Monthly Archives: May 2022

The reggae gardening connection

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It was nice to be out and about this afternoon after the last couple of years of isolation. Today’s treat was a bus trip to Deptford for the Lewisham Soundsystem Trail. Rather than roam about the various events going on, most of the afternoon was spent in The Albany’s back garden with Dennis Bovell and friends (including the great Gladdy Wax, Dub Vendor All Stars, Pappa Face and Gaffa Blue). Some great tunes, good vibes and sunshine with a community garden as a background. There were some great ideas on show including carrots in plastic dustbins, ingenious stuff.

Things are on fire so to speak  in our garden too, the risk we took with the early planting of the seed potatoes has paid off. There’s flowers a go-go and it’s not even June yet. Now we’ll be waiting for the foliage to die down for some fresher than fresh new potatoes.

And as for those foxgloves, they’re on a triffid-like tip and we’re not going to complain.

And we’re not complaining about this tune either, it’s a nice chilled Sunday evening affair  from Arutani called Wasting Time. Tune in and really drop out to a tune with a Laut & Luise connection.

Operation Foxglove

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It was another lovely weekend so we did a bit of tipping around with a hoe around the bed nearest the house that have the foxgloves in them. We were given three plants a couple of years ago and they’ve spread like wildfire. There’s some dahlias in there that still haven’t sprouted yet and we wonder if we’re either not patient enough or something’s wrong with them.

The bed of the right hand side had a tidy up too. It’s looks a million times better and we can actually see what we have in there now. A few of the plants were bought on special offer on QVC off the telly last year. We were told they supposedly do a great gardening show on there on a Sunday morning.

As for the madness that is the compost heap, the stuff in there is breaking down a lot quicker than the dalek and it’s hell of a lot easier the get a fork in for a quick mix too.

Trouble is at the moment there’s a lot of flies about there meaning it’s a bit unbalanced. There’s a lot more of the “green” stuff in there and needs a bit more of the “browns” so in the next few days we’ll give it a good mix and throw in some cardboard and egg boxes. It’s all kicking off in the garden now!

Is it still possible to cash a güiro these days?

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Fancy listening to an hour of music made by a wide range of instruments your music teacher didn’t encourage you to take up?
If so KZOO is on 9395 kHz shortwave at 2200 UTC tomorrow Sunday 22nd May 2022 via WRMI. There’s güiros a go-go, a toy piano here and there and some jaw harp thrown in for good measure. Also at 23 mins in is a mix from One Deck Pete called “Feeding time at KZOO”. Tune in and enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYxnBe6aL4

Thanks but no thanks

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We here at Weeds are always up for anything gardening related found in skips, out on the street or put out for the binmen but sadly had to pass of this treasure trove yesterday.

There was a three pronged garden fork with matching flip-flops (a great idea, co-ordinated gardening/tool wear!) and a pair of well worn deck shoes. We’re well into the keep ’em peeled ethic and all that but you are allowed to say no and keep on walking.

Funny what you find (version 2)

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The other day on our travels we found three small fibre/recycled card pots and also some giant wooden lolly sticks (for use as plant labels) alongside some plastic plant pots which we didn’t pick up as we have enough of them. It’s funny what you find when you’re out. Keep ’em peeled as Shaw Taylor used to say!

Funny what you find

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This week while searching for some tracks for a forthcoming shortwave radio transmission we found the bandcamp site of Twink The Toy Piano Band from Boston, Massachusetts. As it says on the page about the creator Mike Langlie “He mixes toys and electronics for a quirky and catchy sound ranging from imaginary cartoon soundtracks to spooky lullabies to playroom mosh pits.” Brilliant, just brilliant. We implore you to explore Twink The Toy Piano Band here.

We always used any excuse for putting this track up but Twink’s tune made us think of this brilliant track from the Young Marble Giant’s Testcard EP. It’s nothing like it but puts us in mind of…

And talking of recommendations, thanks to Justin Patrick Moore for letting us know of this collaboration of the late Lee Perry and the heaviness of New Age Doom. This is nuts! More to explore.

Something old, something new, something wood

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We’ve been a bit busy in the garden making good use of the lovely weather we’ve been having hence no new posts until now. Today has started gloomy and we’re expected to have a couple of days of this until the weekend when it brightens up again which is great news.

We heard from our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore who has started a new project, something that is brand new to us here at Weeds. It’s a hugelkultur bed. As it says online: “Hugelkultur is a centuries-old, traditional way of building a garden bed from rotten logs and plant debris. These mound shapes are created by marking out an area for a raised bed, clearing the land, and then heaping up woody material (that’s ideally already partially rotted) topped with compost and soil.” http://www.almanac.com

More info here on this different sort of raised bed that made us think initially of the Victorian hot beds. Best of luck with that Justin, do let us know how you get on with it as it sounds great and looks good too!

A couple of years ago a good friend gave us a couple of foxglove plants and they’ve multiplied and starting to come alive this year. Self seeded plants are sometimes a pain (in the case of spuds left in the ground or weeds) but these foxgloves are brilliant, even the one coming out of the brickwork on the garage.

The raised beds by the Dad Corner are starting to burst into life. The seed potatoes that were put in extra early are starting to grow and the overwintered garlic in the 2nd raised bed on the right are well on their way. Shame we didn’t have much luck with the shallots which just withered away. Remember we’re still in May and there’s reports of the odd unexpected frosts about so still keep an eye on the weather forecast for those cold nights and keep those old net curtains handy!

In the wild bit at the bottom which doesn’t get much light where’s there’s a row of spuds, cardoons and some wildflower mix from those beebombs and the odd assortment of cheap seed packets is started to look a bit “wild” instead of looking a bit untended. We’re trying to get it looking wild like the beds at the Horniman’s Gardens (below) which’ll take a few years and a bit of effort but it’s worth trying!

Looking in the KBIN

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In a few hours tonight at 2300 UK time is the third transmission of KBIN on 9395 kHz via WRMI featuring amongst other interesting stuff a couple of mixes from our very own One Deck Pete.

The first “All up in the air” for KSOL at 10.30 mins in features Joe Meek, ARK, Rubin Steiner and AVEM. And for KDUB at 44.58 minutes in “A mix for KDUB for KBIN” featuring all sorts of dub goodness including the tune by Wayne Wade below. Tune in!

Where have all the flowers gone?

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On Saturday morning while we were out and about on our travels we were told of an interesting garden in development around the back of a charity shop.

When we got to the said plot we were greeted with some nice raised beds surrounded by walls with a wooden frame and wire mesh that were covered in numerous empty plant pots all connected up to a clever irrigation system. Even the gate to get in had pots on the back of it, talk about vertical veg and not wasting any space!

No idea what they may be growing but we wonder if it’s micro-greens on a commercial basis. We did see some fruit bushes ready to go in too. Whoever is taking over this garden is taking it very seriously.

Also this weekend we had a right of mixture of weather. It was gorgeous yesterday with the sun out most of the day but today it was a few degrees colder and we even had a bit of drizzle. As it’s still cold at night we have a variety of different kinds of plant protection from jam jars, the tops of propagators and plastic mini-cloches plonked over some tomato and pepper seedlings. (Above) the mini veg patch at the bottom of the garden with the frost protection and the plastic mushroom bought from a bric-a-brac stall at a summer festival which is placed over a cut off washing line pole. Keep an eye on the temperatures at night as we’re still not out of the doldrums yet!