One more night AKA No Frost Required

It was funny old weather again today, cold then later on in the day it heated up a bit. Judging by the weather forecast for tonight it’s supposedly the last one where there’s a possibility of frost (London has a low of 3 degrees tonight and then tomorrow night it goes up to 7). Our hotchpotch collection of frost protection is out in full force this evening complete with an old duvet cover thrown over some of the spuds (we got that great idea off twitter the other morning!) One of the potato plants is even starting to form flower buds. How long have they been in the ground again?

Also the dahlia’s are starting to show through so some of that black membrane we bought to stick under the decking before it went up has been thrown over the top. What month is it again? And whilst you’re there, can you tell us the year? #gardeninginlockdown #canwecomeoutnow?

(Not) the flowers in your dustbin

A good mate recently said that a druid told him once that a full moon encourages flowers to bloom. Well we had a nice full moon the other night which must have brought these out that were all seen today. The broad (broader than broadway) beans up near the house:

And on a horse chestnut up the local park spotted whilst on our lockdown exercise hour:It’s been a mixed bag of weather here today in London and tonight is supposedly to be around the 7 degree mark (Wednesday night it’s back down to 4 apparently), tropical compared to last night, but the frost protection may be put in place again. Just to be on the safe side…

How does YOUR garden grow?

A big shout to our good mate Marc B for sending over some pics of his garden. Because of that damn lockdown all sorts of gardening jobs have been undertaken which ain’t a bad thing. It was Marc’s new compost container (you know we’re a bit passionate about trips  to stick in single teabags in the compost bin at the moment) made from a couple of wooden palettes that caught our eye first. The foxgloves and the aliums in front of it look great too! We do love a foxglove here and aliums are great, you can have them just dotted about here and there or grown in big clumps. Love those purple ones.

Here’s some nice plastic bottle slug and snail repellent with an added coffee ground minefield and we can even see one of the damned gastropods (in the top right) getting as far as away as possible by the look of it!

And here’s something that tolerates all sorts of conditions and is low maintenance but looks great. We don’t know a lot about ferns but we do  know there’s a few to choose from if you wanted to go down that road (aka Pteridomania.) We love the mosaic behind it!

And Marc gave us a great tip about the excellent radio station Venture FM which playing some excellent reggae, soul and the like over the airwaves in London but available for all the world to hear online here. Cheers for the tip and the garden photo’s Marc!

Do send us your garden, windowsill, balcony gardening pics as we love them here! onedeckpete (at) gmail.com

We don’t want any frost during lockdown

We may just be paranoid or going mad in these lockdown times but it’s going to be cold  one tonight here in London, three degrees according to some weather forecasts. We don’t want to be losing anything so the last of the black membrane and also some old christmas tree/florist buckets (taken from outside the local florists on bin night a few years ago) were put over the potato plants that are some size now. The dahlias are sprouting so we’ve covered them too. Fingers crossed tonight’s weather isn’t that bad. #nofrostinlockdown  #don’ttrusttheweather

Who put the clocks back?

Looking outside this evening, we can’t believe it! The sun was out this morning, it was relatively warm and the protection was taken off all the plants in fear they’d be baked alive. What happened?At 5pm it was windy, freezing and every cloche, bit of polythene and B&Q bucket was thrown over the vegetables in double quick time. We may not get a frost over the next night or two but it is cold, so better being safe than sorry.

And in warmer times (at about 10am) the sight of the first poppies in the garden. As the song goes, what a difference a day makes.

More radio business

We heard this on the excellent This a music show the other week from the Shadow Huntaz which we’ve never heard before, it has all the good elements of the best hip-hop and dub and reminds us of Renegade Soundwave. Mad stuff for the first lockdown Bank Holiday in our time.

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-062

And the back doors were flung open this evening as some old singles were rediscovered from the vaults including this excellent one from The Young Marble Giants. TV test cards, BBC trade test transmissions and images of old fashioned oscilloscopes came to mind. One fine tune!

Needs must and all that and some radio business

The potato plants are outgrowing their protective covers as you can see. There’s lots of growth coming out of raised beds that have polythene on the top, there’s a small cloche balancing on top of one of the plants (that ain’t going to do much if a frost rears its ugly head) and there’s the newest addition of potato plant protection, a couple of those 99p bargain buckets from B&Q. They’ll do the trick, as long as they are off when the sun’s out!  #lockdowngardening #lockdownfrostfreegardening

And this Sunday 8th May at 1100 UTC there’s a new transmission from DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird on 6070 kHz shortwave via Channel 292 and if you haven’t got a suitable radio it can also be heard on the SDR link on their site here.

This month’s programme will feature DJ Frederick, Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory, Radio Emma Toc World Service and our very own One Deck Pete with his Tunes to cheer you up at 28.32. Want an alternative to lockdown? Well tune in and turn on!

A mountain garden from across the pond

You know we love seeing other people’s gardens and a friend of ours Thomas sent in some great pictures of his space atop a mountain in western North Carolina, USA and we love it!

His vegetable beds are at an early stage of growth he told us but they still look impressive, we love those logs! “We’re still not beyond our last frost date, so the veggie garden is still very young. Indeed, we even had a few snow flakes last night.” Being up in the mountains the garden is 2-3 weeks behind the valley below.

He said “Keep your expectations low, this is basic gardening”, wow keep them low, how can we do that with all that lovely scenery! Thomas mentioned “We go for what I call a “National Park” look. The sort of landscaping we find here at national/state parks: basic, using natural materials, and almost exclusively native plants.” 

Thomas’s space puts us in mind of Zdenko Franjic (DJ Zdena)‘s garden in Zagreb, Croatia another lovely spot which we covered a few years ago (more on Zdenko‘s garden here.)

Thomas also included a photo of his wood shed (above) “I’ve been spending an incredible amount of time this year sawing down trees and splitting wood. What’s in the shed is a fraction of it. Kind of back-breaking, but somehow satisfying at the end of a day.” What a lovely looking wood shed. We live in a place called Forest Hill but sadly there’s no wood-chopping done around these parts but if there were, we’d want a wood shed like that.

“We have made a few paths through the woods around our house this year, too. We do so not only to have more hiking trails, but it also makes it easier to see our flowering plants like Trilliums.” Thanks a million Thomas for sharing your inspiring outdoor space, it don’t half look magical!
We’re always up for seeing other people’s gardens, plants on windowsills or balcony spaces so please send us your pics and we’ll gladly post them up on Weeds.

Walk like an onion

The sun actually came out again today and it was warm, making it an alright day in the lockdown stakes. We noticed that the Egyptian walking onions (above) are starting to form their topsets. We really love these odd onions especially once they start to form their bulbils and drop to the floor ready to start their way slowly around the garden (below from a few years ago). Have a look at the website here to learn more about these strange plants!And through the post today we received a couple of packs of seeds  off Ebay including another favourite of ours, night scented stock. The plant and its flowers are nothing to look at and you could be easily be forgiven to think they were a weed but if you have some of these plants around a opened back door on a warm summer’s evening the smell is something else. Give them a go!

And give this a go, a bonkers version of Green Onions for your listening pleasure.

(Hip) hop, don’t stop

During yet another trip to the compost bin today we threw in a load of ripped up paper with another free bag of guinea pig compost making it one dry heap. A bucket of water was duly thrown on top to compensate and then something moved!

To you it may be just another compost heap but to us after six weeks of lockdown it’s another universe down there. #lockdowngardening #showingsymptomsoflockdownlunancy