walled Garden, This and that — 1 Comment
23/07/2015

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A recent gardening session at Blickling Hall focused on tidying up the borders behind the Orangery, including ‘editing’ out a large number of Foxglove seedlings. The hot, humid weather started to take it’s toll, so my fellow volunteers and I decided to take an early lunch, via a quick trip to the Rose Garden, which was created about 2 years ago in an enclosed and rather shady area beneath some majestic trees.

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Using traditional musk and damask shrub roses, the area is starting to fill out, the roses forming a low, wave-like surface with some beautiful blooms and fabulous fragrances, and despite the limited light, the plants seem to be doing well.

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Head Gardener Paul tells me he wants to gradually introduce some other planting to extend the seasons of interest and to broaden the colour pallette from pink into mauves and purples.

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Old School Gardener

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A Year later…

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12/07/2015

This Hibiscus longiflora has flowered continuously on our window cill since last July…can you beat that?

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Bee haven

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10/07/2015

Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse Museum, alive lavender!

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