Quaking grass and shortwave space travel

Posted on June 5, 2025 by onedeckpete

We’ve had this in the garden before and God only knows how it actually got there (have they self seeded themselves or are they the fruits of our anarchistic “throw them anywhere” sowing method) but it’s the wonderful quaking-grass. It’s only a small plant but is great close up and we’ve just found out that the seeds are good source of food for the birds.

We’ve got a flower on our courgette plant we sowed in a pot when we thought it may be a bit late so it’s always worth trying! How’s people’s gardens going? Do send some pictures please!

Also this weekend on the shortwave bands Imaginary Stations bring you Starship Skybird. The show is broadcast on Saturday 7th June 2025 at 1100 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 8th June 2025 at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and at 2000 UTC on 3975 kHz and 6160 kHz (via the services of Shortwave Gold).

Start the countdown to this weekend when you can strap yourself in for a trip of a lifetime. Tune in, make yourself a cosmic cocktail if that’s your thing and enjoy the sounds of space.

There’s all sorts of space madness with music (and some great jingles) you may have never heard before from DJ Frederick and Justin Patrick Moore and at 6.15 mins in there’s One Deck Pete presents a ride into space on a 60+travelcard mix. Grab yourself a shortwave radio or tune in via here.

A mullein in Cincinnati

Posted on June 5, 2025 by onedeckpete

Cheers to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for sending us a picture of the mullein plant in his garden. Justin mentioned “I let the plants grow when they pop up, even though some consider them a weed. People smoke the leaves for lung issues and make an oil from the flowers for ear infections. Its a medicinal weed, that in its second year, goes up past the knees!”

And thanks to Justin for forwarding a great tune named after said plant from MF Doom. Cheers Justin!

A message from near Cofa’s Tree

Posted on May 31, 2025 by onedeckpete

Cheers to Mike & Julia (great photographs as ever Julia!) for sharing a garden update of their roses and ceanothus “popping out to see us”. Excellent stuff and hope all is well in the Midlands.

Heading to the moon on a friday night (on a 60 plus travelcard)

Posted on May 23, 2025 by onedeckpete

We were compiling some tunes for a space leaning shortwave mix and came across this belter of a dub. It’s off a set called Moon Dub EP by Invadread. The track is by Baodub and called Dub of the moon and it is one catchy dub and has a touch of the Keith Levine’s in there and a bit of a Doctor Who vibe somewhere. A tune!

Another moon themed tune…

As the lyrics go “Neil Armstrong the first human on the Moon and the Pan Afros the first men to play the tune”. Brilliant!

Tunes for a Thursday night

Posted on May 15, 2025 by onedeckpete

Thanks for Vintage Obscura Radio for putting this up on their bluesky feed and what a tune. It’s from Fadoul aka Bob Fadoul and it’s called Fi Jamique. Yes it is a familiar rhythm (None Escape the Judgement) but it’s a lovely take on it! And there’s more!

We’re the tomatoes in the dustbin

Posted on April 26, 2025 by onedeckpete

In a post the other day here we were discussing our impatience about putting tomato plants outside in the garden. Yesterday we saw a Facebook post where someone down here in London had taken a picture of their tomato plants outside in the garden with “Now there’s a good job done, all of my 30 odd tomato plants are outside in the ground. I doubt if there’ll be a frost now…” Looking at next week’s weather, it looks brilliant during the day and not too cold in the evening so we’re now even more confused than ever.

We had a plant on the kitchen windowsill with two flower trusses begging to go out and today we gave a broken council food recycling bin a good clean out and put a few holes in the bottom and now the two trussed plant is in it and up near the house. It should be well hardened off anyway and tonight it’s covered in bubble wrap just in case. It’s one less plant on the kitchen windowsill.

Above is the food recycling bin with the tomato in it and funnily enough it fits in with the other plant pots including one of the cuttings from Honor Oak Park station geraniums (we now think they are really pelargoniums) which is now flowering!

Shout to all the twin cities reggae radio crew

Posted on April 23, 2025 by onedeckpete

A big shout to our good friend Dr Strangedub who presents The Echo Chamber (with DJ Baby Swiss ) on KFAI out of Minneapolis, Minnesota for playing Jasmine Tutum & Madtone‘s Earth Citizen on this morning’s show at 37mins in (tune in here).

As we have said many times before, the Echo Chamber is the show to tune into on a Wednesday morning at 8am UK time for 4 hours (count them) of reggae, dub, downtempo and all sorts of bass heavy stuff and more. Cheers again Dr Strangedub!

And here’s a great track from the show called Don’t worry what the people think about you (Dub) from Dubblestandart & Jasmine Tutum.

What, sunshine in April? Never

Posted on April 1, 2025 by onedeckpete

It’s like this every year, you’re waiting for spring to happen and then next thing you’ve got a load of plants to harden off (above). We’ve got some giant sunflowers that are over a foot high now and tomatoes, sweet peas and some chillies we were given over the weekend alongside the geranium cuttings from Honor Oak Park station. It’s only just turned April too!

Also, in the bed down the bottom we started lots of seeds off. The rocket can be seen taking off underneath small branches used to keep the cats and foxes off. The seeds were only put in the other day, or it seemed like it! Hope all goes well on the sowing front your side and the nice weather keeps on keeping on. Keep checking those last frosts dates and do remember nature plays by its own rules sometimes.

Seven seven inch singles selection

Posted on March 27, 2025 by onedeckpete

One of the good things in life is looking through a pile of seven inch singles and not thinking too much about the tunes and putting together a mix (in the old days it would be on one of those cassette tape things). Below is a quick one put together this evening after looking through a couple of piles of records that haven’t been played for a while.

We were influenced by a post by The Rhythm Doctor on Facebook about a recent mix of his from 7” singles for MOJO Estonia and Sugar B‘s “supermix” show on Charisma FM 87.8 Mhz where all sorts of reggae singles are played in any order.

Here’s the first Seven seven inch singles selection in the pot and here’s the tracklisting:
Jah Cure – Longing for version/drop leaf rhythm
Alton Ellis & The Flames – Ain’t that loving you
Ras Ibuna/Village Bunch – Diverse Doctrine Version
Pablove Black – Chaunting Dread
Anthony B – Stop Fight
Jah Woosh – Shine Eye Gal Version Part 2
Yabby You/King Tubby’s – Chant Down babylon Version

We welcome other mixes and don’t worry too much about the genres just put them on and if they sound good…

More pictures from Kyiv

Posted on March 21, 2025 by onedeckpete

Great to hear from Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv and tanks to him for sending us some new pictures today. The above and below are from his good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) who if you remember has a banana plant growing indoors and they’re great images of the plant that is looking well healthy at the moment.

And Wlad’s green onions on the windowsill are doing great! Cheers Wlad, more pictures please and good to hear from you!

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life

Category Archives: Dub Gardening