It look’s like everything’s on its way now what with the good weather we’re having. We’ve got some different coloured love in a mistup at the top of the garden alongside some tomatoes and whatever else that came out of the packets of seeds we regularly randomly sowed.
There’s a self seeded hollyhock that is really giving it some at the side bed where there’s a load of different stuff growing in a small space, tomatoes and potatoes and random wild flowers. The veg bed at the bottom of the garden is starting to grow now after the cats kept away what with the trick of random twigs and sticks. How’s your garden growing? Pictures to one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com.
Thanks for Vintage Obscura Radio for putting this up on their bluesky feed and what a tune. It’s from Fadoul aka Bob Fadoul and it’s called Fi Jamique. Yes it is a familiar rhythm (None Escape the Judgement) but it’s a lovely take on it! And there’s more!
We’ve just heard from The Rhythm Doctor who sent us some pictures of wild garlic last post. “We saw this strange flower the other day in the same area as the garlic”, it turns out to be the common toothwort.
Turns out the plant is a bit of a parasite “The genus produces no chlorophyll and parasitises host trees, often hazel, beech and walnut, to acquire nutrients” more here. Cheers RD that is one strange looking plant!
We venture firstly to Tallinn, Estonia for a few pictures from our good friend The Rhythm Doctor. If you remember we mentioned wild garlic a few posts ago here after a pic by Mike and Julia. Well near The Rhythm Doctor’s abode there’s a lovely woodland area that has lots of wild garlic (above – here’s one big clump of it) and some great woodland plants.
We’ve done a plant.id on this pic below and this is coming up 77% as a dwarf marsh violetor one of that family, lovely picture by the way!
And this one below is a geum rivale (AKA water avens, purple avens but not richie avens), thanks to plant i-d. Cheers for the pictures RD, brilliant to see your locale there in Estonia.
Also cheers to Rich R from the Lake District for sending us a couple of great pictures this week.
He had a trip up the coast last week (above – it looks lovely and in the distance is Scotland) and found these lovely Sea Pinks AKA Thrift (Armeria maritima) (below). Cheers Rich!
That’s all for our reports this week but do send us some via one deck pete (at) gee mail dot com.
Thanks to Penny Golightly, here’s news of a great little plant mart in Lee next Saturday May 17th from 2-4 p.m. outside 2-6 Micheldever Road, Lee SE12 8LX and the event is a fundraiser to get money to plant more trees in the area. There’ll be a wide range of plants for sale at a good price as well as lots of other stuff (cakes, books and CDs, cream teas and 2 botanical watercolour workshops at 2.30 and 3pm). Looks great! Cheers Penny!
Two great sides of a 12″ by The Gladiators with Evil Doers and Pocket Money and an additional version by the great U-Roy. Trying to rack our brains which charity shop in the midlands in the long long past we found it in.
And talking of U-Roy, here’s the great man talking about King Tubby and his electronic and pirate radio wizzardry near the end of a track by Lapa called the 45th Parallel.
At 2.58 above is a tune that made us smile this week while putting together another shortwave mix for Imaginary Stations. It’s called Beatles and the MBE from Lord Short Shirt & The Silhouettes and even if you’re not keen on the Fab Four this’ll cheer you up.
Sometimes it’s small things that make you think. We were just reading the “What to do in the garden in May” piece on Penny GoLightly’sexcellent blog here. She mentioned “The month has started with a mini heatwave, but I’m not rushing to plant out most of my seedlings too soon” and we have a bit of a realisation and checked the weather forecast for SE23 and thought “Ahh, she has a point”.
Its looks likes there’s going to be a little bit of a change in temperature this weekend to say the least. From those glorious summer vibes to a humbling 13°C tomorrow. Funny enough we just found a pic (above) from May 17th 2020, look at those sophisticated forms of frost protection and thats in mid-May!
To be honest we did get a bit carried away and put a couple (and more to be honest) of tomato plants out and yes there are some chillies seedlings that have been repotted and left out overnight. We’ve even dismantled a cold frame (aka took the bricks off holding down the polythene and folded up said polythene and chucked it in the bin). Looks like all of that will have to change this evening, alongside the flip flops and shorts going back into the wardrobe.
We’ll be bringing the chillies in tonight just to be on the safe side as it may drop to 4° C and we have a massive roll of bubble wrap purchased initially for selling stuff on eBay that will come in very handy.
We feel a bit sorry for the bloke on Facebook the other week who put out all his 30 odd tomato plants saying there won’t be a frost. He may be alright, but it does seem a bit nippy in the evenings next week. Good luck and may the (frost) protection be with you and enjoy those rays of sun rays today as you may have to put the jumper back on tomorrow.
This weekend will see a return of the onshore/offshore pirate radio sound of Skybird Radio International to the airwaves, via the services of Shortwave Gold. The show goes out on Saturday3rdMay 2025 at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then repeated on Sunday4th May 2025 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2000 UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz.
All you do is tune your shortwave set in (or click here if you haven’t a shortwave radio) at the allotted time to enjoy all sorts of worldwide sounds with mixes from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 59 seconds in is a mix from One Deck Deck Pete.
Tune in your shortwave set at the alloted time and treat yourself to various music genres from all points around this spinning ball we call Earth!
Thanks very much to Adrienne N for sending us some pictures of a great looking bleeding heart plant (above). It’s one we’ve seen before but never known too much about. What’s interesting is that she has tried growing the plant multiple times in the soil outdoors, but it always dies after one season and has had more luck growing it in a pot. The flowers themselves are great (close up below).
After a little bit of research on the web, we found out the bleeding heart belongs to the poppy family which is odd as it looks a bit fuchsia-like if anything. It’s native to east Asia (including China, Korea, Siberia, and Japan) and is quite hardy too. The plant tolerates drought and is fire resistant. Now that is mad!
One thing we also did read about the plant is “All parts cause stomach-ache if ingested, the foliage may aggravate skin allergies. Wear gloves and other protective equipment when handling.” More info about the perennial here. We just remembered that there was a picture of a bleeding heart in Mike & Julia’s garden a short while ago here. Thanks for the picture Adrienne as it’s one lovely flower!
Weeds up to me knees 