The Kenneth Bager Experience – Biological Bread – Music for dreams
A big new years greetings to all from us here at weeds. We start the new year off as we mean to go on, with good tunes! This one’s from The Kenneth Bager Experience from Denmark and starts as a nice chilled out affair then builds into a bit of a catchy balearic one and it certainly don’t disappoint!
So may your gardening exploits be good for the forthcoming year and may we all have fewer frosts and slug damage in our gardens. Big up 2015!
A very big thanks to Ron Finley top gardener from across the pond (above, holding what possibly might be a north holland blood red onion, one of the packs of seeds I got off ebay cheap the other day. Or is it a variety of leek?) for picking these five top tunes for us. Cheers to Sonya M of the Facebook group Last Gang in Town for letting us know about Ron in the first place!
Cheers again to Ron for sending us the excellent tracks. Do yourself a favour and whack up the volume and listen to the tunes, further proof that Gardening and music DO mix!
Best wishes to all dub (and non-dub as we don’t discriminate here) gardeners all around the world for 2015 from us here at weeds up to me knees. May the frosts stay away from your tender plants!
This tune from the mighty Mungo’s Hi-Fi went through my mind as I spent a couple of hours in the garden today. It was nice to be back, cleaning up, cutting back and getting that dustbin incinerator back into action!
As Kirk Brandon of Theatre Of Hate sang all those years ago “I incinerator, I incinerate, I incinerate” But he forgot to also put in the words “the neighbours are angrily slamming their windows shut, their windows shut, THEIR WINDOWS SHUT!”
Talking about Theatre of Hate, a few years ago I featured in the blog this stone that I found on the beach in Camber Sands. Ain’t it a ringer for old Brandon’s mob’s logo. Big up gardening!
Christmas Eve started on a good tip today with the postlady delivering the 30 packets of seeds I bought on e-bay for £6 odd the other day. There were some great stuff in there, flowers, herbs and vegetables and not a duplicate packet of cress seeds in sight! And they were well in their sell-by dates as well.
Talk about getting a good deal, I recommend everyone having a look on ebay (but not too often as we don’t want to put the local garden centre out of business!) On the veg tip I got some butternut squash, leek, cabbage, red onion, two varieties of tomato (gardeners delight and moneymaker, two decent varieties) beetroot, courgette and pepper (sweet minimix.) As for flowers lots of annuals including aster, cherry rose nasturtium, phlox and nigella amongst lots more. Bargain!
I even spent an hour or so today tipping about in the garden and sowed some leek seeds in a tray under a cloche. I know it’s a bit previous, but who knows what the weather will bring, saying that the weatherman mentioned some cold nights and frosts to come.
So a big festive greetings to all gardeners everywhere and let’s hope 2015 is one good year when it comes to the garden!
* Not sung to Crass’ “Banned from The Roxy” unless you want to.
Walking down Dean Street, Soho last week I spotted this great apple tree growing from a basement.
What made me laugh more than anything was the first line on the information sheet fixed to the front fence, “First keep your hands off my apple tree which has taken 15 years to grow.” A nice tree with some great fruit on it even in mid-December!
Thanks to the Rt Hon David Rodigan for playing the new tune from the legendary Jamaican duo Keith & Tex called “Back into your world” on his show of late. It’s a tune and a half and features a lovely dub from Ticklah and top bass from Victor Rice whose great dub of a Dubmatix tune was featured on Sounds from the South here. A tune to blast out loud on the stereo while bidding on veg and herb seeds on ebay.Earlier tonight I had a look through my seed tin and made a list of what seeds I was down on which prompted me to look on e-bay. It’s a good job I did as I got a bargain, 30 packs of seeds for £6 odd with postage (let’s hope there’s not a load of duplicates and some well out of date!)
Have a look on e-bay too as you never know what you’ll get. I just tapped in “assorted herb and vegetable seeds.” Good luck!
Found this on Beatport the other night, a rather nice dubbed out affair on a chilled out tip. A tune to have on the stereo loud while flicking through those seed catalogues and dreaming of the better weather. Roll on the spring!
A big shout to Jochen of Splintercell Sound out of Germany for getting in touch and for letting us use some great pics of his veg cultivation. He’s been growing veg for a good few years in a limited space using minimalist techniques but still gets some great results (as these images show!) with the aid of his greenhouse and some tricks learnt along the way!
Alongside growing other plants, he got fascinated with cultivating Bonsai. He read a lot about horticulture, studying books, blogs and online forums and did his first ‘experiments’ in the small yard of his parents house.
After school he completed an apprenticeship with a breeder of agricultural seeds, studied horticulture for one year, worked at the Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food and now is studying Urban Planning. Sounds like a good grounding for this veg growing lark!
Most of the plants are grown in pots as he only has limited space and has a small greenhouse on top of his carport (above). As he says “it’s urban gardening!” Brilliant!
He grows a lot of different vegetables and plants and always tries to use special strains and varieties. He told us one year nearly every plant was blue; blue potatoes, blue kohlrabies, blue carrots etc. Brilliant, well up my street as blue is one of my favourite colours but I am not sure what I think if it was served up on my dinner plate!
He also tries to grow something interesting like melons or special tomato or chili strains because of his limited space and he tells me that this years cucumber-harvest was amazing! I’ve only tried growing them outdoors twice and haven’t had much success but these below in his greenhouse look brilliant!
Even more up our street, he’s part of Splintercell Sound and also promote a regular party called “Feel like Jumping” in Münster where they play (rocksteady, early reggae and dancehall and conscious Rap.) Here’s a mix on their great soundcloud site (with lots of modern “roots” tunes!) which is well up our street :
Busy Signal – Money Flow/Greetings (Ribbidibi) Two videos in one as played by The Rt Hon David Rodigan over the past few weeks which utilise a couple of familiar rhythms from yesteryear. Especially for everyone who’s suffering with the pre xmas flu!
A big congrats to Si and all the team at The Dirt for winning the award for the “best non-music show” on Fab Radio International. Great stuff!
This week’s show is up online here and features lots on cheese from the team, Gentleman Gardener Geoff and blog of the week is Fromage Homage.
Our contribution to the show this week Sounds From The South is at 22.24 (with yours truly on the blower introducing it) with a story from my council gardening days about spring bulbs. Tune of the week is The Mexicano with Move Up Starsky. The Mexicano aka Rudy Grant, is the brother of one Eddie Grant who is a bit of a keen gardener so I hear.
Weeds up to me knees 