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
Radio Freedom
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Category Archives: Wildlife
What, sunshine in April? Never
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.
More radio connections
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.
Add some compost, it works!
Pic – Compost in a compost heap.If you remember, we started some seeds off in some peat-free compost a while ago, they hung around for a couple of weeks and just withered away. Alan got in touch with us here at the time and mentioned he had the same problem so started mixing garden compost in with the peat-free stuff.
We’ve just heard from Alan again on how his seeds are going this year and it looks like the mixing of a small amount of home-made garden compost is working well. “Last year I had pretty poor germination despite soaking seeds and providing warmth as usual. This year the outcome so far has been night and day different” Here’s the rundown on how it’s going (bold is this year’s results).
“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!
Seven seven inch singles selection
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…
Not waterloo Sunset
Cheers to Rich R in the Lake District for the latest picture from there of a lovely sunset from the other evening, it don’t half look glorious. We even love the way the sun is shining off the barbed wire.
And cheers to Rich also for a pic from last night of ELO Musk’s rocket taking what is called a fuel dump. As it reported on the BBC website “… told the BBC that as he was taking out his bins in Suffolk he saw a “huge catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it”. We’re taking out our bins at Weeds HQ in a minute and hope we don’t see anything like that in the sky here in SE23. Cheers again Rich!
More pictures from Kyiv
Great to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv and tanks to him for sending us some new pictures today. The above and below are from his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) who if you remember has a banana plant growing indoors and they’re great images of the plant that is looking well healthy at the moment.
And Wlad’s green onions on the windowsill are doing great! Cheers Wlad, more pictures please and good to hear from you!
Wow it’s 23 degrees in March (not in the UK sadly!)
Thanks to Debby H who is away in Tenerife at the moment where it’s a lovely 23 degrees. She sent us some pictures of the garden of where she’s staying at and it looks fantastic. We love this view above.
The bird of paradise/crane flower (strelitza) there looks well established (above) and we did a plant search on the plant below using Plantnet and it came up with agave. If we’re wrong on that, please do let us know but it’s great to see all these brilliant plants on their home turf so to speak and in their full glory. Cheers again Debby!
It looks like spring has sprung
Pic: The pond this morning.
A big thanks to our good mate Gerry Hectic for sending us a mix to celebrate this first day of spring called “A sunshine mix in spring”. It’s a brilliant garden/nature related mix and one to have on when you’re sowing those first vegetable/flower seeds indoors on the potting table (in our case the kitchen sink!)
Here’s the tracklisting:
Intro – Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)
Alabaster DePlume – That Was My Garden (Edit)
Tunng – Snails
Oscar Jerome – Smell The Daisies feat. anaiis (Radio Edit)
THSA – In Bloom
Late Nite City – Higher Ground
United Freedom Collective – Moonshine
lovetempo – But I Do (Daisybelle Remix)
Gabril Gosse – Breeze ft. Emile Parisein
Shane Sato – Gardenia
Yahushi Ide – A Place In The Sun
Ebi Soda – Bamboo
Evren Furtuna – Little Flower
Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)
Chaos In The CBD – Midnight In Peckham ft. Isaaz Aesilli
Ursula Rucker (& Charles Webster) – Begin Anew (Acapella) Edit)
So raise a toast to Jean-Michel Jarre if you’re that way inclined or just to the forthcoming season when one day soon you will wake up and not see a frost. Cheers Gerry!
This is a warning!
Pic: The grass outside this morning.
The sun’s been out, it feels lovely and warm and you feel a real need to sow those seeds outside or get those seedlings into those freshly prepared beds. Think again, do your research, watch those John Craven’s Countryfile weather forecasts and have a look at the frost calculator here.
You only want to be going to the garden centre/nursery for those bedding plants once. Watch out for frost!
Pic: John “good bloke” Craven
Weeds up to me knees 