The (non) Frost report

Posted on April 19, 2025 by onedeckpete

Things are looking good in the garden, the clematis (above) is flowering profusely this year after a couple of years of not doing much. We once heard on Gardeners Question Time if you threaten a plant with a “final cut with a pair of secateurs” it can do the trick but it’s not something you want to do as it doesn’t seem right. Nature just did its thing with the clematis.

The bottom part of the garden has now vegetables starting to germinate (the sticks keep the cat out) even though the home-made plant labels have the touch of small gravestones if viewed at the right angle.

And we remember the late great Joe Maiden mentioning on the BBC Leeds gardening programme many moons ago that Good Friday is traditionally when you plant your seed spuds. These cara potatoes are starting to sprout now, and we’ll be earthing them up as that hopefully will keep them protected if there is a threat of frost over this weekend.

Happy Easter everyone and we hope you get the Easter eggs you desired. There was a bloke we worked with once when asked what he thought of Green & Blacks 70% chocolate and “quality” chocolate he replied, “I’m a cheap easter egg bought at the local market type chocolate person myself, none of that posh stuff, real chocolate”. And on that note…

A tune for a good Friday

Posted on April 18, 2025 by onedeckpete

We’ve just finished another shortwave mix and being on the ball as ever, just discovered a genre called rebajada where DJs play cumbia tunes at the wrong speed for better effect. Sounds like one of those happy musical accidents (just like Ruddy Redwood forgetting to leave a vocal off, hence dub). Here’s the origins:

“The Rapson (soundsystem) had been playing for six or seven hours non-stop,” “The motor overheated and started lagging, and that’s when the rebajado sound came out. The music slowed down dramatically: the voice in the track deepened like in a slow motion scene, the accordion notes stretched out and there was more space between each scrape of the guiro. People kept dancing, captivated by this new sound.”
mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/cumbia-rebajada-monterreys-accidental-music-genre/

We found the tune above Manzanita – Paga La Cuenta Sinverguenza from Peru played in a rebajada stylee and it’s a tune.

And here’s the original. Crazy stuff!

There’s a downside to being a bit keen…

Posted on April 16, 2025 by onedeckpete

We’ve spoken to a few gardening friends of late who have tables, windowsills and even parts of rooms filled with seed trays and seedlings galore now waiting for the chance of frost to pass so they be planted outside. We reckon another few weeks and these lot we have indoors (above) can go out. There’s even some flowers forming on one of the geranium cuttings we took.

We’ve even got a tomato plant with a truss of flowers with another forming and a nearly three foot, giant sunflower on the windowsill (above). It’ll be like the day of the triffids if May don’t come soon, it really will. For everybody in the same boat, hang in there, it won’t be long!

More cosmos and treasure

Posted on April 15, 2025 by onedeckpete

Cheers to Gerry Hectic for sending us a pic of his cosmos seedlings which are starting to germinate outside under some glass (above).

Above are some seeds he intends to sow very soon. We don’t really know about the treasure flower but there’s a bit of info here on them and they look quite smart as well. And Gerry requested something on Treasure Isle, so here’s a classic and couple of related dubs.

Cosmos update

Posted on April 15, 2025 by onedeckpete

We’ve had an update from Debby H on her cosmos and some good advice. The seedlings are now starting to get their first “true” leaves, which are fern-like as you can see in the picture above. She said when they have 3 or 4 pairs of the true leaves, pinch out the next pair of leaves to make sure the plant grows bushy and not “leggy”. Good tip as we didn’t think of that, even though we use the same technique with sweet peas encouraging them to bush out more.

Also Debby’s germination method of using the cardboard insides of toilet rolls seems to be a sure fire method what with the plant’s long roots. She did say which is also important, “I think the cosmos will be ready to pot-on soon, but not ready to go outside yet. We learnt last year that these plants are very susceptible to slugs when they are tiny.” Good stuff Debby!

‘ere, can you spare us any bubble wrap or jam jars for the garden mate?

Posted on April 12, 2025 by onedeckpete

It’s been a lovely day here in south London today and it looks like the temperature will drop again a little from tomorrow. Looking at the weather forecast for the next week it could be anything from 6-10 degrees C overnight so hopefully no frosts.

We’re taking no chances here as don’t want to lose any plants overnight even though they have been hardened off over the last few weeks. We’ve put three tomato plants out and some sweet peas but we’re still covering them at night with some improvised protection from bubble wrap, jam jars and the terrarium we found years ago that is now a bit cracked at the side and missing its glass top and now has some polythene on the top. Who cares what the frost protection looks like as long as it’s doing its job! More sunny weather please.

And we started a day with a great tune and we end it on another one. It’s by Jah Version out of Lisbon, Portugal with Friendship (Vocal Dub). Turn it up.

Super Cosmos

Posted on April 12, 2025 by onedeckpete

Cheers to Debby H for letting us know about how her cosmos seedlings are getting on in the last post. We took her lead this week and sowed some of the seeds on Tuesday afternoon and come today we are seeing some results. Wonderful stuff, it didn’t take long did it? Remember 2025 is the year of the cosmos!

And for this sunny Saturday morning here’s a track that was played on the great On The Wire (a radio show well worth listening to as we always say) the other week, a track previously unknown to us here at Weeds from Ijahman Levi called Chariot of Love from 1977 and it’s a great single and now re-released on 7″ with a great dub too!

This is the year of the cosmos

Posted on April 9, 2025 by onedeckpete

With the pictures Debby H kindly sent of her garden in the last post, she also sent us some pics of how her cosmos seeds were doing. “I planted some cosmos seeds on Thursday afternoon. By this morning (Sunday), they had germinated!” (pic above). How good is that?

Then on Monday she sent us pictures of how quick the seedlings have grown (taken about 25 hours later after the original photographs). As she said “I find the growth since yesterday to be quite amazing” and we agree!

She also sent some useful information about the seedlings that we didn’t know “…cosmos plants have long roots, even when they are small, so egg-boxes didn’t work well last year. This time, I have tried to use the cardboard insides of toilet rolls. I put these in a plastic trug planter thingy to keep them upright and stable.”

Now that is a great tip Debby and good luck with the seedlings. We sowed some yesterday (Tuesday) and hoping we get some quick germination results too. Thanks again.

STOP PRESS: A picture from today (Wednesday). They are looking great Debby and ta for the update!

News from north London

Posted on April 8, 2025 by onedeckpete

Cheers to Debby H for getting in touch after her time away in Tenerife (pictures of plants from there here) and coming back to a garden “that has sprung to life” in north London. “There are yellow primroses all over plus a few pink, red and white clumps. We had some last year, but nothing like this and the peonies (below) have sprouted and grown amazingly”. Ours are doing the same here too, which is great.

The below plant is called lamium aka dead nettle. “It’s really a weed but there’s only a small amount so far, so I am letting it stay.” We’re with you on that as it looks great.

She told us that her pear tree is starting to bloom after having some troubles. “This poor tree (below) suffered terribly last year from rust. I wasn’t sure if it would be okay this year, but it looks good so far.”

“The rhododendron (below) is Wine and Roses. I saw it in a garden centre last spring. I loved the colour and its name, and decided to break the habit of a lifetime and pay for a plant.” Brilliant stuff.

“When we moved into this house in 2023, none of the above was visibly growing, except for the pear tree. The plants had all suffered a long period of hot, dry weather. Everything in the garden borders looked dead, except for the trees. The following year, things started growing, and they haven’t stopped since!”

Now that is great to hear Debby. With gardening it’s really what you put in that gives you results, a bit of hard work, a regular water and adding nutrients to the soil etc. As we can see here, it’s all worth the effort. Cheers Debby, the garden is looking like it’s got off to a great start and let’s not forget the indoor plants either (below).

That garden’s looking good!

Posted on April 7, 2025 by onedeckpete

Thanks to Mike and Julia from near Coventry for getting in touch with some super spring pictures taken by Julia and the garden looks thriving. We’re not going to put any captions underneath the images but let the camera work do the talking. If you need any names of plants etc we’ll get in touch for a run down. Wonderful stuff both and they really get us in the mood for the garden year.