Tory Dunn
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stradella.bsky.social
Tory Dunn
@stradella.bsky.social
310 followers 450 following 87 posts
Designing public services, former typography nerd, amateur, accordion player, SE Londoner - trying to help change things. Opinions are my own.
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stradella.bsky.social
🌱 oh no, I really don’t want South London parakeets to decide they like the taste of winter-flowering clematis. (find something else to munch on!!!)
2 large green parakeets perched on a clematis vine with white flowers. The birds are munching on the flowers.
November 13, 2025 at 1:57 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 Seasons! The last of the summer crops coming in to ripen, while winter flowering clematis starts gearing up.
Wooden counter partially covered with tomatoes, some red and many green and a few yellow cherry tomatoes, baby tromboncino squash -green and curved, and a mix of small sweet peppers - some already red, sone still green. Wooden fence with clematis growing on it. Among the green leaves are white flower buds, about 1 to 1.5 cm long.
October 25, 2025 at 11:44 AM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 tromboncino hanging out with a dinner plate for scale
Pale narrow summer squash, around 60cm long draped over a white dinner plate on a lime green table.
September 2, 2025 at 6:52 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 Picking up the pace a little. Note that beans are under-represented because I blanched and froze a mini-glut last night.
Wooden counter covered in yellow and red tomatoes, a large number of green and bronze conference pears, a tromboncino squash (light green, shaped a bit like an alto saxophone and about the size of a soprano saxophone), one courgette and small group of green beans, some with purple markings on the pods.
August 24, 2025 at 10:12 AM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 Damselfly ready for its close-up
A damselfly posing on a garden post against a very blue sky. Although it looks dark in colour because it’s backlit, it’s actually copper coloured to a large part A side view of the same damselfly, but because it’s not backlit you can see that the wings are shiny copper coloured and the body is rust coloured with some lime green
August 16, 2025 at 11:35 AM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 As we say in London: sure hope you like beans!
A morning’s picking from bean plants starting to have beans. A mix of flat green, purple and green, some French green bens and some with a pink tinge. Piled up on a cutting board.
July 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 we originally used shade netting as temporary protection from London wildlife (critters). But it’s proved to be very popular with the plants during the heat.
View into a raised bed that has green shade netting around it. Plants are tromboncino climbing squash, beans, tomato and bush courgette, looking quite green and healthy
July 15, 2025 at 7:54 AM
stradella.bsky.social
And here they come. First up: Latah. That first homegrown tomato of the year tastes so amazing!
Red tomato, the size of a large cherry tomato, with a dark green stem on a blue-green table.
July 1, 2025 at 9:13 PM
stradella.bsky.social
And the moon rising from the trees at the other side. (Not the light streak, that’s a reflection)
Photo of back garden and neighbour’s house. Most of the image is dark green but sky is strong blue. Just peaking through the trees is a bright bit of light, the moon rising. The image also has a light streak in the sky but that is a reflection on the window the image was taken from.
June 30, 2025 at 9:21 PM
stradella.bsky.social
London is relatively northern: sunset at 10 pm.
View over south London houses, pink sunset in the background.
June 30, 2025 at 9:08 PM
stradella.bsky.social
#TheHerds arriving at Seven Dials
Life size wildlife puppets made of cardboard and wood, animated by people dressed in black, arriving at Seven Dials (a small roundabout in Covent Garden, London). I’m not great at identifying the larger animals. It looks like some kind of ox in the foreground and maybe a roan antelope with tall twisty horns in the background. Many spectators around the circle looking excited and entranced.
June 27, 2025 at 6:03 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 Berry status: going for it! Logan and Boysenberry ☀️
A plastic storage container full of dark purple berries!
June 25, 2025 at 6:43 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 Now starting to use garlic grown from cloves of grocery store organic garlic. The bulbs definitely are not as big as the ones I’ve grown from specialist planting garlic, but it was an interesting experiment.
A bulb of garlic with a length of dried stem on a wooden counter. The bulb still as a bit of dried mud on it.
June 21, 2025 at 12:37 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 The tromboncini have had to wait for their new digs to be finished. Hopefully this weekend. Still to come: climbing support and critter-protection. Will companion plant with a few beans and the leggiest-imaginable tomatoes. #AmateurAgriculturalist
Six squash plants in medium small pots. The plants are around 12 cm / 5 in tall A wooden raised bed with compost and top soil around 3 x 1.2 metres
June 21, 2025 at 12:15 PM
stradella.bsky.social
Even the electric ones. nationalrrmuseum.org/wp-content/u...
GG-1 electric locomotive (Pennsylvania Railroad #4890) in museum. Streamlined design very shiny red colour
June 21, 2025 at 11:43 AM
stradella.bsky.social
And in London + accordion news… London Accordion Orchestra came 5th in the highest category, with score rating of Outstanding at the Innsbruck World Music Festival.
London Accordion Orchestra onstage in the main concert hall, around 30 accordionists and 3 percussionists with Ian Watson conducting. The concert hall is very large, modern wood construction with large dark red and orange coloured mural panel at the back.
June 1, 2025 at 11:25 AM
stradella.bsky.social
#plumstead people, maybe intersecting with Severance fans?: the Greenwich & Bexleyheath Community Hospice charity shop on Plumstead Common Rd has (IMO) a v cool Phillips Hostess Trolley. Just saying.
Wood (maybe teak veneer) and black hostess trolley with top sliding section opened showing stainless steel serving dishes. And with door open, showing internal shelves.
March 15, 2025 at 12:31 PM
stradella.bsky.social
And the delayed report back… around 25 minutes over hot embers worked, but there is definitely a down side to buying marked down end-of-season chestnuts 😅
Shelled cooked chestnuts on a cutting board alongside a bowl of the chestnut peels.
January 1, 2025 at 9:43 PM
stradella.bsky.social
After consulting reddit for chestnut expertise (of which there is a considerable amount), we’re trying this. Will report back on the outcome. Happy Christmas! Happy Chanukah!
Chestnuts in a metal chestnut roasting pan, sitting on a grate f an open fire, with embers, rather than flames. The chestnuts are starting to open, where they’ve been sliced into.
December 25, 2024 at 3:41 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 and that’s almost a wrap 2024. There are a few mini tomato plants still looking like they might keep fruiting if it doesn’t get cold. But this should keep us in ripening tomatoes and green tomato curry to Christmas, if we’re lucky 😀 #AmateurAgriculturalist
Overhead shot of a wooden table covered in containers with green and red tomatoes and some mid state between green and red. They are mostly cherry tomato size and plum tomatoes. I haven’t counted them but I think they’re around 300, as a rough estimate. Plus two red peppers and one small yellow pepper alongside
October 27, 2024 at 3:19 PM
stradella.bsky.social
🌱 this is about a third of our harvest so far this year. It’s definitely behind other years due to the cold UK spring, but they are each and everyone very delicious 😋
A side plate (around 5” diameter) filled with ripe small to medium tomatoes, mostly red but a few purple
August 25, 2024 at 11:18 AM
stradella.bsky.social
First of the season: Latah variety #gardening
Two tomatoes: larger than cherry tomatoes but not much larger. They are almost ripe, red but still with some green streaks. They’re placed on an aqua coloured table c
June 24, 2024 at 9:40 PM
stradella.bsky.social
Our favourite neighbourhood floof, looking very Elizabethan indeed.
A long haired ginger and white cat, sitting as if formal posing on a dustbin, with fluffy white fur like an Elizabethan ruff around his neck.
December 23, 2023 at 4:23 PM
stradella.bsky.social
Catching up on my #AmateurAgriculturalist 2023 narrative. Tromboncino summer squash had a good year👇On left, a few of the full grown ones, on right - some of the baby ones I gathered in this week ahead of cold weather. #GardeningFeed 🌱
Two large pale green squash on a table with a pair of scissors to show scale. The squash on the left is around the size and shape of a tenor saxophone and the one on the right around the size of an alto saxophone. Around 20 small pale green squash, only 4-5 inches long, somewhat curved, with a bit of the bell shape developing at one end. A few also still have their squash flowers attached.
October 17, 2023 at 12:29 PM
stradella.bsky.social
In the past, I would have posted #AmateurAgriculturalist updates to that other platform. But I haven’t. So here isa post from summer 2023. It was a great year for tomatoes in London (climate change, I know). Latah, Crimson Plum, Consuelo, Costoluto, Purple Ukrainian all good ones. #gardening
A picture filled with tomatoes of different colour - shades of red, purple and green - and sizes and shapes - cherry to plum and a few big spherical ones. Some of the tomatoes from the early stage of harvest. A plastic box with lobed Costoluto, small stems with red cherry tomatoes, a few medium sized ones not fully ripe yet, so somewhat orange. Also the first of the pointy red peppers.
October 15, 2023 at 5:11 PM