Every kind of weather to make what August’s about, yeah

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Well it’s been a weird few days, we’ve had a welcome bit of rain, then the sun returned back to “classic lockdown mode” and earlier today it was back to greyness. We’re confused, what month is it again? Well the sunflower’s out, it may not be of the giant variety but it’s great in that Fibonacci sequence style!

We did manage to do some gardening over the last few days. We dried out some of our broad beans earlier this year and we’ve stuck three small rows of them at the bottom of the garden. We don’t know if they’ll sprout but we gave it a go!

A few years ago we bought a dwarf blackberry/bramble bush and didn’t really have much luck with it and even moved it around a bit which probably don’t help matters. The last year or so we’ve left it in its present position and now it’s starting to fruit. There isn’t much there but a few blackberries are better than none!

In front of that dwarf bramble are the raised beds that we put together around the start of lockdown. In them next to the tomatoes and spuds there’s some pepper plants with fruit on them. They are out of the way and water is of the sparse variety unless we remember. We’ve given them some regular doses of comfrey liquid and a few of peppers on the plants are starting to get a little larger.

Just next to those peppers out of view is a cabbage that has been beheaded by them pesky pigeons. You win some you lose some. Well at least we’ll be having some nicer weather (supposedly) this weekend.

A big shout to Gerry Hectic for alerting us to this great track below from King Knut called “Spellbound”. Very Dub Disco band for the love of money, dubbed out weirdness and old cassettes of the Rhythm Doctor on Fantasy FM in the early 90’s. It’s a nice tune!

Don’t touch that lamp!

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Here’s the studio recording of One Deck Pete’s “The Purple Nucleus of Creation 002” that was broadcast this evening on Radio Lavalamp on 3955 kHz.

Tracklisting:
Nayl – Loading (Kontor Germany)
Drowsii – Leather Doves (AWAL)
Tabitha Project – Aguamar (Berry Parfait)
Seventh Soul & Homayoun Shajarian – Lost (Tarr)
Camille Murray – Ghosts are real (Khanti)
#shortwavesnotdead #radiolavalamp #thepurplenucleusofcreation

Found at the back of a drawer, the back of a drawer

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We were berating the lack of contents in our seed tin earlier this weekend and today as it was drizzling we’ve tidied out a drawer or two (very rock n roll! ) and found this pack of carrot seeds wedged at the back of one of them.

On the reverse of the packet it says “Best before 9/2019”. That’s well okay as seeds can last ages (you’ve just more chance of failure as the months/years go by especially something like parsnips but it’s well worth giving old seeds a go!) so we’ll be sticking them in the ground come the spring. Here’s an interesting thing here about out of date seeds and how long they’ll keep for.

Got any good out of date seed stories? Contact us here at onedeckpete (at) gmail.com We’ll even accept cleaning out drawers and shed stories as well!  #everyonelovesacleanoutduringlockdown

From our gardening friends abroad

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And here’s a gardening update from our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore with some pics of his veg patch in Cincinnati. From top to bottom, we have some lovely looking basil next to a great looking tomato plant. Wish our basil was looking as great as this one! And then below the tomato which looks like it’s enjoying growing there, loving those fruits!

And something we’ve never tried before, some healthy looking jalapeno‘s, the garden’s looking great Justin! #veglookinggoodincincinnati

Side of the garden that the tourists never see

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Due to the drizzle not much was done in the garden over the last couple of days apart from the old council trick of going over the soil (down the vegetable bed at the bottom of the garden) very very lightly with a garden fork before a storm or a shower so when the rain comes it gives the impressive a lot of deep forking and hard work had be going on! Well it makes it looks the bed appear a bit neater anyway.

And another light layer of comfrey leaves were ripped up and left on top of the freshly forked-over compost heap. We couldn’t find any decent borage or nettle leaves that would have added to the heap which was a shame but you should have seen the steam (or was it dust?) that came off the heap when we turned it! #compostinginlockdown.

This post was written while listening to this week’s This is a music show 77 which featured some great tunes as ever especially Rupert and The Rolling Coins from The Bahamas with Grooving which we can’t find on youtube which is a crying shame!

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-077

A job done yesterday

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It was far too hot to do anything in the garden today apart from cutting back some ivy but another job we did yesterday involved being on our hands and knees and weeding and taking out any old leaves between the busted paving slabs down by the pond.

We’re now giving that area a good daily water and lo and behold we’re seeing some of the Thompson and Morgan Beneficial Flower seeds mix coming through! Roll on a bit of rain and we should see some more! We were pushing it with putting those seeds down there as the area doesn’t get much light and it can be dry at times but let’s see…
#don’ttouchthemslabs #aslabinlockdown

Still life (with worms attached)

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And the heat in there is impressive too! Look at the build up of brandling worms at the bottom. We’ve just seen on the web you can buy them, 100 for £11! All we did is put a wet piece of cardboard down the bottom of the garden. Two days later, worms! Thanks to the great Bob Flowerdew for that! #theuniverseinthecompostbin

Dahlias during the day, Perseids later on tonight

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Big shout to our good mate Marc B for passing on a tuber of this lovely dahlia earlier this year. Look at it now! Ok it’s a bit thirsty looking and is a bit droopy but don’t we all feel like that when the temperature’s as mad as this?

Remember it’s the peak of a meteor shower tonight (or thereabouts.) So if you’re thinking of sitting out the back later on (it’s far too hot to sit in or even for trying to get to sleep!) have a look at this site here (and their twitter account here) it’s “Dead good” as they say. We’ve had many a happy evening looking at their twitter feed, looking up at the night sky, looking at their twitter feed, looking up at the night sky (Ad infinitum).

Getting your fork on

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We’ve been furloughed again for two weeks so it’s back out in the garden for some sanity! It’s never ending this gardening lark and if you want something to do you’ll soon find that “something”.

Whilst working as a council gardener years ago I was told that one of my fellow co-workers was watched by the boss (and “Dave the driver”) from a hidden council truck and was seen staring into space for nearly an hour, smoking a roll up with one foot on the garden fork. I mean an hour just staring into space is some feat (never mind with one foot balanced on a gardening fork!), he should’ve got a medal!

It’s a shame said worker didn’t say to the boss he was “practising mindfulness” as when he was finally caught his excuse to the gaffer was “I’ve ran out of things to do”. Never EVER say you’ve nothing to do at work especially in the councils of yesteryear. The next day he was handed a four sheets of typed A4 of jobs that had to be done by the weekend and was told there was more of the same to do when he’d finished. They got rid of the bloke in the end, I wonder why?

This morning’s jobs from the A4 sheets was to clear out the side bed but keeping the gardening anarchy of courgettes, carrots, dahlias and whathaveyou. And what’s wrong with some gardening anarchy?

We’re now running for the shade!

Are we seeing things?

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It doesn’t take long for seeds to germinate in this weather. The above are from the mixed herb seed pack we bought from ebay and sowed on August 2nd, that’s been just a week! We kept the pots well misted/watered constantly especially in this heat. More on the seeds we bought here.

And this very odd photo above was taken about 11am this morning just after we watered a patch of grass that was looking well thirsty up near the house. If you look closely there are four cabbage white butterflies (we think, but we don’t know much about butterflies so it could have been any butterfly) who were in the process of jumping up and down and having a bit of a dance.

Or are they the Cottingley Fairies visiting London on the way down to the coast to have a break, who knows? #hallucinatinginlockdown #Isthelockdownoveryet?