Category Archives: Guest Gardeners

The Blue Peter Garden at the grass roots of dub

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Here’s a new mix from One Deck Pete called “An introduction to Dub Gardening” and goes out to all dub gardeners everywhere and we welcome contact from (dub and non dub) gardeners wherever they may be. Dedicated to the late Percy Thrower.
The mix features:
Augustus Pablo – Melody Dub
Soulware – Augmented Seed (Dub Version)
Biggabush – Beat Dem in Dub
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – Return to the Branches (no hams mix)
Vassell Meka – Flowers Dub
Madtone – Compost your mind

We’re not completely sure where the Dub Gardening phrase originates from but it may (or may not and we apologise if it was somebody else) have something to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub (alongside DJ baby Swiss) who brings you the The Echo Chamber which is broadcast on KFAI every Wednesday morning from 8 am-Noon UK time here.

A good few ago the good doctor put together a gardening related mix called In The Garden of dub which is below and has also been featured up on Weeds a few times but well worth posting up again! Features lots of artists inluding Singers & Players (ft. Prince Far I), Earlyworm, Madtone, Finn The Giant, Juno Gad Allstars meet Earlyworm, Leroy Sibbles, Jah Wobble, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bakshish, DubXanne (ft. Ranking Roger) and lots lots more. Big shout to all dub gardeners.

Cosmos taking over

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Hi to Debby H for sending us pictures of the state of play in her garden when it comes to continuing cosmos flowers at the moment and it is really crazy stuff. All the garden borders have the plants in them and the volunteer/self seeded one in the north bed has the most amazing colour (above).

“I have borders on 3 sides of my lawn, and there are cosmos flowers in all of them, including the northern border where I didn’t even plant any!” said Debby. They really are brilliant and as we said a few posts ago we ask our readers to send us some cosmos pictures next year, wherever you are in the world. Cheers Debby, you’ve started off a growing cosmos trend hopefully!

A journey through the cosmos

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Big thanks to Debby H in north London who has sent us another great photograph of her cosmos patch that is looking brilliant even at the end of October. As Debby wrote “My cosmos plants are still producing an unbelievable amount of flowers for the time of year, and there’s more buds still coming! This is very similar to one that I sent to you previously but I have attached it just to show you the amount of flowers that are still blooming.” They certainly are blooming. Cheers Debby.

The day the lakes stood still

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Cheers to Rich R up in the Lake District for sending us some rather bonkers aurora pics from the other Thursday. Crazy, crazy stuff indeed!

Seeing this cosmic coloured sky, we wouldn’t be suprised if there’s also reports of a Gort-like robot out of The Day The Earth Stood Still seen walking down (carrying a large tote bag of course) to the Village Shop to get some lovely home-made confectionery before he starts his night-shift guarding flying saucers and the like. Cheers Rich for the wonderful pictures. All we can say here is wow!

More from a north London garden (and France)

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We’ve just received some pictures from Debby H now we’re into the autumn season. She took a photo of the red robin bush (above) in the south of France just before she left to come back to London. “I took a photo of the red robin bush in the garden there. It has grown new red leaves which I have never seen before at this time of year. It usually happens in spring and sometimes in autumn. It just goes to show that this September has been much cooler and wetter than usual in that part of the world.” She’s got a point.

Back in north London things are still looking great, with the cosmos (above) still thriving. “Not quite so many flowers but pretty good for late September” and she’s right. There’s even some volunteer/self seeded ones growing alongside the path (below). The one we bought at B&Q after being influenced by Debby’s cosmos still has flowers and some new buds.

The sedum which we’re partial to are flowering and the golden rod is looking brilliant too (below).

Excellent stuff Debby. Hope the garden continues to look great even in the next few weeks as we approach the end of the year. Cheers again Debby!

Big shout going out in the direction of the lakes

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A very big thanks to Rich R for sending us some great pictures from the Lake District over the last couple of weeks. The one above is from Derwent Water in Keswick looking towards Borrowdale. My gosh, now you’re talking! And the one below was taken on his evening stroll, you can’t any better view than that in our opinion.

And below is a very odd moon making an appearance up there, the other night below, crazy stuff. The Lake District looks like one wonderful place Rich and ta for the pics, they are always welcomed.

Also cheers for the confectionary goodies emergency parcel (from the excellent Village Shop, Braithwaite) last week from the Lake District Rich. To say they were appreciated was an understatement! Thanks very much for that.

And the musical accompliment to this post is this week’s episode of the always excellent Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room on IDA Radio (Tallinn). A big cheers to RD for playing Madtone’s WP1 at 54 mins in. It’s a wonderful 2 hour show and well worth listening to.

Who says dahlias are boring

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Big thanks to Mike G and Julia (Ace photos as usual by the way Julia!) for sending pictures of their wonderful dahlias that have been loving the decent weather up there near Coventry for the last two days. The black dahlia (above) is really something else!

The one above is another favourite of ours, a classic of dahlias! And as for the orange one below… We’ll be buying some tubers for the spring, we will.

And these pictures have given us an excuse to repost up an example of that rare genre called dahlia dub from Madtone called A dahlia state of mind.

And another dahlia themed track this time by Asta Hiroki.

And a final one by Jean-Michel Serres.

What a difference four days make

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It doesn’t take long, just a few days of dryness to ruin what you have in your garden. Our good friend Gerry Hectic came back the other week from Gilles Peterson‘s We Out Here festival and his tomato/strawberry experiment in one of those strawberry pots was looking the worse for wear. It is totally sad to see the before (above) and after (below).

Please tell us there’s a happy ending Gerry!

And to change up the vibes on this sad event here’s a wonderful number from Cyril Diaz Et Son Orchestre with Feeling Happy. May this tune lift spirits and sad dry plants everywhere.

 

Allotments and auroras

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Cheers to Rich R for two brilliant photographs from his locality up in the lake district. The first is the night sky from his front garden when he went outside to see the meteor shower but caught this beautiful aurora borealis instead!

And the above is the view from his allotment. Best view from an alllotment ever, you reckon? Cheers for the pics Rich!

 

More from north London

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Cheers to Debby H again for sending us an update on her garden. It’s looking great by the way! These two pictures of the ornithogalum are brilliant. You can see on the picture below that four flowers are now clearly visible. They are something else.

Also the cosmos (below) are still going strong and the flowers are still well colourful.

As Debby wrote “Finally, the zephyranthes bulbs are blooming. We have never managed to get more than one or two flowers in a year. Now we have four coming at once! Amazing what a change of compost will do!” That plant is great. We’ve never grown those before but probably will now as there’s all sort of varieties out there. We were influenced with the cosmos and will look into these bulbs too. That’s what gardening is all about, being inspired by what other people grow in their garden. Cheers Debby!