And the question is…

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It’s been lovely weatherwise this week and now it’s a Saturday, why has it decided to rain? To tell you the truth the ground is a bit dry so we could do with a bit of rain but as long as it clears up later we won’t hold it against mother nature too much. 

As for the garden we’re loving that we’re getting the first tomatoes ripening (above), the plant isn’t at its best looking as a few of its leaves have been taken off so the sun can reach them but as the great Bob Flowerdew says below at around the 4 minute mark “I don’t eat the plants.” A video worth watching.

Things are hotting up in the raised beds too even though plants are battling it out with each other (that reminds us we’d do a bit of a thin out of the veg there tomorrow as we’re sure there’s some carrots we can pull up.) We weren’t sure if the below was a chilli pepper at first but it now looks like it’s a pepper pepper (so to speak). We’ll be keeping up with the watering and the weekly feed of comfrey liquid as those beds tend to dry out well quickly.

And it’s only taken a day or so for the first courgette/zucchinni to show after its first flower. We chucked a bit of organic matter from the bottom of the compost heap around the plant and a good feed won’t go amiss either. Never mind the lockdown, keep on gardening! #gardeninginlockdown #londonlockdowngardening

And here’s a nice and chilled tune if you’re stuck indoors this morning from Adriak called Sandalo (original mix), it’s a tune to cheer you up if it’s dull outside. Eight and a half minutes of nice ambience with a lovely bassline.  #lockdownambience

Who knows what tomorrow will bring (in lockdown)

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It’s funny how the days all melt into one during lockdown but certain days bring certain pleasures. Yesterday we spotted our first courgette/zucchini flower even though the plant was sown very late as the ones we sown earlier amounted to nothing. We’re going to be keeping this one watered and fed a lot so we can get some decent fruits.

And after a delve into the compost in the raised beds (making sure any small marble sized spuds were covered over as they turn green in the sun making them poisonous) we got a nice amount of small new spuds!

And we found these two fibreglass tubs in the street to be chucked out for the binmen. They’re about a foot high and needed a wash and a lick of grey paint (which we found in a half opened tin under the stairs, we didn’t even know we had it) and they are as good as new. There you go, something good to report in lockdown!
#gardeninginlockdown #lostandfoundinlockdown

It(’s not) just the same old show, on my radio pt2

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Tune in to DJ Frederick’s Radio Lavalamp on Sunday 9th August 2020 (and repeated the week after) at 2200 UTC (11pm UK time) on 3955 kHz via Channel 292.The transmission will feature One Deck Pete with a mix called The Purple Nucleus of Creation 002 featuring this great tune from Drowsii (below), Nayl, Tabitha Project, Seventh Soul & Homayoun Shajarian and Camille Murray. Tune in to “Your ethereal shortwave music station” on 3955 kHz or this link here when the time is right! #radiolavalamp #shortwavesnotdead

It(’s not) just the same old show, on my radio

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We’re listening to some mix-up business on Venture FM at the moment with PD Coolie. We’ve already had Terry Jacks’ “Season’s in the Sun” (a formative record with one Andrew Weatherall god rest his soul), The Archie’s “Sugar Sugar” covered by Big Youth & Junior Byles above,  The Jamaicans with Baba Boom and earlier Fats Domino with Blueberry Hill that put us in mind of this version from the great Jah Wobble. Radio, as a medium you just can’t beat it!

What a good year for the roses

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How mad has this year been? If someone would have told us in January that we’d be spending 3 months indoors and that in July we’d be turning the compost heap once a day with a garden fork, we’d tell them that they were raving bonkers.

It’s nearly August and we’re still in lockdown, our mental health may be suffering but at least the garden is coming on well! We didn’t have much luck with the broad beans and peas this year sadly and with peas you really have to grow rather a lot of them to get a decent amount to have with your dinner. As Robert Wyatt once sang “Is it worth it?” Perhaps it is. At least one of our favourite flowers, the humble dahlias are starting to come out, well sort of (above). Give them time.

The broken up paving slabs we took up at the back of the house which were laid out at the bottom of the garden by the pond during a bit of furlough are starting to settle in a bit. We used the box of Beneficial Flower seeds from Thompson & Morgan we got back in March and sowed them around the slabs and apart from some confusion when they first started germinating (“Are they weeds or are they the beneficial flower seeds?” “That’s bindweed that is..”) we’re now seeing some results (above).

And the vegetable bed we were supposed to be resting (and originally where the beneficial flower seeds were going to go) and then due to the lockdown and the local shops having a 3 potato per person rule we put in a couple of rows of spuds, then onions, then broad beans and now it’s mainly nasturtiums swamping said spud plants near those tall cardoons. Next year, we swear we’ll rest the bed!

Oh dear, we’ve just looked at the weather for tomorrow. Looks like rain, that barbeque will have to wait until Monday night then! #gardeninginlockdown

As big as a wall, wall, wall

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It makes us laugh, we’ve got some cardoons at the bottom of the garden we bought in Shannon’s a couple of years ago, they were only a few quid and they didn’t come with any claims about them being giants or anything, all we got were a couple of unassuming healthy plants with a plant label in each pot. We’re on the second year now and both plants are near on seven and a half feet tall and there may be more growth left in them!

Now compare those cardoons to the giant sunflower we got on ebay. In the ad for the seeds there were all sorts of claims of massive, large, tall and the like and there even may have been mentions of it being the actual plant in Jack and the Beanstalk. Use the small cabbage on the left of it as an indicator of scale. That is no giant cabbage!

And here’s an oddity (pic below) from one of our raised beds. The lime green fruit towards the top of the pic is a tomato. The dark green one towards the bottom, just behind the poppy bud is the fruit of a potato. Eat that and you’ll regret it!

As it says on wikipedia: “After flowering, potato plants produce small green fruits that resemble green cherry tomatoes. Like all other parts of the plant except the tubers, the fruit contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are therefore unsuitable for consumption.” Now we know!

And a song for a Monday

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Here’s a perfect tune for a Monday night, a day where the sun came out and then we had a bit of rain. It’s from Tabitha Project and it’s called Aguamar released on the Berry Parfait label. It’s a tune and if all goes well it’ll appear next month on Radio Lavalamp.

Apart from this, I can’t tell you how it’s done

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One Deck Pete presents “The Purple Nucleus of Creation 001” which was broadcast on Radio Lavalamp on Sunday 12th July 2020 on 3955 kHz. This is the studio version of the broadcast. #shortswavesnotdead #radiolavalamp

Tracklisting:
Carlos Pizzetti – Lucky Star (Interlude) – Popular Computer
Zane Moss – Found – Gloria Recordings
Julie Østengaard – Is That You? (Part 2) – Phinery
100th Monkey – Blessed Love – Disco Gecko
Mahamboro – Inane – Orange Cliff
Blundetto – Paseo – Heavenly Sweetness

This mix is dedicated to Mrs Deal and all from the 2nd planet from the Sun Kruger, 60B.