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:
Here’s a very chilled 6.04 minutes by High Skies called The Shipping Forecast off an LP called Fluidities by Jonathan Hughes with guests. An excellent ambient track with a nautical theme.
And talking about nautical themes, here’s a photograph of the sea from Herne Bay taken yesterday evening. Zoom in with a magnifying glass and you’ll see from left to right, a very tiny Red Sands Sea Fort, a container ship passing through the wind farm and next to that an even smaller Shivering Sands Sea Fort.
If you remember, Red Sands Sea Fort was where the classic Dangerman Not So Jolly Roger episode was filmed in 1996. Pictures from the show above and below, and the whole episode is up online here. The picture below features the very large (250 ft) Medium Wave antenna of Radio 390 that was still in operation on the fort.
And here’s a version of a important tune that featured in the show. For more on the actual tunes played on the show, have a look here.
We heard from Debby H in north London yesterday as she sent some great photographs of how her garden is doing. She wrote “We grew Capri Red pepper plants last year and tried to keep the plants going over the winter. I was convinced that at least 2 of the 3 plants had died, but they came alive again in June and are now bearing large peppers again!” Wow they look great Debby; they are some large peppers!
We love her first harvest of potatoes (above) and the picture of her Cherry tomatoes that “have gone wild” (below).
She also told us about the greengages she harvested this year, “This is a tiny fraction of the many kilos that our one tree has produced this year. We have never had much off it previously. It must be the heat!” Whatever it is they are doing brilliantly. Cheers Debby!
Cheers to Rich in the Lake District for sending us this the other day and wrote “This got me pondering the problems people encounter when trying to get to work on time.” He added “You get used to that sort of congestion up here. We even knew the shepherds!“ Brilliant Rich, we love the photograph!
Cheers to Rich up in the Lake District for the great picture of what the weather was like up there today. Looks a bit cloudy, if you have any rain to spare in those lakes, could some be passed down here as our lawn is looking so blimmin dry.
Someone at work was telling us the other week about their brother-in-law who has a lovely green lawn even during this summer of draught 2026. She was saying “He’s been watering it morning, noon and night and it looks so green, not like mine”. She went onto say, he’s been watering it so much so that Thames Water contacted him and worried thinking he had a water leak on his property as the water bill had shot up so much. How mad is that? Remember big brother is watching you(r lawn).
Cheers for the picture Rich!
Here’s a book we discovered again in the Weeds gardening bookcase (above). It’s a wonderful book, interviewing gardeners and asking them that one big question “Why do you garden?” All sorts of mad stuff in here from a man who mows grass for the council to commercial rhubarb growers in Yorkshire who grow it under candlelight (below).
We’re asking you the same question. “Why do you garden?” Answers on a postcard or to one deck pete (at) gee male dot com.
Thanks to Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay, for sending these pictures of the fruits of his labours and garden. There’s some great looking produce there.
That has come around quick hasn’t it? It was seemingly a few weeks ago when we heard from him when he was preparing his ground with some back breaking work (here and picture below). Good stuff Spike!
If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are all archived here.
Earlier this year in March, we germinated some Marvel of Peru (AKA the Four O’clock Plant) seeds that we purchased from Real Seeds as it sounded like a strange plant. As it said on Wikipedia, “The flowers usually open from late afternoon or at dusk (namely between 4 and 8 o’clock), giving rise to one of its common names. The flowers then produce a strong, sweet fragrance throughout the night, then close in the morning.” Well, we had to have some of that!
We started off a few seedlings, gave a few away and kept a couple for ourselves. The above picture is one from our good gardening friend Adrienne who said “The flowers are getting better and better. Must love the heat!” It looks brilliant.
Here’s the couple we have kept (above). There’s a small one to the left of what we think is a larger version of the plant (with no flowers as yet) in the reused food bin. The small version has started to flower and hopefully will bring us more! Fingers crossed that it is a Marvel Of Peru in the bin.
We’ve read that the plant is invasive in hotter climates but thankfully not in the UK as the annual frosts kill it. We may bring in the one in the food bin over winter as it seems a great plant! Interesting stuff about the plant here.
Great to hear from Debby H in north London yesterday, she’s just back from a break away and sent us pictures from her back garden. She said what with the heatwave “Thanks to our indoor and outdoor watering systems, our plants seem mostly ok” and that’s good to hear! Sadly, “The cosmos isn’t doing so well yet, but there’s still hope for later this summer. It’s the same with ours too, none of the seeds took or if they did, the slugs took them right in front of our noses. Her Zephyranthes Robusta are having another flush of flowers (above). More on the vibrant Argentine rain lily here.
“The big daisies seem very happy” (above) in the tidy bed above. They do seem healthy and so does the lawn, not like ours at Weeds HQ!
The phomium tenax flowers are now mostly turning into seed (above).
And finally, “The dwarf sunflowers are now in full bloom” and look how great they look! Cheers Debby for sending us the updates and do send us more!
We have a bit of a minor leg injury due to carrying heavy stuff about a week Sunday, so we took it very easy in the garden yesterday. After a very light “tip around with a pair of secateurs” we tuned into WAVE from Imaginary Stations on the ATS – 20+ shortwave radio we bought earlier this year. It’s a cheap and cheerful radio and it has some faults but overall, it isn’t bad for the cheap price.
We heard the great mix from our mate Kit G5KIT in Bristol live on air and quoting him a few days ago “I don’t know what it is, but both Dub and Eastern European music both seem to really suit short wave propagation, they just sound …right.” He’s so correct there! Tune in to the studio recording below and Kit’s mix is at 30 minutes in.
Here’s the track listings:
Deep Reggae Sound System – Midnight Dub Waves
Pat Flashman – Summer Dub
The Heptones – Sea of Dub
Groovy Waters – Rock the Casbah
And here’s a few from the Weeds garden including a very small baby sun rose we were given by a friend from work on Friday which was feeling sorry for itself when we put it in the Belfast sink later that evening but on Sunday we even had a flower!
The teasel is attracting all sorts of bugs and pollinators (above) and the cardoon (below) which we bought many years ago at Shannon’s (RIP) survived a blackfly attack after we sprayed some very diluted washing liquid water on it.
And the Globe Thistle is doing well too! Happy gardening everyone.
Weeds up to me knees 