Category Archives: Dub Gardeners of the world unite

Stick your plastic plant labels

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We’ve always had this thing about those plastic plant labels. You buy a pack and you have the best intentions of keeping them for ages (using Barkeeper’s Friend to clean off “Lettuce” or whatever their last usage was) then you lose them or they snap and you vow never to use them again.

Yesterday we thought “Never mind that!” and just got a “sharpie” and snapped a few bamboo canes into quarters. Saved us a load of hassle. We then stuck some polythene sheeting on top of some pallet box collars and there you go, a makeshift cloche full of clearly named rows of broccoli, cabbage, leek and beetroot!

In a world where things are free

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We’ve just returned from a couple of days in Brighton where when we arrived, there was a mad sea mist which engulfed all of the seafront. It lifted late afternoon to reveal a wave-free sea that looked like glass as there was zero wind which made for a very out of this world sunset (above).

On the evening we witnessed an appearance of the one and only Tunng. This was after having a couple of pints in a pub which was from a long lost world where The Incredible String band and psychedelia were playing from a free juke box. The barman sat on a stool behind the bar rolling a couple of roll-ups (and one for ron of course), brought your pint over to your table with the card machine and popped out for a fag every now and again leaving the bar area unattended. A different (pub) world all together.

As for Tunng they were excellent, playing tunes from their new LP “Love you all over again” (an LP well worth investigating here) peppered with some old favourites. Acoustic guitars, a banjo, a melodica, woodwind instruments and some very strange sounds thrown over the top. Wonderful stuff!

The day after we found a market we never knew that existed which had a free shop. That’s right, a shop where all things were free. As the owner told us “I was so fed up that the charity shops were charging so much we decided to give things away” and as the sign says on the wall “Please don’t be greedy”.

There’s a simple rule: “No drugs. No guns. No animals. No BIG things. Everything else is welcome!” We picked up a handful of small pots which will come in handy at Weeds HQ and an old-school ladle. A super place to visit and more on the shop here.

Hope everyone out there is enjoying this great weather we’re having at the moment!

 

Even council gardeners love a bit of ambient

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Here’s a long and lovely track from Irrelevant called Touches. This is the Ambient Council Worker Mix from Gordon Strange. Excellent stuff, glad to see that council employees get a namecheck! Are there any tunes specifically about council gardeners you reckon?

Professional frost protection. You reckon?

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We woke up this morning and it’s way below freezing (-3 C at the moment) and the forecasters are telling us it will be like this for the next few days, so it don’t look like there’ll be much gardening done this weekend. Yesterday we did pop out and put some protection over the camelia that has loads of flower buds on it (above). This great bit of fabric doesn’t cover all of the plant and there isn’t any space between the cloth and the shrub where air can circulate but it’s the best we could get our hands on at the time. It will keep all the cats from the neighbourhood away thinking it’s a levitating ghost and may suggest to the neighbours that we’ve finally lost it but the big question is, will it keep the cold weather out?

While out there we saw this (below) in the wild bit at the bottom of the garden that made us smile. It’s some fungi growing beside our “economy” wild pond. This could be another picture for our Alternative to the BBC Countryfile Calendar that we will put into production one day. The wild pond is an old dutch pot that has one handle missing which we sunk into the ground, filled up with rainwater and the odd thinning from plants from the garden pond are popped in there every now and again.  We salute any wildlife that enjoys our “budget-friendly” pond.

And here’s a note from our sponsors (Aldi, Lldl and Argos of course!): Please keep warm this weekend!

 

 

It’s snow joke

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Thanks a lot to our good mate Justin Patrick Moore for sending us some photographs of the extreme weather in Cincinnati at the moment, and we thought it was a bit cold here! Temperature is around -3 at the moment with -9 degrees C overnight with even -13 later on some nights this week. We are not going complain about the weather here any more, ever. Great pictures Justin. And here’s one of his back garden.

And if you fancy a great listen, below is the audio of Trash Flow Radio broadcast on WAIF 88.3 FM from Sat Dec 28 and as it says here:

“DJ Justin Patrick Moore returned to hold down the fort one more time. Hot on the heels of his outstanding recent book event in Cincinnati, Justin was joined in the studio by Slumdog Ethan and Old WAIFer Douglas.  Together, they provided more audio accompaniment to Justin‘s new book “The Radio Phonics Laboratory.”  They also spun choice esoteric tracks from all around the world, including tracks from: Tristwch Y Fenywod, Chelsea Wolfe, Tanya Tagaq, The Fauns, Melody’s Echo Chamber, The Skull Defekts, idialedyournumber, Alan Sparhawk, Josh Datko (Bitpunk.fm), An-Ting 安婷, Controlled Bleeding, Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang, The Limiñanas, Shilpa Ray, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, and more!” Tracklist here.

There’s an archive of the last 15 shows here if you fancy it too. Radio connects us all.

Live good in your neighbourhood

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Big shout to The Rhythm Doctor for playing this wonderful tune by Johnny Cool on his excellent IDA Radio show Waiting Room earlier this week (at 49 minutes in with extra dubbed out bits by RD himself) called Long Time Ago and what a great tune it is!

Also reggae related, by accident this evening we found two hours of The Rootsman talking to the late great Augustus Pablo. Welll worth listening to, all on pirate radio WKLR Radio in Bradford from 1992. Reggae (like radio) never disappoints. Ever.

And the cosmos still keeps coming

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We’re in Storm Bert at the moment here in SE23, it’s windy and very dour when you outside. It’s always good on days like this to have something to cheer us up so a big thanks to Debby H for sending us more cosmos pictures taken this week. We must rememember it is late November and as Debby wrote with the attached pictures “Come snow and frost, the cosmos plants struggle on valiantly!” and she’s right. Cheers for that Debby!

On the stereo we have this playing in the background to cheer us up despite the bad weather. It’s a bit of an off kilter bit of dub by the great Bjørn Torske called Dub Vendors (the B side to the single Disco Members from 2000.)

The Blue Peter Garden at the grass roots of dub

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Here’s a new mix from One Deck Pete called “An introduction to Dub Gardening” and goes out to all dub gardeners everywhere and we welcome contact from (dub and non dub) gardeners wherever they may be. Dedicated to the late Percy Thrower.
The mix features:
Augustus Pablo – Melody Dub
Soulware – Augmented Seed (Dub Version)
Biggabush – Beat Dem in Dub
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – Return to the Branches (no hams mix)
Vassell Meka – Flowers Dub
Madtone – Compost your mind

We’re not completely sure where the Dub Gardening phrase originates from but it may (or may not and we apologise if it was somebody else) have something to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub (alongside DJ baby Swiss) who brings you the The Echo Chamber which is broadcast on KFAI every Wednesday morning from 8 am-Noon UK time here.

A good few ago the good doctor put together a gardening related mix called In The Garden of dub which is below and has also been featured up on Weeds a few times but well worth posting up again! Features lots of artists inluding Singers & Players (ft. Prince Far I), Earlyworm, Madtone, Finn The Giant, Juno Gad Allstars meet Earlyworm, Leroy Sibbles, Jah Wobble, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bakshish, DubXanne (ft. Ranking Roger) and lots lots more. Big shout to all dub gardeners.

A journey through the cosmos

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Big thanks to Debby H in north London who has sent us another great photograph of her cosmos patch that is looking brilliant even at the end of October. As Debby wrote “My cosmos plants are still producing an unbelievable amount of flowers for the time of year, and there’s more buds still coming! This is very similar to one that I sent to you previously but I have attached it just to show you the amount of flowers that are still blooming.” They certainly are blooming. Cheers Debby.