Category Archives: Dub Gardening

Slug–U–Like?

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“Slugs, what are they good for, absolutely nothing” as the song goes. We can’t think of a good reason for having them in the garden. We know that slugs are important as they provide food for birds, insects and all sorts and if we removed them we’d mess up the natural balance but they drive us wild here. We’re sure Bob Flowerdew or someone else reckoned they collected them and imprisoned them in a 1970’s type plastic clothes basket containing salad and garden waste and made them work all day making compost.

We at Weeds would like to redress the balance, so if you’ve heard good things about slugs (apart from providing food for wildlife) we would like to hear from you. We want to hear your tales of slugs who have saved lives, foreseen the future or have helped people to find their way back home on a foggy night. Please email onedeckpete at gmail dot com with your story (do include an address) and the winner of the best story will receive a selection of what’s left over in our seed tin. You don’t get prizes like that offered on other blogs!

There’s no real reason

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Yesterday with no plan in our heads we tidied up what we call the “wild bit” at the bottom of the garden. We used to grow veg there but it doesn’t really get that much sun so a couple of years ago we sowed some “bee bombs” and what other wild seeds we could find and the area went a bit wild.

We were very influenced by this wonderful pond made by Bill Shimmers at the time of sowing the wild seeds (above) and added our own versions in a smaller and cheaper way utilising a slow cooker crock pot, a dutch pot that only had one handle and a tupperware box. An example of “down at heel” pond construction at its finest and nowhere as great as Bill’s. We are sure at the time Bill replied to our tweet at the time saying kindly that even the smallest addition of water in the garden will help the wildlife. What is great though yesterday we saw the odd frog in one, a drowned slug or two in the other and some very strange moving things that could have just been the “floaters” in our eyes playing up or the effects of dehydration. That was without our glasses on as well so there could well have been more stuff moving about.

As it was very cool down there for most of the day (compared to the 32 degrees C in the sun) we just started and kept on going, taking stuff away and adding the odd different plants and herbs we have about the garden already. We reckon it will be an ongoing project as we can see a couple of plants we want to take out but we don’t want it too sparse as the wildlife needs a hiding place. There was no plan, make it up on the spot gardening innit?

Enjoy the last couple of days of intense heat as we’re supposed to be going back to the early 20 degree C next week. Here’s to more wildlife in the garden.

A strange strawberry and a tune for a Wednesday

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A few months ago we got some seeds (we think they were from Mr Fostergills) and they were a mixed strawberry (red and white). Turns out they are an alpine type strawberry and they are not too bad taste-wise. It was like having a white beetroot a few years ago, it was great but we’ve had some many red beetroots our brains couldn’t compute when it came to a white one!

And found on Bandcamp last night while researching a forthcoming shortwave mix we came across this great stripped down version from outa Darlington from the band Bubamara called Lu Core Meu Dub Version. An excellent tune!

One radio show is never enough

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This Sunday 3rd September 2023 the Imaginary Stations crew bring you two shows via the ionosphere on shortwave. The first transmission will be beamed to Europe via the services of Shortwave Gold in Germany at 2000 utc on 6160 kHz and it will be WTBR, tea and biscuits radio.

Expect a teatime assortment of tunes, some musical crackers (without cheese) and a urn full of the finest tea money can buy!

Then later at 2200 hrs UTC on 9395 kHz  via WRMI we bring you another episode of CTRN for all of us who love that wonderful mode of transport, the train.

So tune in, make yourself comfortable, please don’t put your feet on the seats, do have your tickets ready for inspection and enjoy a nice ride across the country by shortwave radio.

One for the Bank Holiday

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Big thanks to Jesse Yuen for his last post here and for sending us this tune recommendation. As he says in his own words: “My last few months have been soundtracked by this release from Cousin. Downtempo, dubwise, low-end and percussive!” Sounds great and well up our street Jesse!

When the chips are down

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The back garden path was looking well worn what with weeds growing between the 1970’s inspired crazy paving, very loose slabs and all that combined with a sinister lean towards down the hill. Let’s say it wasn’t the most safest garden path to walk on so the other weekend we made a start on trying to improve it.

First job was to rid the path of the slabs and chuck them by the pond. It’s looking like a concrete jungle up there at the moment so it’s better we don’t show any pictures! The concrete underneath the path would take lots of work to get out so we thought we’d best leave it in.

Over a couple of evenings with 6 bags of woodchip (on offer on Wickes), some decking boards and a couple of lengths of 1″ x 1″ procured we had a go at a wood chip path, allotment style.

We remember a mate telling us a few years ago that there was a craze of people going around pinching estate agents boards for their wooden posts which were being put to better use at local allotments in the production of wood chip paths. We wonder if that was a real thing or were we having our leg pulled? Well anyway those 1″ x 1″ came in well handy for making that path safer and looking a lot better.

Music is a can of worms, part whatever

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We’ve just finished a mix for a forthcoming shortwave radio transmission which features this classic by Felice Taylor called “I feel love coming on” which was written and produced by Paul Politi and the great Barry White. We knew the Felice Taylor tune well but just now discovered the Barry White and The Love Unlimited version. We love the spoken intro, Barry White in fine style.

Talking of the great Barry White, it brought us to thinking of this classic by Love Unlimited “Under the influence of love” which is a top tune and available on Discogs for less than £4.

Little did we know that Felice Tayor did a version of it (love the Four Tops musical reference in it) and the legendary Radio Jackie used the instrumental version by the Bob Keene Orchestra as their theme tune. We do love these musical connections!

COOL down the pace

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Last weekend’s transmission of Imaginary Stations (the show that features music you probably won’t hear elsewhere on shortwave) is now up on Mixcloud. This episode is the station COOL “Cool tunes for Summer moods” featuring some music that evokes sunshine even though London last weekend wasn’t experiencing much of that.

23 minutes into the broadcast in is a mix from One Deck Pete called a “Seven Inch Single Summer Special” featuring
Earl Brown – Get Together
Stereolab – Miss Modular
Freda Payne – Unhooked Generation
Anthony Johnson – Zuggi Zeng Version/Roots Radics Dedication To Flabba Holt 2 Martel Robinson – Follow you

So get out in the garden, perch yourself on a deckchair, stick some headphones on and blast the show for maximum pleasure. “Summertime and the living is easy” as Our ‘enry once sang.