We had a dream last night that we were cutting the grass on a very large council estate. We were using a normal sized flymo with a very long extension lead which was plugged into one of the resident’s wall sockets with the lead trailing through their letterbox. A prophetic dream or just plain daft? Perhaps with the weather being nice today (but cold) we should get out there and tidy that back garden up before winter.
Blimmin eck, it didn’t half come down in the early hours today in London, so much so that the water in the pond is quite close to the top. If it rains any more those goldfish will be touching the pea netting which is there to keep the Lewisham Heron out.
Talking of showers or “music like shower” to be exact, a big shout goes out to Steve Barker of the excellent long running On The Wire radio show for getting back to us on the name of the mystery tune on the compilation from the Little Axe label. It’s called So long baby/An Irie Version by Derrick Morgan & Paulett/Prince Trinity and it’s a heavy tune!
If you want to hear a top show full of reggae and all sorts of great records tap into the latest shows of On The Wire on Totally Radio here or have a look through the archive on the blogspot here. You will enjoy it! Cheers again Steve!
If you’re about the shortwaves this Sunday 16th July 2023 (with a radio or an online SDR here) there’s a couple of programmes that may interest you if you like the eclectic. The first is KNTS (Kearsarge North Transmission Service) from the Imaginary stations crew beamed to Europe via the services of Shortwave Gold in Germany at 2000 utc (9pm UK time) on 6160 khz. 
Expect lots of shortwave, radio related sounds and even some tunes with CW (that’s morse to you and I) and at 15 mins in there’s a mix from One Deck Pete. If you haven’t a shortwave radio tune in here.
Then later at 2200 hrs UTC on 9395 kHz the great Shortwave Music Library returns via WRMI. DJ Frederick digs through his across the board record collection taking a few requests, pulling out some tunes and giving them an airing over the shortwaves. Sit back and relax with a COOL drink and turn that shortwave radio back on. If the batteries have been taken out of the shortwave radio by the kids you can always tune in here.
Cheers to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing this chilled out piece of summer inspired balearica from John Beltran called La Hermosa Vista on his excellent Monday morning radio show “The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room” (all shows available here). If you want two hours containing some great tunes from chilled, funk, reggae, jazz and a lot more on a Monday morning you want to be tuning into IDA Radio – Tallinn from 9-11am UK time. Here’s this week’s show:
If you remember earlier this year we got in contact with Wlad Gurtovy (US7IGN) after buying his book “War Diaries – A Radio Amateur in Kyiv” (on sale here). We originally heard about Wlad in the Radio 4 programme in the Lights Out series called Call Signs talking about life in Kyiv on his own after his wife and children had to flee to Poland because of the present crazy war. The show is still up online if you haven’t caught it, it is a must listen. Available here.
At the time he sent us pictures of his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD)’s banana plant growing indoors in his apartment in Kyiv and it looked very healthy with all the care and attention it was getting from Sergiy. More on the post here.
We heard from Wlad last week alongside some updates of Sergiy’s indoor banana plant and it’s looking great and may even fruit this autumn! Perhaps we can have a word with Sergiy and ask about any tips and tricks about growing bananas indoors. As we’re not the best with identifying indoor plants we wonder if the bottom photo is another banana seedling or even a cutting. We await more info.
Thanks again to Wlad and Sergiy for keeping in touch with us considering what life is like in Kyiv at the moment. We at Weeds are thinking of them out there in Ukraine and hope that the war ends soon.
We visited Lewisham Lldl again this morning as per to get some £1.99 peat-free compost and nabbed these seed bargains too. Looks like they were priced according to the numbering on the packet. Anything that was 1 was 20p but we couldn’t spot anything, 3 was 49p and 4 was £1.49. Not bad! Get down to your nearest Lldl and grab yourself a bargain and as they say “when it’s gone, IT’S GONE!”
And talking of bargains, tune into KMRT this Sunday 28th May 2023 at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. Expect some blue light and centre aisle 45 specials. We will also have a special appearance of someone you don’t know off the television from the 1970’s cutting the ribbon to open the doors of the broadcast. So tune in and grab yourself a great “once in a lifetime bargain”! All radios are on sale at 25% off while supplies last! (Subject to availability of course).
Tired of slugs and snails decimating tender stuff in the garden we thought of a daft idea, we wired a pot of Basil atop the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago and going to see how it work. We even stuck an old jam jar over it to give it a bit more warmth in the night. We’re not sure if it will deter slugs or snails and also even if it’s a good idea or not but you have to try sometimes. That’s the hat stand that already has a couple of seed potatoes in some old shopping bags on it. We may even run some climbing beans up it too. A bit unconventional but why not? It’ll make good use of space.
Also the Lemon Verbena in a pot that we thought was a goner is starting to sprout. It was a good thing we didn’t give up on it and threw it in the bin like we were going to. It’s an interesting plant and we got the idea off another Dub Gardener Haji Mike in Cypus a few years ago here after he mentioned it on a Facebook post. It makes a wonderful refreshing tea and there’s lots of recipes online on how you can use it too. Here’s a great tune from Mike from a few years ago.
The time has flew by this year, it’s nearly June and things are starting to crack on in the garden. Can we have more sunshine please?
Just researching a forthcoming shortwave mix and we’ve just found this great tune from a long time ago from Groove Corporation called Worst Dressed Chicken which is very nice and one to play loads when it’s sunny. A very clever title by the way.
Talking of RTM FM, a big shout to Jesse Yuen of the excellent North of the River Swan radio show (which is on a break for the time being) for sending us this morning some excelllent pictures of his parents garden in Bassendean, Perth, Western Australia where he is at the moment. It’s a brilliant space and has some out there plants we could only dream about having here!
It looks a wonderful space and a lovely place for chilling out in! He’s sent us some close ups of flowers from the yard too. Great stuff!
And here’s the last North of The River Swan (until later this year hopefully) as Jesse (as it says on the mixcloud) “is taking some time off to recalibrate the compass and recharge the radio batteries”. Take it easy and we look forward to your return to the radio and to your shortwave debut. Cheer for the gardening pics, do send us more.
A while ago we heard a wonderful Radio 4 programme in the Lights Out series called Call Signs. It featured the story of a radio ham, Wlad Gurtovy (US7IGN) talking about life in Kyiv, Ukraine on his own after his wife and children had to flee to Poland because of the crazy war.
It’s a capitating story, one about radios, home-made antennas and even features his children’s hamster called Mouse. He jokes that when his family contacts him, sometimes they ask how Mouse is before they ask how he is! It’s all mixed in with various radio noises and a nice soundtrack from 8ctavius. Download and listen to the programme here.
Wlad has also published a book about his experiences called “War Diaries – A Radio Amateur in Kyiv” which is presented as a record of events from the first day of the war on 24 February to the end of September 2022. We’ve still not finished the book yet but it’s an excellent read so far and one well worth buying. More on purchasing it here.
A big thanks to Wlad for passing on the pictures of his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD)’s banana plant presently growing indoors in his apartment in Kyiv and it looks as healthy as anything. We’re not the best with indoor plants here sadly but it certainly looks like it is getting a lot of care an attention from Sergiy as it is thriving.
Wlad mentioned that Sergiy uses a lamp to heat the plant as it needs an environment of about 20°C. When the temperature in the apartment recently dropped to 14°C because of the blackouts he had to turn the gas stove on to get the heat back up to the right temperature. That’s dedication for you.
Weeds up to me knees 