Getting over it

We’ve been out of the game over the last week and a bit due to catching the dreaded lurgy. We haven’t been able to do that much in the garden but look forward to being out there again once we feel a bit better and the great weather from last week returns.

Thanks to our good friend Justin Patrick Moore for reminding us of this Japanese ambient classic above from Haruomi Hosono – Talking. It’s a whole 15 minutes with a repeating motif not unlike a shortwave Interval Signal. Wonderful.

And talking of Interval Signals here’s a track we haven’t posted up in a while which is a favourite of ours from from Holland’s Rephazer. If you love a bit of ambient combined with some shortwave radio malarkey, you can’t go wrong here.

 

And here’s another one in a chilled out vein the very tripped out Green from Hiroshi Yoshimura. Here’s to getting back to some sort of health normality very soon.

Spring may have sprung

One great thing we love with this gardening lark is the passing on of surplus seeds from one gardener to another. This week we received a little package off a gardening friend with some interesting seeds and stuff that we’ve never grown before (Cheers again Ruth!)

Firstly there was a small envelope with some Amaranth seeds (more on them here) which we’ll be sowing in a sunny area in the garden as they like that. Also in a brown bag was a climber called Mashua which we’ve never heard of before, turns out it’s climbing Nasturtium with deep orange-red trumpet flowers with edible tubers and the young leaves can be eaten in a salad. You learn something every day, especially in gardening!

The other bag contained some Jerusalem Artichokes (aka Sunchoke), we read it’s not like the globe variety but a kind of sunflower with an edible tuber. We’ve also learnt they can spread like wildfire but we will be giving them a go. We’ll keep you posted on how we get on with everything above. Any tips appreciated!

And on the shortwave radio tomorrow evening at 10pm UK time is a repeat of a transmission of a while back of KSOL which features a mix from One Deck Pete called “A bit of sunshine and soul” which feature tunes by Jackie Lee & Delores Hall, Cat Stevens, George McCrae, Carl Bean and Love Unlimited. If you haven’t a shortwave radio you can tune in here.

Dub gardening from around the world

Cheers to our good mate in Germany Phil Harmony for sending us these two pictures this morning of a suprise he got when he cut a tomato this morning for breakfast. We only found out through the magic of the internet that this is called Vivipary and “occurs in overripe fruit when seeds have reached maturity and the natural hormone, abscisic acid (ABA), is reduced.” Well you learn something new every day!

And also a pic from a while ago of what he found in his kitchen sink after coming back from a ten day holiday. Big up the guerilla pepper!

And cheers to another gardening/music friend of ours Dr Strangedub for playing Jazz’min & Madtone’s LP Livicate on the 2nd March’s Echo Chamber on KFAI (which is a show well worth tuning into every week!) and for playing One Deck Pete’s “Give a little whistle” mix (featuring tracks by Joakim, Marcel, Roscoe Wethers and Felix Laband) on the show to at 71.35 mins in. Big shout to Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss! Click here for the archive of recent shows.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Tomorrow evening Wednesday 9th March 2022 at 5pm UK time there will be a transmission to Europe of The Scented Garden (a nod to gardeners and gardening music lovers everywhere) on 3955 kHz. If you haven’t a shortwave radio at 5pm tomorrow tune in here. After the broadcast the audio will be posted up here.

At the start of the programme is a 15 minute mix from Weeds’ own One Deck Pete called “A tribute to council gardeners everywhere” featuring tracks by Dudley Perkins,
Hugh Masekela, Beyond The Wizzard’s Sleeve and Dennis Brown. Expect some gardening related tunes, pruning advice and more. Onwards and upwards!

More stuff up our street

A couple of local events happening soon which are well up our street so to speak. The first is the Open Day at Farmstead Road Community Garden which features a Seed Swap amongst other stuff. It’s on Saturday 12th March 2022 from 10-1pm at Farmstead Road Community Garden SE6 3EH.

And at Glengall Wharf Gardens SE16 6NF is a “playful, practical interactive workshop on Permaculture ethics and principles” which sounds good to us! It’s on various dates and more info is here. They’ve other good courses on there as well so have a look at what’s on offer here. As we keep saying, roll on spring!

Keep on keeping on

We heard some great advice when we were out and about this week and it was a simple “Don’t give up”. Quite apt as we were going to put in some fresh seeds into one of the trays in the propagator in the kitchen windowsill next week as we thought the Cape Gooseberry seed sown in there was shot as the Peppers we planted at the same time now have their seed leaves and are looking good. Then this morning we spotted some action in the tray, patience that’s what gardening’s all about and sometimes we ain’t any!

And this morning we were looking for some fresh Tarragon leaves for a chicken recipe and couldn’t find any so we had a brainwave to pop into Shannon’s and get a live plant. It may be small but give it time…

Coming soon!

Last Sunday we visited the Seed Swap at Glengall Wharf Garden, Peckham SE15 6NF. It was a lovely morning and we picked up a great assortment of seeds including some Texsel Greens (Ethiopian Mustard), some nice tomato varieties and lots of poppy seeds.

We do love a seed swap here at Weeds and just found out about another (above) at Hither Green on Sunday 13th March 2022 from 11am-1pm at Springbank Road Community Garden (thanks to @LewishamGardens on twitter for letting us know!)

Also coming soon is the transmission of The Scented Garden (a nod to flowers and gardeners and also John Peel’s Perfumed Garden show) on Wednesday 9th March 2022 at 1700 utc on 3955 kHz which features at the start of the transmission One Deck Pete‘s “A tribute to council gardeners everywhere” mix. Tune in here.And whilst we’re on the subject of music, here’s a great tune from Islam Chipsy & Eek called El Dynasor. It’s certainly a lively number and one to get those hips a swaying.