I started writing about my garden in October and right now in the Spring/Summer it's bloomin' lovely ... here's my little journey, and I'll keep you posted and hopefully expand and expouse upon my writings in the future, time permitting of course ... but remember it's cheap and easy to grow your own produce, nurture beautiful flowers and compost WILL save the world !
Tulips Are My Favourites
Things I Like ... Gardening
National Agriculture Day
Spring Gardening
Planting Season
How To Compost
Planting in Autumn & Winter
In The Garden With Matt Henshaw
---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
Showing posts with label compost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compost. Show all posts
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Monday, 31 March 2014
Things I Like ... Gardening
Springtime is upon us ! There's nothing better than getting yourself in the garden, hence the existence of Henshaw's Horticultural Blog ...
I loves me some bulbs. The Daffodils, Tulips and Garlics are coming through right now and looking glorious. Come Henshaw trivia for you - the Tulip is my favourite flower. Every man should have a favourite flower, and know his fair maiden's too. And the spiritual paganistic symbolism behind each and every one, well, maybe not that much, but it's important to know what's growing, when where and why?!
I've always enjoyed pottering, my grandad Walter was my hero as an infant, he walked up to his allotment everyday and kept it pristine, weed free and everything in perfect rows. A great man! The other side of my family has pig farmers, keen pruners and very much outdoorsy kind of folk. We're all in the Domesday Book, William the Conquerer knew about the Henshaws, Millses, Hooleys and Watsons.
Gardening is Good. Gardening is Great. It can relieve depression, fatigue, give you a spiritual mystical energy that only getting your hands dirty and in the earth can bring. You are creating life, and in some cases, produce you can eat and live from !
And we need to spread the word to the little ones ! Here's me (above) with the beautiful Becky Edwards' daughter Evelyn. Thank goodness she knows the power of gardening, a shining example to all. Can't wait to hear how her herbs, veg and flowers are getting on !
Also, just a side note, composting can save the world ... or as those inclined to being pinickety about things, composting can help preserve the conditions of the planet to necessitate human survival on the spherical rock floating around the sun.
This is my mum. She likes getting out in the garden. But even if you haven't the time, nouse or energy to plant, rotate, harvest, etc. then get yourself out for a walk, get involved in some nature ... it'll do you the world of good, and the world.
It was her Birthday and Mother's Day in this last month, so as these things come bound together each year, please by my record so then this time next year she'll be reeling from all the nice things that I've done for her !!
---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
Peace, Love & Tea,
Matt Henshaw x
I loves me some bulbs. The Daffodils, Tulips and Garlics are coming through right now and looking glorious. Come Henshaw trivia for you - the Tulip is my favourite flower. Every man should have a favourite flower, and know his fair maiden's too. And the spiritual paganistic symbolism behind each and every one, well, maybe not that much, but it's important to know what's growing, when where and why?!
I've always enjoyed pottering, my grandad Walter was my hero as an infant, he walked up to his allotment everyday and kept it pristine, weed free and everything in perfect rows. A great man! The other side of my family has pig farmers, keen pruners and very much outdoorsy kind of folk. We're all in the Domesday Book, William the Conquerer knew about the Henshaws, Millses, Hooleys and Watsons.
Gardening is Good. Gardening is Great. It can relieve depression, fatigue, give you a spiritual mystical energy that only getting your hands dirty and in the earth can bring. You are creating life, and in some cases, produce you can eat and live from !
And we need to spread the word to the little ones ! Here's me (above) with the beautiful Becky Edwards' daughter Evelyn. Thank goodness she knows the power of gardening, a shining example to all. Can't wait to hear how her herbs, veg and flowers are getting on !
Also, just a side note, composting can save the world ... or as those inclined to being pinickety about things, composting can help preserve the conditions of the planet to necessitate human survival on the spherical rock floating around the sun.
This is my mum. She likes getting out in the garden. But even if you haven't the time, nouse or energy to plant, rotate, harvest, etc. then get yourself out for a walk, get involved in some nature ... it'll do you the world of good, and the world.
It was her Birthday and Mother's Day in this last month, so as these things come bound together each year, please by my record so then this time next year she'll be reeling from all the nice things that I've done for her !!
---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
Peace, Love & Tea,
Matt Henshaw x
Sunday, 20 October 2013
Matt Henshaw @ The Oxjam Leicester Takeover 2013 ...
Afternoon Tea to all,
Yesterday I played three sets in total at three wonderful venues for Oxjam 2013 ... met loads of great people, made plenty of new friends and caught up with some old ones as well. Spending a day doing what Sundays are for ... home-made banana bread, apple crumble, carrot and coriander soup and a nice hearty garlic & celery broth ! The compost is absolutely buzzing !!
Here's me at the start of the day at The Curve Theatre in Leicester ...
Here's what I played:-
Your Eyes Are Made Of Gold
Always In The Way
Not In Nottingham
Play The Game
707
My Life
It Ain't Easy
And here's me at Hansom Hall, beautiful yet underused venue in Leicester city ...
And here's what I played there:-
It Ain't Easy
It's A Wonderful Night
Always in the Way
Stop Me Girl
Me & You
You Send Me
An absolute pleasure it was to hear my voice ringing out singing Sam Cooke ie. The Greatest's first smash hit in Leicester own mini Royal Albert Hall. Made me think about the future and what is and what could be. My dreams as a teenage were always to sing in the Albert Hall and the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool ... help me out, help me get there.
And then I played a pretty impromptu set at The Basement, top place, and some top blues bands on later on ... I was playing away from the guitar and sat a piano and jammed through a few songs ...
Stop Me Girl
That's Life
Goodnight
Yeah, that's right, in true lounge piano stylee I played a bit of Frank Sinatra for the locals, they loved it. They wanted more anyways, I was only supposed to play two, and whilst my piano skills are little lacking, plonking and pedestrian to say the least, I was asked to do one more. Good times all in all and all the great acts I managed to see I fancy doing a blog on each, so I'll be bring back 'Matt Henshaw Recommends ...' ASAP.
Peace, Love & Tea,
Matt Henshaw.
MattHenshaw.com
Yesterday I played three sets in total at three wonderful venues for Oxjam 2013 ... met loads of great people, made plenty of new friends and caught up with some old ones as well. Spending a day doing what Sundays are for ... home-made banana bread, apple crumble, carrot and coriander soup and a nice hearty garlic & celery broth ! The compost is absolutely buzzing !!
Here's me at the start of the day at The Curve Theatre in Leicester ...
Here's what I played:-
Your Eyes Are Made Of Gold
Always In The Way
Not In Nottingham
Play The Game
707
My Life
It Ain't Easy
And here's me at Hansom Hall, beautiful yet underused venue in Leicester city ...
And here's what I played there:-
It Ain't Easy
It's A Wonderful Night
Always in the Way
Stop Me Girl
Me & You
You Send Me
An absolute pleasure it was to hear my voice ringing out singing Sam Cooke ie. The Greatest's first smash hit in Leicester own mini Royal Albert Hall. Made me think about the future and what is and what could be. My dreams as a teenage were always to sing in the Albert Hall and the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool ... help me out, help me get there.
And then I played a pretty impromptu set at The Basement, top place, and some top blues bands on later on ... I was playing away from the guitar and sat a piano and jammed through a few songs ...
Stop Me Girl
That's Life
Goodnight
Yeah, that's right, in true lounge piano stylee I played a bit of Frank Sinatra for the locals, they loved it. They wanted more anyways, I was only supposed to play two, and whilst my piano skills are little lacking, plonking and pedestrian to say the least, I was asked to do one more. Good times all in all and all the great acts I managed to see I fancy doing a blog on each, so I'll be bring back 'Matt Henshaw Recommends ...' ASAP.
Peace, Love & Tea,
Matt Henshaw.
MattHenshaw.com
Friday, 18 October 2013
How To Compost - Henshaw's Horticultural Blog
Keeping you in tune with my gardening, I've just done a bit of weeding, tended to my patch and relocated my Christmas tree ... but what I'm really excited about ... is my compost bin ! (maybe a misappropriation of the word 'excited' there, but it is nice!)
This is my colourful compost. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I believe composting is the first step in saving human kind. I'm no dystopian, I don't think it'll get as bad as all that, but we'd like to keep this place nice, right? Making compost is the ultimate in recycling. You take a bunch of stuff you normally would throw away – eggshells, carrot scraping, yellowed lettuce leaves–throw them in a pile with some dried leaves, leave it all there for a while, and voila! Rich, brown compost! And while making compost won’t exactly save the world, if all of us in the cities, suburbs and estates made compost and used it instead of the petrochemicals, fertilisers, slug repelants, pesticides, insecticides and the rest of it that we pour on to our lawns and gardens today, our environment would be cleaner and safer for us and our children.
Composting helps the ecology, improving soil quality, improving drainage, aiding the growth of plants and hence improving the air quality. Composting has financial benefits too, and economical, saves you buying it in plastic bags, saves buying expensive mulch and transporting such things around the country. We can all have an abundance of great soil in our back yards, balcony or grounds. And we all know that growing your own produce is good for your wallet. The educational benefits are there too, every school, group or community around the country should have a compost heap. Learn responsibilty for your waste, reduce waste, learn about the circle of life, where your food goes and where your food comes from.
This may seems like just ranting, but that's just the kind of beat poet rambling gardener that I am, just taking a break from cleaning out the shed, having some lunch and a cup of tea and filling you in, so let's make a more succinct list, if you're anything like my brother, I know you'll love a list ... here's what to compost and what not to compost, in a Smash Hits style What's Hot and What's Not, or a Vice Magazine Dos and Don'ts ...
Compost ingredients
'Greens' or nitrogen rich ingredients:-
Grass cuttings
Urine (diluted with water 20:1)
Comfrey leaves
Nettles
Grass cuttings
Raw vegetable peelings from your kitchen
Tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds
Young green weed growth (avoid weeds with seeds)
Soft green prunings
Animal manure from herbivores eg. cows and horses
Poultry manure and bedding
'Browns' or carbon rich ingredients ie. slow to rot:-
Torn up newspaper and junk mail make good dry material
Cardboard eg. cereal packets and egg boxes
Waste paper and junk mail, including shredded confidential waste
Cardboard tubes
Newspapers & magazines (although it is better for the environment to pass them on to your local doctors or dentists' surgery or send them for recycling
Bedding from vegetarian pets eg. rabbits, guinea pigs (hay, straw, shredded paper, wood shavings)
Tough hedge clippings
Woody prunings
Old bedding plants
Bracken
Sawdust
Wood shavings
Fallen leaves
Other compostable items:-
Wood ash, in moderation
Hair, nail clippings
Egg shells (crushed)
Natural fibres eg. 100% wool or cotton
Do NOT compost
Meat
Fish
Cooked food
Coal & coke ash
Cat litter
Dog faeces
Disposable nappies
The key to getting great compost is to ensure that you get the right mix! You want to try and get a 50/50 mix of ‘Green’ wastes such as fruit and vegetable peelings and garden clippings and ‘Brown’ wastes such as newspaper, shredded paper or cardboard. Getting this mix right will help your compost to aerate and break down quicker.
However, there are some things you should never add to your compost bin including; meat, cooked vegetables, dairy products, dog faeces or cat litter, nappies, diseased plants or perennial weeds.
Love, Mud & Decomposition,
Matt Henshaw.
MattHenshaw.com
Facebook.com/MattHenshaw
PS. National Composting Awareness Week falls in the second week in May ... one for your diary !
With thanks to Leicester City Council, Recycle Now, Sustainable Man, The Zeitgeist Movement UK, GardenOrganic, HomeComposting.org.uk and Composting Will Save The World ...
This is my colourful compost. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I believe composting is the first step in saving human kind. I'm no dystopian, I don't think it'll get as bad as all that, but we'd like to keep this place nice, right? Making compost is the ultimate in recycling. You take a bunch of stuff you normally would throw away – eggshells, carrot scraping, yellowed lettuce leaves–throw them in a pile with some dried leaves, leave it all there for a while, and voila! Rich, brown compost! And while making compost won’t exactly save the world, if all of us in the cities, suburbs and estates made compost and used it instead of the petrochemicals, fertilisers, slug repelants, pesticides, insecticides and the rest of it that we pour on to our lawns and gardens today, our environment would be cleaner and safer for us and our children.
Composting helps the ecology, improving soil quality, improving drainage, aiding the growth of plants and hence improving the air quality. Composting has financial benefits too, and economical, saves you buying it in plastic bags, saves buying expensive mulch and transporting such things around the country. We can all have an abundance of great soil in our back yards, balcony or grounds. And we all know that growing your own produce is good for your wallet. The educational benefits are there too, every school, group or community around the country should have a compost heap. Learn responsibilty for your waste, reduce waste, learn about the circle of life, where your food goes and where your food comes from.
This may seems like just ranting, but that's just the kind of beat poet rambling gardener that I am, just taking a break from cleaning out the shed, having some lunch and a cup of tea and filling you in, so let's make a more succinct list, if you're anything like my brother, I know you'll love a list ... here's what to compost and what not to compost, in a Smash Hits style What's Hot and What's Not, or a Vice Magazine Dos and Don'ts ...
Compost ingredients
'Greens' or nitrogen rich ingredients:-
Grass cuttings
Urine (diluted with water 20:1)
Comfrey leaves
Nettles
Grass cuttings
Raw vegetable peelings from your kitchen
Tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds
Young green weed growth (avoid weeds with seeds)
Soft green prunings
Animal manure from herbivores eg. cows and horses
Poultry manure and bedding
'Browns' or carbon rich ingredients ie. slow to rot:-
Torn up newspaper and junk mail make good dry material
Cardboard eg. cereal packets and egg boxes
Waste paper and junk mail, including shredded confidential waste
Cardboard tubes
Newspapers & magazines (although it is better for the environment to pass them on to your local doctors or dentists' surgery or send them for recycling
Bedding from vegetarian pets eg. rabbits, guinea pigs (hay, straw, shredded paper, wood shavings)
Tough hedge clippings
Woody prunings
Old bedding plants
Bracken
Sawdust
Wood shavings
Fallen leaves
Other compostable items:-
Wood ash, in moderation
Hair, nail clippings
Egg shells (crushed)
Natural fibres eg. 100% wool or cotton
Do NOT compost
Meat
Fish
Cooked food
Coal & coke ash
Cat litter
Dog faeces
Disposable nappies
The key to getting great compost is to ensure that you get the right mix! You want to try and get a 50/50 mix of ‘Green’ wastes such as fruit and vegetable peelings and garden clippings and ‘Brown’ wastes such as newspaper, shredded paper or cardboard. Getting this mix right will help your compost to aerate and break down quicker.
However, there are some things you should never add to your compost bin including; meat, cooked vegetables, dairy products, dog faeces or cat litter, nappies, diseased plants or perennial weeds.
Love, Mud & Decomposition,
Matt Henshaw.
MattHenshaw.com
Facebook.com/MattHenshaw
PS. National Composting Awareness Week falls in the second week in May ... one for your diary !
With thanks to Leicester City Council, Recycle Now, Sustainable Man, The Zeitgeist Movement UK, GardenOrganic, HomeComposting.org.uk and Composting Will Save The World ...
Sunday, 13 October 2013
In the Garden with Matt Henshaw - Henshaw's Horticultural Blog
It's been a long week. I've been threatening to write more blogs so here we go again, up the hill and around the bend. This week I've been writing - polishing up two new numbers for playing out loud live, one quiet moment for putting kittens to sleep and another one for my imaginary film soundtrack - and I've played a brand new song 'No Matter How' in a live radio session for 99.2 Hermitage FM that went out on Saturday night, to be repeated again on Tuesday night at 10pm. I've done an interview with John Sinclair of BBC Radio Leicester for the Leicester New Music podcast and lined up live sessions for Trent Sound in Nottingham plus Takeover FM Radio in Leicester. So what have I been doing in between ... gardening of course!
Preparing Your Winter Vegetable Patch
So, moving into a new house you've got to put in some elbow grease to prepare what few things you can plant in the early weeks of October. I arrived at a yard covered in weeds, waist high, and soil filled with big stones, hefty tree stumps, roots beyond roots, and, sadly, loads of broken glass. With a fork, a wheelie bin, new compost bin and a knife to get in the crannies of the old uneven slab work, pesky weed roots ! This picture may not seem too impressive - red wellies aside, which are obviously impressive - but that soil is looking immense considering it's starting position, I wish I'd taken a 'before' picture!
Make sure your soil is well dug over, remove all debris, save greenery, chopped weeds and little roots for the compost, but unfortunately some roots and tree stumps might be too large for the compost and might have to go in the bin; or you could save them for a fire in the future, leave to try and enjoy at a later date ! In terms of "saving the planet"; or, furthermore, the conditions for human life on this sphere we call earth, I truly believe that getting deep down and dirty and back to gardening, urban, rural, small or large scale, or otherwise, is the first step and the way to go for almost everyone. Composting is the simplest thing you can do. I'll expand on this theory at a later stage, and I'll give you some more hints, tips, journal entries and general garden fettering in the future. Hope you'll stick with me on Henshaw's Horticultural Blog, what have I planted? Seedlings?? Forking good times???
And, most importantly, stay cool, and keep listening ...
Peace & Green,
Matt Henshaw x
Preparing Your Winter Vegetable Patch
So, moving into a new house you've got to put in some elbow grease to prepare what few things you can plant in the early weeks of October. I arrived at a yard covered in weeds, waist high, and soil filled with big stones, hefty tree stumps, roots beyond roots, and, sadly, loads of broken glass. With a fork, a wheelie bin, new compost bin and a knife to get in the crannies of the old uneven slab work, pesky weed roots ! This picture may not seem too impressive - red wellies aside, which are obviously impressive - but that soil is looking immense considering it's starting position, I wish I'd taken a 'before' picture!
Make sure your soil is well dug over, remove all debris, save greenery, chopped weeds and little roots for the compost, but unfortunately some roots and tree stumps might be too large for the compost and might have to go in the bin; or you could save them for a fire in the future, leave to try and enjoy at a later date ! In terms of "saving the planet"; or, furthermore, the conditions for human life on this sphere we call earth, I truly believe that getting deep down and dirty and back to gardening, urban, rural, small or large scale, or otherwise, is the first step and the way to go for almost everyone. Composting is the simplest thing you can do. I'll expand on this theory at a later stage, and I'll give you some more hints, tips, journal entries and general garden fettering in the future. Hope you'll stick with me on Henshaw's Horticultural Blog, what have I planted? Seedlings?? Forking good times???
And, most importantly, stay cool, and keep listening ...
Peace & Green,
Matt Henshaw x
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