Reel out me hose…

Posted on March 25, 2019 by onedeckpete

So spring has finally arrived! It’s now time to scrape the mould off those gardening gloves and that inch of dust from your kneeling pad. When you’re next out in the garden dangle a speaker out of the back window and play some tunes as we all know music and plants go well together.

The first recommendation is for all who love a certain brassica from Helsinki-based composer Jukio Kallio featuring some tinkling on the old Joanna. This’ll get those broad bean seeds a germinating!

The next is a lovely piece called Garden Dub for the tripped out gardener in us all from Pale Rider, a solo project featuring one half of the Nashville/New York dub duo Phase Selector Sound. Lovely stuff! Leave the top window open in the greenhouse so the treble can escape and float around the neighbourhood.

Greenhouse classics (revived)

Posted on March 16, 2019 by onedeckpete

Cheers for Justin Moore for starting us off again on the search for gardening related music with his recommendation for Mort Garsen‘s Cosmic LP “Mother Earth’s Plantasia” last week here. Also a big thanks to the good Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI for his mix a few years ago below and Pete Haigh from the monthly Funkology radio show (on “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire) for his gardening-related chart here. We’re now looking for more. Know any deep house classics that mention “potting on”? Or some dubstep that mentions dephiniums? Or just some fine tunes you like to like to prune the roses to? Send us your nominations please. Remember music and gardening do mix!

Seek, and ye shall find my friend

Posted on January 5, 2019 by onedeckpete

We weren’t feeling too hot over the xmas and new year period as another damn cold/flu struck, but as the garden was looking a bit on the neglected side an hour or so had to be designated to a bit of outdoor tidying up. This one was for the bed next to the garage that earlier this year contained tomatoes, sweet peas and dahlias amongst other things (past posts about said plants in all their glory are in the links).

We dug up all the dahlia tubers carefully (some of them are the size of big spuds!) which are now drying out under the stairs even though last year we took a chance and left them in and they did wonderful this summer (post here). More on lifting the tubers here.

We even replanted a silver birch (one we found a couple of years ago in a Tesco’s bag with a note that said “Take me” on it outside a house locally see post here) that was originally by the pond but hopefully it will do better at the end of the bed. We’ll be probably moving it again as it’s so near the old garage wall but let’s see.

And as protection from forthcoming cold weather we stuck one of the plastic mini-cloches from another find, which followed the same pattern as before; left outside a house with a note with “Take me” on it (post here) over the Foxtail Lily that’s started to sprout a bit prematurely.

So wrap up warm, happy gardening and keep em peeled as Shaw Taylor used to say.

Keeping it short and sweet

Posted on December 29, 2018 by onedeckpete

Little and often is an apt saying when it comes to gardening. The job for today was to tidy up the bed at the bottom of the garden that had gone a bit haywire (above). There was a fair bit of weeding to do and pulling up of dead Nasturtiums that were left to their own devices followed by a good old forking over. It looks like a proper vegetable bed now (below) rather than a bombsite!
In the process we found a couple of spuds that were missed when we initially harvested them in the autumn and also found a few dried out pods of some heirloom French climbing beans we bought at the Roots and Shoots Potato Day earlier this year. That’s one less packet of seeds we’ll have to purchase then!

Talking of Potato Days and Roots and Shoots here’s the next event in a few weeks time and one well worth going to!
London Potato Fair/Roots & Shoots Potato Day
9th and 10th February 2019 11.00am-2.30pm
Roots & Shoots
Walnut Tree Walk
Lambeth, SE11 6DN
http://www.roots&shoots.org
FREE ADMISSION
More details on this and more such like events (all across the UK) at this site here.

And here’s a festive treat from The Groove Thief from KGNU Community Radio’s “Dub Palace” show. The mix includes some heavyweight bass from RSD, Prophet, Johnny Clarke and our very own Madtone with “Compost your mind”.

A happy and prosperous 2019 to one and all from us at Weeds!

Reading and listening recommendations – Stardate 29/5/2018

Posted on May 29, 2018 by onedeckpete

Two things to get stuck into. Firstly a big thanks to Mark at the Thompson & Morgan blog for including one of our tips in the interesting “Seed and seedling tips…” post here that’s worth having a look at. There’s lots of other posts on the blog that’ll hopefully float your gardening boat too.

Also the above has been listened to twice today, “Greetings music lover” the story of one of our favourite shows “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire and Steve Barker who keeps it all together. It’s a lovely documentary about a very interesting radio show. Big up On The Wire!

Welcoming back that yellow thing in the sky

Posted on May 17, 2018 by onedeckpete

Here’s a lovely tune called Janet 50 from Smith & Mudd, with the top frenchman I:Cube on the mix. If this 7 minutes of joy don’t welcome the sun back into the garden, god knows what will! One to stick on (in the headphones of course) when getting the hose out at 7am to give those plants their morning soak.

And if you enjoy “tipping around” with a hoe later on in the day here’s a tune of the calmer variety from Everton Blender called Sing for Jah with a great dub to boot.

It’s good this gardening lark especially at this time of the year and it can only get better!

Not a prediction for today’s weather

Posted on April 22, 2018 by onedeckpete

We celebrated Record Store Day 2018 (supported by BBC Music) at Weeds by putting two coats of Cuprinol on a garden gate (supported by two ham sarnies, a posh sausage roll and copious cups of tea.)

The Scotch Bonnet crew did it in a far better style by releasing a belter of a tune using a vocal from the late great Bim Sherman (courtesy of Adrian Sherwood) over a hard rhythm built by Mungo’s Hi-Fi as you can hear! Already played on On The Wire and I can hear this going down a storm on KFAI’s Echo Chamber as well as many others. May Scotch Bonnet and Mungo’s keep putting out such fine music forever!

In a Dub Front style

Posted on June 7, 2017 by onedeckpete

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.

Purple broad beans meet The Supremes

Posted on May 26, 2017 by onedeckpete

We’ve had some cracking weather in London of late and combined with the rain last week things are coming on strong in the garden. The Crimson Flowered Broad Beans started to bloom at the weekend and they’re looking great! They’re a nice alternative to the black and white flowered ones (which we love as well) and there’s a interesting post about the variety on the Daughter of the Soil (“Adventures in experimental horticulture”) blog here. The blog is well worth having a look at if you love heritage vegetables, seed saving and experimental gardening.The bed at the bottom of the garden is bursting into life as well with the seed potatoes, onions and strawberries starting to reach upwards. It may be a tad early but we’ve already made use of our home-made comfrey liquid which will help them on their way. The bamboo canes that were used as a cat deterrent have now been commissioned elsewhere (helping some tomato plants) and the spuds have been earthed up even more.

Music accompaniment this week is firstly a couple of versions of the excellent pressure and slide rhythm by Hubert Lee then Sugar Minott. On the Rt Hon David Rodigan show last week he played a mini-history of the rhythm including a couple of choice cuts of it by the great Prince Buster here and here.

Also secondly a big shout to our mate Will who recommended the LeMellotron/Pierre Wax 30 mix below. It’s a right musical mixture and one to turn up loud so it can be heard while out in the back garden. The great 2 hr mix is a slice of audio goodness and includes I:Cube, The excellent Mothers “Faith (Yilwani Imfazwe”) with a nice Lee Perry sample and Dennis Coffey and a whole lot more. It also includes the breakbeat/falsetto vocal disco classic “Come into my life” from The Supremes. Roll on more tunes and more sunshine!

Music for the greenhouse

Posted on March 23, 2017 by onedeckpete

Current listening at Weeds HQ are some mixes sent to us by Feminine Hi-Fi after finding out about them via the great Scotch Bonnet Records on Facebook. We contacted the all-women project soundsystem from Brazil who sent us some links to great mixes of Brazilian female reggae vocal tunes compiled by Dani I-Pisces from the collective. They’re are well worth investigating! Volume 1 is below and here’s links to Volume 2 and Volume 3. Who said Reggae isn’t outernational?

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life

Category Archives: Dub Gardeners of the world unite