Another Monday in lockdown

There’s been a few trips out in the garden today when we haven’t been working. It started with a pre-work water and ended with a 9pm sowing session of cabbages and lettuce! The pond looks a lot better after our mini clear-out and we may even do another little one next weekend. And as for the self sown purple poppy in the nearest bed by the house… 
And whilst listening to the latest This is a music show (068) we heard this killer of a tune. On first listen we thought it may have been The Stylistics, it weren’t, it’s Presidents with the fantastically named “5-10-15-20 (25-30 Years Of Love)” which was originally on the Sussex label. A wonderful record and there’s more about it here. Big shout to “Your Host” on This is a music show for playing the track! #musicialeducationthroughshortwaveradio 

Wade in the water (hope not)

It hasn’t taken long for the pond to get overcrowded so that’s today’s job sorted. Tidy up the pond and taking care not to catch any of those tadpoles as there’s thousands of them! We’ll have all the debris spread out over the net so anything that want’s to get back in the water can.

We’ve even got a waterlily flowering which is great, we got that plant years ago from Lewisham’s premier pet shop for £20 and it’s been well worth it! After that job’s done it’ll be an lazy afternoon with Venture FM.

#pondsnotdead #gardeningsnotdead #gardeninginlockdown

About the weather (in June)

Weatherwise it hasn’t been the best week this week but tonight looks like it may be taking a turn for the better as we had a little bit of warmth and even a hint of the sun an hour ago. It was nice to be out there.

The raised beds (below) have been doing great, there’s all sorts of stuff in them, spuds, carrots, beetroot, cabbages, tomatoes and even peppers. Talk about square metre gardening and sticking in as much as possible! They’ve come on a long way since that first week of lockdown when the local shop had the 3 spuds per person rule that made us think that we must obtain some seed spuds and any packs of seeds we could get our hands on.Now we’re off the furlough we’re only spending the lunchhour and after work gardening and much of the big work was done when we were off. Once you get a good headstart on yourself, gardening gets a lot easier but it’s getting that start. We managed to keep the bed on the right hand side (below) a lot tidier than usual and even stuck in some tomatoes, cabbages and spuds amongst the flowers. The comfrey we use daily, pulling off massive handfuls to stick in the compost heap and for putting in holes before we transplant something. That keeps the comfrey under control as it can swamp everything if it gets its way!

Something we forgot to do on most of the tomatoes was to pinch out the sideshoots of the variety we have, so the plant can put all it’s goodness into the trusses on the main stem. We’ve been through all of the plants now and there was only one that had two stems but that doesn’t matter, we’ll keep it as “an tomato experiment”. More on sideshooting tomatoes here.

And talk about best laid plans and all that, this bed below was supposedly going to be rested this year and was going to be full of the Thompson and Morgan wildflower seed mix. Well we sowed them at the back with the borage and we’ll see what happens. Can we now have the sun back please? It is June.

And here’s a wonderful piece of music to welcome the sun back when it does finally return from the great Blundetto called Paseo. Tune!

Magical gardening advice

And here’s a wonderfult tip/warning from the “well interesting” or “well out there, man” (whatever your point of view about this kind of thing is) Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs” by Scott Cunningham (Llewellyn Worldwide) about the herb that is Sage. Personally, we love this book as it makes us smile during another weekend of lockdown. #gardeninginlockdown #losingourmarblesandpersonalityinlockdown

The answer my friend…

The weather has taken a turn for the windy this morning. Those cardoons we bought out of curiosity from Shannon’s as seedlings are on their second year now and well over six foot at the moment are swaying all over the shop. The flower heads are now starting to form, they really are something else when they come out. As for that Giant Russian Mammoth Sunzilla Big Massive and Broad 12ft Super Size Sunflower we bought on ebay…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=M6k9RfXpJFM&feature=emb_title

There are eight million stories (in a south London garden)

It was the last day of our six week furlough today (we can’t believe it’s June already!) and we’re back to working from home tomorrow so any gardening will now be done during lunchhour and after work.

Today’s final day of furlough gardening action featured seeing steam come off the compost heap and we could feel the heat, as we stuck a garden fork in to turn the pile. Those dalek bin’s ain’t great when it comes to turning compost but at least something is happening in there. #compostingduringlockdown

And we’re loving the poppies that are either self-sown or are as a result of our “chuck the seed anywhere” favourite method of seed sowing technique. #poppiesduringlockdown

Keep em peeled for the cooler weather later this week and for a bit of well needed rain just as we hear there may be a hosepipe ban in force soon. And thanks to that damn lockdown the side bed has never been so tidy! #gardeningthroughlockdown

Lessons learnt during lockdown: 1. To fix a pull-down cord lightswitch in the bathroom – just give it a tap around the sides with the head of a screwdriver. 2. Putting your bins out as early as 2pm on a “bin night” during these troubled times is acceptable, there is no stigma attached. #itslockdownbinnight

Social distancing using the 49 metre band

This Sunday 14th May at 1100 UTC 1200 UK is the next 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 week’s programme will feature DJ FrederickJustin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory,  Ray Carmen and our very own One Deck Pete with the fourth in his Tunes to cheer you up series with a nice bit of instrumental hip hop from Es-K. Never mind the social distancing standard of 2 metres, 49 metres is where it’s at! #freeradioskybird #shortwavesnotdead