Category Archives: Dub Gardening

On a harvest festival vibe

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We’ve had quite a few emails of late with pictures of harvests attached that got us thinking, is it that time of the year again or is it a bit earlier (we saw that blackberries were ready a few weeks before they usually are).

The first is from Rich in the Lake District of his damsons in the garden (above). We’ve never grew Damsons before and don’t know that much about them apart from seeing a jar of the jam once on a Women’s Institute stall at a church fete. Just seen a few other recipes for them here. Cheers Rich!

Ta to Debby H in north London who sent us the above. “Here’s our second crop of pears, and there’s still more to come! All from a tiny tree! Also in the picture is our latest crop of cherry tomatoes. So much garden produce this year.” You’re right there Debby!

Great to hear from Justin Patrick Moore in in Cincinnati who sent us a snap of his carrot harvest this year. We love those red coloured ones.

It’s funny with odd coloured varieties, we imagine the different coloured carrots are just like the orange ones but once we grew white beetroot as we love beetroot here. It did taste like beetroot but it just wasn’t the same without the red juice staining the bread in the cheese sandwich it was in!

Finally some tomato pictures from Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay. Top picture are a few varieties he has grown including Beefheart black, Crimea, grape and Russian. The above two are Russian beefsteak. Great stuff Spike!

Thanks to everyone for sending in those harvest pictures and keep sending them in!

Don’t try this at home

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Seen at Herne Hill Market the other week, a great one from the artist called Julie Lomoe from 1969! Great graphics with a wonderful sense of humour about Hip Ski Tripping. Far out! That’s a cool jumper the skier is wearing and also some nice ski kecks.

Polytunnel business

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The polytunnel is now up and we are in business! There’s nowt much in there now apart from some assorted chillies, a few different types of tomatoes and some freshly sown spinach but we’re sure that’ll change in a week or so.

It took us a good morning and a bit of “That isn’t the right piece, where’s 5B?”, the thing falling apart and it looking like a skeleton of a whale on the lawn, and parts moving when they weren’t supposed to but we got there in the end. After a good tighten up, the frame was put into place (above). Thanks to Alan C for lots of tips, especially this great one: “I put a layer of woodchip under mine but some use wood strips or gravel/stones. This gives a nice evenly flat base and slows the frame rusting – the woodchip quickly dries out and separates the poles from the soil.”

As soon as we put the cover on we dug a little trench and tucked the excess of the cover into the ground and put broken concrete slabs, bricks and whathaveyou to weigh it down and then backfilled with soil and more woodchip so it is hopefully stays put in the wind.

As we said there’s not much in there at the moment but we’ll update you. Cheers to Alan C again for his tips and advice. Big up all Polytunnel crew!

 

 

Trees and pears in north London

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Thanks to Debby H for sending us some pictures yesterday. The first is a council planted hibiscus tree (as Debby said, it was common practice for councils to plant London Planes in the capital and not much else, years ago). The tree seemed to be surviving well during this prolonged drought we are going through this year. Sadly, her plant at home (below) is not doing as good as the above example and “has shed its leaves in favour of producing a flower.” That is so sad but what a wonderful flower.

We were told recently by a chap who cultivates and sells plants for a living, that it will be next year where we may see what damage has been caused to the plants through the stress of this drought. Some good news though, as Debby picked her pears and herethey are in (below). She is now waiting for them to soften up and ripen. Thanks for the pictures and for keeping us updated.

Preparation, preparation, preparation

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This afternoon we cleared an area (which once housed a greenhouse many moons ago) in preparation for a polytunnel which will arrive sometime this week. Thanks to Alan C who gave us some great advice about purchasing one, as we didn’t know much about what was on offer out there.

We weren’t the only ones that were excited today, there were a Blackbird and a Robin who swooped down a few times even when we walked a little way away, we must’ve disturbed some food in the area or someting.

Please don’t take our sunlight away

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Thanks to Debby H for this great (inverted) image of the partial eclipse last night taken in north London at the maximum at 7.13 pm. What an excellent photograph!

And here’s two eclipse related tracks, the first from the The Eclipse Band with a very aptly titled Daylight Robbery. And another, from DNN called Eclipse Dub.

A mad one for a Sunday

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An absolutely bonkers tune heard on this week’s On The Wire here originally from 2007 by Paul Rooney called Lucy from Lanchashire.

Fenny who played said tune, mentioned that Lucy is a spryte that was found in a pair of puma pumps that were hanging on a telegraph wire over a bus stop on the A666 also know as the Manchester Road, Bolton Road, or Blackburn Road.

Well worth listening to all 16 minutes of it. More on the release here and more on Paul Rooney here. We are ashamed that we never knew about this tune the first time around.

“The stories outline the role of dub music in thwarting a Satanic prophecy of world domination originating in the witches cauldrons of Lancashire, and involve the many correspondences between Lancashire and the Satanic: the Pendle witches, the A666 motorway, The Fall’s occult interests, and many more.”

Lucy Over Lancashire

The new wave of continuous wave

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This great track above was heard on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI (here) which is as you know, a great show from our Dub Gardening friend Dr Strangedub and DJ baby Swiss.

The track is from Jah Wobble and Youth called “Inspector out of Space” and it’s the Youth Inner Space Dub. There’s some morse featured a few times throughout the tune. Any CW people out there that can can decode it for us?

Talking of Samuel Morse:

 

 

 

Anyone want any tomatoes?

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A bit thanks to Alan C who sent us up some great pictures of his harvest from his Corfe Mullen allotment down in Dorset. First off is his polytunnel that looks so abundant with growth even with this heatwave and lack of rain.

“The polytunnel is a bit messy as you can see (above) but the picture is after I had harvested so there will be plenty more. This is the side with cherry-type tomatoes (toddler), the plum ones are on the other side. You can just about see a couple of Midas chilli plants in pots at the back as well.”

He went on to say, “The extreme weather and ongoing drought hasn’t been good for some things, the peas and beans are struggling, and the potato crop was down with a lot
smaller spuds, but the squash don’t seem bothered.”


If you remember Alan has lots of tubs of potatoes on the go, which is a great idea. “I harvest twice a week, and this is today’s return (above) – over a kilo of spuds from the one tub I emptied (about 15 more tubs left to go) and nearly 1.5 kilos of tomatoes.  Plus, a slightly overgrown cucumber and a nice onion and beetroot.”

“We were already struggling to eat the tomatoes I picked last week so I now need to come up with some new recipes for them, we can give some away, but the neighbours don’t want any more and my daughter is allergic to them.”

Cheers for the pictures Alan and everything is looking brilliant down there and I imagine he’s put in a lot of hard work with everything, especially with watering.

Anyone on here know any good recipes for a glut of tomatoes? We’re thinking of a big pasta sauce and freeze it but it’s all about what space is available in the freezer isn’t it?