A couple of events to stick in the old diary. The first is a Seed Swap in the Corbett Community Library, Torridon Road, Catford, London SE6 1RQ on Saturday 25th March 2023 from 10am to 3pm. More on the event here. Thanks to @LewishamGardens for alerting us to this!
And on WRMI this Sunday 5th March 2023 Imaginary Stations presents a KBIN mix up special with WSTL versus WELK. Expect some whistling, yodelling and squeezebox classics at 2300 UTC on 9395 kHz. Get that accordion at the ready!
If someone tells you that gardening is expensive and that you need to spend a small fortune to grow something, tell them they’re having a laugh! Today from the pound shop in Catford we procured a 20 litre bag of multi purpose compost and a box of shake ‘n sow butterfly and bee seed mix for the grand total of £2. Well worth it if you’re watching them pennies.
With the said compost we sowed some peppers we got free from Kitchen Garden Magazine and some tomatoes that were left over from last year so that didn’t cost us much either. We cut up some individual plastic seed trays we got from Shannon’s a couple of years ago, popped the seed on the top and then covered them with a light layer of compost and stuck them under a plastic propagator cover by the window in the back room. Fingers crossed we’ll see some signs of life in a couple of weeks or so.
We also stuck a couple of trays containing more tomatoes and some Kitchen Garden cabbages outside in the garden in the upside down terrarium we found in the street years ago. Let’s hope it warms up weather-wise for them!
And the last bit of sowing was done in a couple of pots on the kitchen windowsill with some basil seeds and some cut and come again lettuce which we’ll use for micro-greens. And there’s still some multi-purpose compost left for next week. Thrift, we love it here at Weeds! Who says you need money to garden.
And the soundtrack to this piece was the excellent Ross Allen show dedicated to Andrew Weatherall which is well worth listening to, click here to tune in.
We’ve got a small pond at the bottom of the garden and as there’s no electricity supply down there, there’s no pump, so the quality of the water can be something to be desired at the best of times but there are a few goldfish in there (bought years ago from lewisham’s “premier” pet shop) and they don’t seem to mind.
Yesterday around lunchtime looking out of the kitchen window, I saw our cat frantically fly down the garden path towards the pond where I was sure I saw something bobbing about on the top of the water. On closer inspection it turns out it was a duck, how mad is that? 
I originally thought to shoo it out as I reckoned it would probably half-inch the fish that’s in there but as the picture (below) shows it weren’t bothered, but rather preferred their food which was floating on the top of the pond.
The cat wasn’t too keen on it being in the garden but the duck didn’t seem to care, as at one point went to sleep with his neck resting on his back in the middle of the pond while our feline friend was on the side, fuming!
The duck stayed in there for over two hours before flying off in the direction of Catford to the relief of our cat who for a long while later, stood guard at the side of the water waiting for it’s return.
I tell you what, the water looked a great deal cleaner after the duck’s departure. Big up the South London duck!
Weeds up to me knees 