This Easter go West

Posted on April 5, 2023 by onedeckpete

This Easter Sunday 9th April Imaginary Stations will be going in a Westerly direction at 2200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI. In one word they’ll be going WEST, there’ll be some Westbound trains, themes from Westerns and even some spoken word from Adam West. So get your compass out, tune in your shortwave radio and enjoy everything Westward Ho! from 2200 UTC on Easter Sunday.

At 2.42 into the show One Deck Pete will be presenting a 15 minute mini-mix called in true Pete “Alright treacle?” Beale style “We’re going up West”. Tune in for an Easter Western treat!

A tune for a frosty morning

Posted on April 4, 2023 by onedeckpete

It was a lovely day yesterday, the sun was out and it looked like spring had finally sprung but the lack of cloud last night gave us a bit of frost this morning. As Shaw Taylor used to say about watching the weather forecast especially after putting plants in “Keep ’em peeled”. And here’s a nice tune…

International Herb

Posted on March 31, 2023 by onedeckpete

Suprise Chefs – Rosemary Hemphill – Big Crown Records

Thanks again to The Rhythm Doctor for pointing us in the right direction of another great tune, this time within a week of the last one! The Suprise Chefs bring us some bright vibes with a great track called Rosemary Hemphill which he played on his show (below) on IDA Radio (Tallinn) last Monday at 50 minutes in.

While the track was playing he decided to google Rosemary Hemphill and to his suprise what he found was another music/gardening connection (and as you know there’s a fair few of them about!)

Turns out Rosemary Hemphill is an “Australian writer of cooking and gardening books, who has long been recognised as one of Australia’s leading herb and spice experts.” She was born at “sunrise” on “April Fool’s Day” in 1922, in Broome, western Australia and in her childhood spent some time at her grandparents in Bromley, UK who had a big herb garden which was a big influence on her. More on the great lady here. She’ll be 101 tomorrow. Happy Birthday!

The big question is are the Suprise Chefs keen gardeners then?

Can you get a better view than that?

Posted on March 31, 2023 by onedeckpete

Big shout to Rich R for getting in touch with us after a good few years with pictures of his garden in the Lake District. We don’t think you can get a better view than that from a back garden. We all moan about the winter but there’ll be no more moaning if the pic below was the view from your front door.

We get a bit frustrated here with the Ladywell Fields Heron, Lewisham Parakeets and the south London sliced-bread snaffling Fox posse but up there they have proper wildlife to contend with: badgers, deer and rabbits which eat everything veg wise if they were to grow it. So Rich grows wild fruit and strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and a bit of marjoram. The back garden is literally on the side of a mountain, made up of 5 terraces and rises to about 500 ft. How good is that?

It’s a good looking garden Rich and the carpet of bluebells look great and we’re loving it here, more pictures please as the season cracks on!

London Bridge is burning down

Posted on March 25, 2023 by onedeckpete

Big shout to our very good friend The Rhythm Doctor (of The Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio – Tallinn on a Monday morning here) for telling us about this excellent collection on Bandcamp from Don Cavalli.

It’s called Don Cavalli chants down babylon and what an EP it is! There’s 4 top tracks including this above, his interpretation of The Wailers Fire Fire AKA Bunny Wailer’s Love Fire. We implore you to listen to this EP and make a purchase.

… you’ll sing again, shal-lots in Forest Hill*

Posted on March 20, 2023 by onedeckpete

We’ve had some shallots sitting about in a bag for weeks and noticed they were looking like they had to be put out soon or they’ll go mouldy, so yesterday (on the eve of the official start of spring) we undertook a little job in the garden.

Years ago we found an old window frame on a skip and over the years it’s had many uses but since lockdown it’s been lying up against the back fence in retirement. The weather’s so changeable at the moment we knew those shallots had to be put in under cover, so the window frame had a bath in warm soapy water and is now back in service.

We got some bricks to make a simple support to put the frame on and then dug out a good bit of soil out of the space within, then made a small compost trench with a little bit of kitchen waste pinched from the top of the compost heap (whilst we were there, we gave the heap a bit of a fork over and a mix). Also using a trowel, we fished out about two buckets worth of decent compost (Black Gold as they call it) from the bottom of the heap which we put on top of the compost trench and then covered that with the soil we initially took out and there you go, we’ve now got some shallots “under glass”!

All of the shallots went in, had a light water and then we gave the bed around it a little hoe over (top pic) and then gave the path next to it a good old sweep. This gives a nice contrast between the bed and path making the bed look like it had a good few hours work on it. A trick learnt from the council. Now we have to wait and see. Springtime weather, do your job!

* To the tune of “Tulips from Amsterdam”.

Skylarking on the radio

Posted on March 18, 2023 by onedeckpete

Big shout to our good mate Shane Quentin for this excellent mix for his Skylarking show on Tak Tent Radio. Some excellent tunes here!

And here’s the tracks:
Vernon Allen : Far I Come
The Viceroys : Sugar Spice
Ernest Ranglin Selected Group : Free Form
Black Velvet : Safari
The Skatalites : Collie Bud
Azie Lawrence : Pempelem
Raymond Harper : Autumn Leaves
Arena : Knot Up Head
Invaders : You Touch My Soul
Don Drummond & The Skatalites : Smiling
Tomorrow’s Children : Bang Bang Rock Steady
Al Senior Pone & Hippy Boys : Hold My Hand
The Termites : I Made a Mistake
Bonnie Gayle : I Can’t Change My Skin
Grey Brothers : Big Man
Jackie Mittoo & The Soul Vendors : Midnight Hour
Prince Buster : High Blood Pressure
Amiel Moodie : Ratchet Knife
Johnny & The Attractions : Call Of The Drums
The Kingstonians : Mother Miserable
Delroy Wilson : I Shall Not Remove
Henry III : I’ll Reach The End
Horace Andy : Goodnight My Love

And they’re off!

Posted on March 14, 2023 by onedeckpete

Spring may be springing or maybe not but we’ve got in and sowed some seeds in the propagator on the windowsill. We’ve done some miner’s lettuce, giant sunflowers some tomatoes and some chillies along with some rows sowed outside (we’re pushing our luck but having a try anyway, what we got to lose?)

Years ago we bought some wild garlic bulblets on ebay and they’ve popped up yet again down the shady area behind the pond and are kept safe under the watchful eye of a plastic dalek. And the second lot of the giant garlic we bought is starting to peep through the inch or two of the leaf mulch in the raised bed. We don’t know if it’s the plastic protection on the top that has helped or the the fact that one of the Weeds cats spends a lot of time sleeping on top of it! Who knows but something is working!)

And here’s some spring inspired dubs to get those plants on their way.

Ain’t it sprung yet?

Posted on February 22, 2023 by onedeckpete

Sunday was lovely for a spot of gardening after a rather wet and windy Saturday. The lawn was cut, the beds got a bit of a tidy up and we even got caried away sowing some borage under the tree. It’ll probably won’t be the best spot for them and God knows if they’ll even germinate as it may have been sunny Sunday but who knows what the future weather has got in store for us.

And we even had a peek under the plastic covered raised bed and the elephant garlic is coming on a bit and the foxgloves that were once plugs have even survived after a bit of a change from the warmth of the kitchen windowsill to outside in the freezing cold.

Come Monday morning it was back to the cold weather again and we went down to the compost heap to stick a couple of tea bags in and to give it a turn. What was well suprising was how much heat was generated in the heap even overnight with the grass clippings, there was even a bit of steam coming off the heap after forking it over. Covering the heap with cardboard certainly keeps the heat in. Let’s hope we can get out there again this Sunday.

And here’s a wonderful tune for a Wednesday night from Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin called Loango Weaver. It’s from last years set “A Guide to the Birdsong of Western Africa by Various Artists” well worth checking out here.

Tuesday night dubbing

Posted on February 21, 2023 by onedeckpete

An excellent dub from the great Manasseh called Just One Dub found on a shortwave mix researching trip via Bandcamp this evening. It’s from a good few years ago (2013) but does that really matter? An excellent heavy dub and the vocal version is excellent as well (Cate Ferris – Blaze Bright).

To be played very loudly.

Weeds up to me knees

Madtone, gardening and life

Category Archives: Dub Gardening