Category Archives: Dub Gardening

Tunes doing well on a Wednesday evening

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A big cheers to Stinky Jim out of Auckland, New Zealand for making us aware of his release Spacial Awareness this morning and what a release! We don’t really know how to describe it apart it’s a right old mix up business of a set and one that we love here. This is something that will grow and grow on us and hopefully will do the same to you.

Most of the tracks are on average five minutes but they don’t seem that long at all and to be honest with you it would do no harm if they were extended time-wise. It’s a set of suprises too as we’re going through it again bits are jumping out at us which didn’t before.

We still not sure what’s our favourites are as it’s early days yet but Loose Carry cheers us up no end. Great steel pan hook that comes in and out mixed up with a bit of the Incredible Bongo Band which gives a great smiley vibe and it’s a lovely bit of bonkers (in the best way possible). This is the stuff!

Another lovely one here is Cry For The Ute a good groove with lots going on around it that you just got to keep listening and enjoy, “Yout them a take over” it’s subtle stuff. At the end a loop that blends in seamlessly will get you thinking “I know that, what the hell is it?”

We don’t want to go on anymore, have a listen and decide yourself. It’s excellent stuff in our book. Cheers Jim!

Just to let you know Jim also broadcasts the long running radio show on 95bFM out in New Zealand called Stinky Grooves no less and another radio show well worth listening to. The archive is here.

Gardening website of the month

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A big shout to our good gardening/music/radio friend from across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for starting us off on our new feature. We at Weeds (with the help of our gardening mates online and offline) will try and bring you once a month a gardening website that will hopefully inspire us all.

The first of the series is the excellent The Italian Gardening Project which is just brilliant. It was started to keep the old Italian gardening traditions alive (Nostalgia for Yesterday … Lessons for Today) and here’s a more in-depth explanation of why it was started (here).

The gallery on the site featuring some fantastic gardens and there’s some great videos about seed saving and tomato staking amongst lots more good stuff too.

One of our favourite posts is Canning Tomatoes with Mr. Ciccone. There’s some nice memories about a day of preparing and canning the produce with someone who knew a lot about the art and it sounded like a great day out including the supping of “espresso corretto, espresso “corrected” with a splash of whiskey” and some nice food imbibed with some home-made wine. Do go and have a look at the website as it’s well worth it and is bound give you ideas.

And Justin has picked an apt tune from the great Bunny Wailer as there’s some fine examples of fig trees on the website too.

Attention KMRT Shoppers

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We all love a bargain so here’s the studio audio of last Sunday’s KMRT Back to School Shortwave Special. As we all know KMRT is “The only official KMART radio station on Shortwave” (subject to availability and only while stocks last).

Expect all sort of Supermarket/Back to School type classics and at 44.24 there’s a mix from One Deck Pete called “A cleaner required to Aisle 5 please” and here’s the tracklist:
George Feledichuk – The Best To You (Excerpt)
Guerrilla Biscuits – RAR
Curator – Lullaby
We Buy Records – The We Buy Records Theme (MAP remix)
Horace Andy – Money Money – Black Star Liner – evol roots money mash Version
Eric Hilton – Flowering Soul

The best to you…

Dub, Gardening and Art makes sense

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Big shout to our good gardening friend Gerry Hectic for sending us a pic of what he harvested from his garden this week. Looking great! We are nearing the end of the main growing season but there’s still some time left. Send us your growing pics as we love them here and find them inspiring and send us a tune too!

Gerry sends us a great dub poetry recommendation from Lil Obeah Meets Isuru called Chaos Is Dub, a lovely bit of reggae from the excellent Romanian label Sound of Art to Come. Cheers for the pic and musical tip Gerry!

Grab yourself a Blue Light (Special)

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Do you enjoy shopping? Do you love bargains? We do here at Weeds and will be tuned in this weekend for the return of the supermarket themed station KMRT in the imaginary stations series. It’s a back to school shortwave special too!

Experience the thrill of a bustling supermarket live on shortwave this Sunday 18th September 2022 via WRMI on 9395 kHz at 2200 hrs UTC. There will be lots of blue light specials, bargains galore and also an appearance of “A cleaner required to Aisle 5 please” a mix from One Deck Pete featuring tunes by George Feledichuk, Guerrilla Biscuits, We Buy Records, Horace Andy and Eric Hilton.

Have a look at the trailer above to get you in the mood and have a couple of credit cards at the ready. Expect some great tunes “while stocks last” and some crazy price giveaways “75% off on selected items only”. Shortwave is the only place this weekend to find yourself that special offer!

The decision is made. The process has begun.

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Just to remind you all that on Sunday 11th September 2022 at 1000 UTC (11am UK time) there’s the return of the ethereal station Radio Lavalamp upon those shortwaves of ours.

Expect some chiilled and left-field tunes throughout the hour and at 27 minutes in there’s One Deck Pete with The Purple Nucleus of Creation 005 a mix of an alternative nature with tunes by Fila Brazillia, Past Palms and 100th Monkey. If you haven’t a shortwave radio, click the link here on Sunday morning. To tune in or not to tune in? “The decision rests with you.”

Found in the locale and in Deptford Fun City

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It’s great what you can find in the street. The other morning while on a walk we found this excellent book which was as good as new condition-wise which was plonked alongside other books in a cardboard box with “Please help yourself” on the front.

And what a book, The Kew Gardeners guide to growing Vegetables by Helena Dove is a mine of useful information on how to grow vegetables and is one to buy if you want some great guidance and some nice reference material on this veg gardening lark.

The Introduction including info on microclimates, soil, perennials, annuals and biennials, your essential gardening kit, crop rotation, hardening off and loads more interesting subjects. Then follows a comprehensive run down of the plants (from Okra to Sweetcorn) and interspersed throughout this section are some interesting projects including seed saving, windowsill salads and growing sweet potatoes from slips.

It’s the same with music, you think you know quite a bit and then a tune comes along and makes you rethink what you know. This book is a bit like that with the subject of gardening, it mentions American groundnut (aka potato bean), we’ve never heard of it. Peanuts are a type of legume, never knew that. All radishes have edible seed pods but some varieties are grown especially for them, no idea. If you see this book in the street lying in a box with “Please help yourself” on the front, it’s a mad coincidence or you’re in a multidimensional universe so stop and pick it up. Failing that, buy it online.

Also the other day we visited Deptford Poundland, this 6 in 1 seed collection above was a quid. It’s a nice mixture of seeds and one for starting off next year. We’ve never grown Cinnamon Basil before perhaps it’s time we did.

This post was written with the other week’s On The Wire on. Some excellent across the board selections as ever.

 

Pick up the garden fork and now breathe…

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The sun’s out again and it’s 27°C and very dry in the garden this afternoon.

Last week we heard Christine Walkden on Gardener’s Question Time who said she likes to give her garden a good water with just a watering can and it can take her up to 2 hours at a time.

Since ditching the hose after watching a great special about conserving water on Gardener’s World a while ago it now takes us quite a while too just using a watering can without a rose on the top. We enjoy the slow ritual, the endless walks back and forth to the tap, making sure the soil gets a good soaking. We probably wouldn’t like it that way if we were going to catch a train but it’s a nice thing to do on an early morning on a day off work or in the later evening after a day of toil.

Is there such a thing as “meditative gardening”? There was a lot of staring into space with one foot on a garden fork when we worked at the council so it may have been around for years.

Talking of meditative gardening, there’s a great horticultural themed set from Monster Rally (we have a feeling that someone may have mentioned this to us before, our mates Gerry Hectic, DJ Frederick or Justin Patrick Moore perhaps?) called Botanica Dream. It’s full of some lovely downtempo business and at the moment the track above is our favourite but they’re all excellent.

And here’s a promo from the Skybird Council Gardeners Association for The Scented Garden radio show for you all to enjoy.

And an episode of The Scented Garden from earlier this year for your gardening/listening pleasure. Tune in, turn on and sit yourself in the middle of a flower bed preferably and enjoy the flowers.

Never mind the heatwave

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Even in the heatwave we’ve had some visitors to the garden. The stag beetle (we’re sure it is) above didn’t seem to mind the high temperatures. They look brilliant when they’re flying over at dusk (looking for a mate) like some small army tank/helicopter hybrid machine. More on the stag beetle here.

As it says on the site it’s good to keep some dead and decaying wood lying about as it’s a vital habitat for them. So don’t “Keep it tidy” when it comes to some parts of the garden, the beetles will thank you for it.

Also the compost heap at the bottom of the garden seems to be thriving in the heat. We’re trying to give it a daily turn over with a garden fork making sure the ingredients are well mixed up which at the same time adds air into the pile this speeding up the rotting process. The pic below is pre “The Big Mix Up”. We prefer the traditional pile now as opposed to those dalek ones that seem to take the skin off your hands when giving it a fork over.

Enjoy this spell of cooler weather!

Life on the wild side

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It’s going to be hot this forthcoming week, we’re looking at nearly 30°C in SE23 and we think the garden is going to enjoy it. So get the watering, weekly feed and any fiddling with a hoe out of the way early and then park yourself in the shade and enjoy the weather.

The courgette/zucchinni plant we stuck in a pot as we couldn’t find any space (above) is doing well, giving us some nice flowers. The area around it with the raised beds of potatoes (below) are also on their way but impatient as we are, we keep looking around the plants and still only getting golf ball sized spuds.

The one raised bed of tomatoes are now setting fruit and we’re checking that there’s no side shoots forming and tying the main stalk to the support canes when we remember.

And on the wildlife tip, we’ve put another “pothole pond” down the wild bit (below) after being influenced by Bill Shimmers’ great pond here. We stuck some wood leading into the water after Bill mentioned in his reply of our effort on Twitter. “Any water body adds extra wildlife habitat to a garden. One thing I always include, any steep sided ponds need a sloping shelf or ramp to allow critters to get out as well as in. Stones or branches will do.” Our one is not exactly steep but we’re including the sticks to add further disguise to the former B&Q product container.

And in our main pic this week are the inhabitants of our pond, well part of the mob that are in there at the moment. And the big question is where do they disappear to? Enjoy this great weather when pondering on that thought.