It was pretty cold here this afternoon when we walked (swiftly) bringing a few tea bags down to the compost heap. The protective plastic on the raised beds weren’t taken off earlier either as we don’t think the not long germinated seedlings would have liked it. We even had a little bit of a snow/hail blizzard over here at about 3pm!
Looking at www.lastfrostdate.co.uk we are still not out of the frost danger zone yet so there won’t be anything tender going in the garden for a few weeks yet!
The other day we saw a great space saving device on Facebook; someone had put their seed trays on a shoe rack. Unfortunately, we haven’t got a shoe rack on hand, and the kitchen window is well full. We found this rack thing in the street a few months ago knowing it will come in handy soon, and it did! It’s holding up some Moneymaker tomatoes and some marvel of Peru seedlings. Below are a few different varieties of basil which we sowed today.
We’re trying to find time to tidy up the wild bit and going to fill the now weed-free area around the penstemons and love-in-a-mist with some wildflower seeds. The window frame that once had glass in it is now used to shield some plastic seed covers so they don’t blow away. Waste not, want not, part 33!
A big thanks to Spike from Morschen43 for sharing more photos of his garden in Le Puy-en-Velay, France. As you can see, looking at the pictures (aboove and below), a hell of a lot work has been done over the last couple of weeks and there’s a nice new fence up as well. Sterling work Spike!
If you can remember what the garden was like (below) before the pickaxe, fork and shovel were applied and when it was full of couch grass and dandelions (here), all we can say is “Wow!”
And there’s been a massive bit of pruning on his Granny Smith’s apple tree (below)). Spike was gifted the tree by his grandmother for his 13th birthday and it’s now 35 years old. Here are the before and after pictures of the big cut. It does look a bit severe, but it did need it and we are sure it will grow back fine.
We found out the gardening runs in the family as Spike’s father was a market gardener and swore by gardening using the moon. It’s been a long time since we used the Biodynamic method and Maria Thun‘s Book here but perhaps we will revisit it and give it a try. What have we got to lose?
Cheers for the great pictures of your garden again Spike and keep them coming!
And thanks a million to Spike for playing Jasmine & Madtone’s “Open up your heart” at 50.08 minutes in on his Vampire Freaks radio show here (N°365) here.
We’ve heard from Debby H in North London whose sent us an update of some pictures from her garden. The first is of her pear tree (above) and as she said, “It seems that the winter wash has worked this year.”
Below is the salix flamingo tree, which is now budding after she thought it was dead and it’s great to see it’s back to life.
As she mentioned in her last post here, here’s the dwarf sunflowers (below) that are looking well healthy.
Big thanks to Rich in the Lake District for sending us this great pic of the Northern Lights up there this weekend. How good is that? Cheers Rich!
Cheers to Debby H for getting in touch and for letting us know that things are starting to hot up in the garden. “We have germinated about 30 dwarf sunflowers which will need to be potted soon. Also, our tomato plants have finally started to shoot.” Brilliant.
“The cosmos are ready to be planted in pots and put in the cold frame. We have already put some in our plastic greenhouse. We are going to see which environment they prefer.” Great stuff! Please let us know the outcome of that Debby.
She also mentions a plant we have never heard of before (pic above). “Last year our neighbours gave us some plants that we think are called Doronicum. We had seen them giving a good display in our neighbours’ garden and praised them, so they gave us some which we planted last autumn. They are all now beginning to flower. Lots of buds there.” They look a lovely flower!
We look forward to more reports Debby!
We don’t usually go back in the archives for mixes but found this one by accident this evening. One Deck Pete‘s “Bouncing off the ionosphere” mix which was transmitted on Free Radio Skybird via Channel 292 on 6070 kHz on 8th December 2019.
Tracklistings:
UKDD & Spoonbeats – It’s time to tell you
KoKo – keep down
Maxime Tisne-Versailles – Roi De Plaines
AMY Root – Elif(OIJ_remix)
Ernest freeman – Live it up
It’s been years since we’ve heard these tunes especially the wonderful Maxime Tisne-Versailles tune Roi De Plaines. Sometimes those old ones come back to haunt you.
An excellent dub from Gregory Morris of Johnny Osbourne’s/Makka B‘s Cease Fire. A great tune for a sunny spring Saturday. And here’s the vocal.
We’re just researching another shortwave radio mix and remembered this wonderful track from Triptica out of Alajuela, Costa Rica called Mysterious Radio Signals. This was recorded off air from One Deck Pete’s “Interval Signal Tea break” mix which was broadcast on KMTS on December 17th 2000 at 2300 UTC on 9670 kHz. We do love the track and its cut and paste video.
Weeds up to me knees 