Midnight is the new 10pm

Posted on May 19, 2020 by onedeckpete

It was lovely today, a bit hot at times but a good day to be out in the garden. We did something a little different, we went out there with no plans, just a broom, a hoe and pair of secateurs and see what jobs hit us at the time.

The pond is teeming with life at the moment, there’s hundreds of tadpoles and as you can see in the pic above there was something going on at the side as loads of them were flocking to that area, even the goldfish wanted to join in! A few water lily leaves and a couple of oxygenating plants were thinned out (and left on top of the netting for a while so if anything living was still on them, they wouldn’t have far to travel home.)

And we ripped off the polythene, cloches and bricks around the raised beds and stuck some bamboo canes in for that “established veg garden” look (even though it weren’t like that earlier today.) Everything is coming on nicely and some of the potato plants have even flower buds! Fingers crossed no more frost alerts as the protective polythene and old bed sheets have now been put out for the binmen!

By the way we have a new enemy at the moment, a crafty magpie who swoops in on a evening to rob the cat’s food just by the kitchen door. Who’d have thought it, the cheeky so and so! #gardeninginlockdown

And to accompany the writing of this gardening post the latest (64) This is a music show is playing with a great load of stuff as per mostly off CD but quality music all the same!

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-064

Live from the town and comfrey show

Posted on May 18, 2020 by onedeckpete

Comfrey liquid, don’t we all just love it? Looks awful don’t it? Well imagine the smell is about 1000 times worst as how it looks and you’re close. Drain out the liquid from the above abyss into a bottle then transfer a capful into a watering can and add some H₂0 and you’ll have some top end plant feed, we kid you not. As well as being bunged into a 1980’s Boot’s homebrew bucket we’re use a leaf or two to put below tomato plants (and other seedlings) before they go in the ground. A very versatile plant and the bees don’t half love it!

The actual plants where we’re taking the leaves from are taking a hammering at the moment (and it’s not even June!) but they don’t seem to mind. If you’re going to get some go for the “Bocking 14” variety. As the song goes: comfrey, what is it good for?

Tunes to cheer you up (via the ionosphere) two

Posted on May 17, 2020 by onedeckpete

Here’s a mono recording off an online SDR earlier today of the second in the series of One Deck Pete’s “Tunes to cheer you up” which was transmitted on Free Radio Skybird via Channel 292 on 6070 kHz. The tune is Ceremony by Mikhail Ovez, the Mark Gaetani Remix on Zedanubi Records. The comments “Why ain’t it in dolby stereo?” and “It isn’t even a clear recording so why bother?” don’t count as it came to us here via the ionosphere on those there short waves.

And here’s news of next week’s transmission…

Don’t leave me this way

Posted on May 16, 2020 by onedeckpete

Looking on BBC Weather we see that it’s going to be a warmer 8 degrees overnight in London so we’ve done away with the frost protection.

It hasn’t been easy y’know, all that old polythene, an old window frame, jars, an upside down fish tank and all sorts have been over those plants for the last few weeks now so we don’t know how we’re going to cope with knowing they won’t be there tonight. Fingers crossed! #lockdownfrostparanoia

Can’t stop it!

Posted on May 15, 2020 by onedeckpete

It’s been a nice day today and judging by the weather forecast (above) it will be a bit warmer than last night. So that’s why the protection from the cold has been put on in a nonchalant fashion? Fingers crossed there’ll be no frost tonight then as B&Q bargain buckets balanced on top of potato plants and polythene “sort of” put over raised beds aren’t going to do that much!

And as there were problems with the last transmission, this Sunday will see the Free Radio Skybird show that was promised last week being broadcast, which features One Deck Pete with Tunes to cheer you up at 28 minutes in. If you haven’t a short wave radio click here at 1100 UTC/1200 UK Sunday. Tune in by any means possible!

One more night AKA No Frost Required

Posted on May 14, 2020 by onedeckpete

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

Posted on May 12, 2020 by onedeckpete

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?

Posted on May 12, 2020 by onedeckpete

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

Posted on May 11, 2020 by onedeckpete

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?

Posted on May 10, 2020 by onedeckpete

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.

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life