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.
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!
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.
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!
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!
Typically we finished a shortwave mix and just after it was sent off, we found another one we could have used while looking for something completely different. This one is from many years ago from
It’s like this every year, you’re waiting for spring to happen and then next thing you’ve got a load of plants to harden off (above). We’ve got some giant sunflowers that are over a foot high now and tomatoes, sweet peas and some chillies we were given over the weekend alongside the geranium cuttings from Honor Oak Park station. It’s only just turned April too!
Also, in the bed down the bottom we started lots of seeds off. The rocket can be seen taking off underneath small branches used to keep the cats and foxes off. The seeds were only put in the other day, or it seemed like it! Hope all goes well on the sowing front your side and the nice weather keeps on keeping on. Keep checking those last frosts dates and do remember nature plays by its own rules sometimes.
Big thanks to Kit G0JPS for sending these two radio related tracks. The first is (Paul Thorpe, recording as) Voodoo Trombone Quartet with a track called Medium Wave. Great fun stuff.
The next is (Paul Thorpe again under the moniker) Braces Tower with a shipping forecast tune called The General Synopsys.
That’s what is great about music, you think you know a bit and then you realise, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know” as the saying goes. Cheers Kit, two great tunes and we will do further research on Paul Thorpe as he sounds like an interesting fellow.
Pic – Compost in a compost heap.
“I wanted at least one aubergine plant – last year got none from my first
batch of seeds. Planted 3 seeds, 3 plants. Chillis – wanted one plant. 3 seeds, 3 plants (both pics above).
Cucumbers (above) – couldn’t get anything from seed last year so had to buy a plant
from the local nursery (it died, so bought another). Planted 5 seeds hoping
for 1 plant – 5 plants. Have one or two to give away to my daughter.
Tomatoes (above) – never normally a problem and again very good results, near 100%
germination.
Onions (above) very good results with near 100% germination (Weeds note: That is brilliant Alan, we’ve never done onions from seed before we don’t think or they’ve never been successful if we have).
Sweet peas – very poor last year with maybe 10% germination. This year about 50% germination. All are growing well and I water once a week. They’ll go into the polytunnel soon. The sweet peas (above) are only a small sample of what I have grown. The pots had 3 – 4 seeds each pot so one plant each is not too bad.
In terms of the process I don’t think I’ve done anything very different this year so I do suspect that the better moisture retention in the compost has helped germination by keeping the seeds moist while producing critical early roots. So as far as I am concerned I will stick to my mix – next up are my peas. Broad beans did well and they are in the ground now.”
Brilliant Alan, that is so good to hear. Your seedlings are looking great and we reckon that tip of adding the home-made compost works. We noticed the same here compared to last year as well. We only added a smallish amount but it makes a difference. Cheers again Alan and do send us more pictures on how they do in the garden!
One of the good things in life is looking through a pile of seven inch singles and not thinking too much about the tunes and putting together a mix (in the old days it would be on one of those cassette tape things). Below is a quick one put together this evening after looking through a couple of piles of records that haven’t been played for a while.
We were influenced by a post by The Rhythm Doctor on Facebook about a recent mix of his from 7” singles for MOJO Estonia and Sugar B‘s “supermix” show on Charisma FM 87.8 Mhz where all sorts of reggae singles are played in any order.
Here’s the first Seven seven inch singles selection in the pot and here’s the tracklisting:
Jah Cure – Longing for version/drop leaf rhythm
Alton Ellis & The Flames – Ain’t that loving you
Ras Ibuna/Village Bunch – Diverse Doctrine Version
Pablove Black – Chaunting Dread
Anthony B – Stop Fight
Jah Woosh – Shine Eye Gal Version Part 2
Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Chant Down babylon Version
We welcome other mixes and don’t worry too much about the genres just put them on and if they sound good…
Weeds up to me knees 