My, how you’ve grown…

It’s only a few days after the summer solstice and boy the garden is growing well. It’s getting lots of sun and we’re trying to water it as regularly as we can so that’s a great combination.It’s funny how changes can revolutionise things, the Jasmine above (purchased from Shannon’s many years ago) never really did much. It slowly crept up the trellis on the back of the house and there wasn’t much of a scent when the flowers did bother to come out. Then the other month the Berlin wall type structure went up next door (post here), we thinned out the belfast sink it was in (there were others plants in it at the time) and since then kept it watered and fed with comfrey liquid and lo and behold look what’s happened (above). There’s a lovely fragrance from it in the evening too. TLC that all it needed!

In the bed at the bottom of the garden (below) the spuds are now flowering and on the purple flowering broad beans there’s a good few pods forming. Also in that bed there’s onions, beetroot and strawberries somewhere all busy competing with each other which isn’t ideal but we’ll be pulling up the spuds in a couple of weeks so there’ll be space soon.

The side bed (below) where once was a greenhouse is doing well too. It’s usually clayed up this time of year but earlier in the spring half a compost bin’s worth was dumped on it and around the plum tree the ash from a couple of barbecues were sprinkled around. Lots of watering and a regular bit of comfrey liquid helped too! My, look at those tomatoes…

To celebrate the summer growing season here’s a great tune on the Stone’sThrow label from Washed out called Get lost. A tune with a brill cut and paste video too. Happy growing my friends!

This post was written whilst listening to the excellent radio show The Garden of Earthly Delights (live every Friday 10pm til midnight GMT on CRMK here and on mixcloud here) Tune in!

Hold tight all belated solstice crew…

A happy belated Solstice to one and all for yesterday. There wasn’t much dancing around standing stones or frolicking with morris men around these parts as it was far too hot. It might have been the longest day but don’t worry as we’ve still got a good few weeks of sunshine (fingers crossed) and lots of balmy nights to enjoy!

Above: part of the Stonehenge free festival 1989 fanzine and a couple of bits from a general festival survival guide from the 80’s both gathering dust in the loft at Weeds HQ. “Breakfast in bed” at a festival, now that would be nice! More on the Stonehenge festival here too!

Lemon Verbena and a mug of dub

A lovely bit of dub for a hot, hot Monday evening here in London from Bukkha called Ethiopian Dub from Dub-Stuy records out of Brooklyn, New York. A tune to crank up loud while supping a mug of Lemon Verbena tea (big shout to Haji Mike out of Cyprus for originally telling us about Lemon Verbena).

Keep on the Grasso

Today at work a nice discovery was made after recommending the excellent “Last night a DJ saved my life” book by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton to a mate. The well influential DJ Francis Grasso came to mind when mentioning the said book so after a bit of googling a live recording of Francis Grasso in 1971 by Luis Mario was unearthed on soundcloud. The quality of the 20 minute recording is about as good as some of the punk bootlegs that are kept in the loft at Weeds HQ but come on it’s a well historic document to say the least!

From that Soundcloud mix an excellent tribute to Francis Grasso at The Sanctuary was found. It’s a mix of over an hour and a half by DJ Luis Mario (who recorded Francis Grasso at The Sanctuary) featuring tracks by Curtis Mayfield, Freda Payne, Booker T & the MG’s and Rufus Thomas and a lot lot more. Tunes for a Monday night when the (wood) chips are down…

In a Dub Front style

Big shout to Youri from the excellent Dub Front radio show for playing Jazzmin & Madtone’s Earth Citizen last week (6.26 minutes in the show below). The show also featured an hour of top tunes from artists including Audioart, Jah9 ft Chronnix (above) and Dubblestandart.

As Youri told us “The show’s been running since March 2005 every Wednesday at 11pm on BRUZZ out of Brussels. 52 shows a year digging into all things dub and roots. From chill to steppers, from roots to dub club, from world dub to outer space”. It’s a show well up our street so have a listen to the collection of Dub Font shows on Mixcloud here.