Category Archives: Jazz Gardening

How can I understand the flies?

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fungus-gnatA big thanks to everyone on the Tim and Joe on BBC Leeds Facebook Group for their help on the escalating fungus gnat situation on the kitchen windowsill. Do join the Facebook group (here) for some brilliant information, answers to your gardening questions and tips galore!Fungus gnatsWe’ve a few pots of various herbs that have attracted a load of those pesky gnats of late. Now after posting on the group, there’s a combination of grit on the top of the pots, yellow sticky traps, a sprinkling of cinnamon, a lack of water and finally a trap of cider vinegar with a couple of drops of washing up liquid in it. If this lot don’t work, the pots will be forced outside as we can’t take them damn midges any longer!

7 degrees celsius selection

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Here’s two tunes for this cold January night. The first is a deep one from Intrusion called A Gentle Embrace as heard on BBC Radio Lancashire’s On The Wire last week as part of an excellent mix put together by Jim Ingham. The full mix is available here. Big up Steve, Fenny and Jim!

And the second comes thanks to our good friend Dr Strangedub who played this one from Gold-E-Locks featuring Jah Hero called International on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI. You can download the track for free too!

New Year, New Idea

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top tip 2016Are you a bit like us at weeds who leave plastic plant labels in the ground and forget all about them? Then a few months down the line when you’re tipping around with a hoe you shatter them into little pieces?

Well we here at weeds have a clever solution for you. We’ve got a small purple plastic box that we leave in a central position in the garden and if we ever find a stray label we stick it in the box. When it’s full, after a good old scrub with Bar Keepers Mate, we use the labels again. We are so chuffed with our idea we might patent it and put it into immediate production. Any backers out there?

Big New Years shout to all our friends and may it be a good one!

Who put that moustache on me King Tubby LP?

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Defaced value

Following on to our last post with the customised 7″ sleeves book, a big shout goes out to Strictly Kev (DJ Food) for letting us know about the great site “Deface Value.” It features all manner of creatively vandalised record covers which have either been found or intentionally altered. Have a butchers here, you will smile!

David Mancuso’s been in our loft again…

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record covers book_1

The other day we rediscovered this mad old book/fanzine in the loft while getting the christmas decorations out. It’s 24 pages of home-made 7 inch record sleeves (the front and back covers of 12 singles) and originally purchased for a handful of shrapnel from a charity shop in Farringdon many many moons ago.

record covers book 5

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record covers book 2

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Any ideas on who or why? Any info appreciated, as “it’s daft as,” as a good council gardening mate of ours used to say. We at weeds love a record sleeve/label that has been defaced in the name of love (“to my number 1 man/woman” etc) so do send us examples of any you have in your collection.

Big up the defaced record sleeve. And whilst we’re here, a happy new year to all of our readers/gardening mates worldwide!

(Nearly) on a festive tip!

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jingle bells

A big festive gardening greetings to one and all!

As that supposedly Santa bloke/Saint Nick approaches and the solstice is on it’s way, it’s only fitting that we post up this oldie but goodie up on the blog to celebrate. This scratched reggae 7 inch blank out of the island of Jamaica (from the late Coxsone Dodd’s stable) was found in a second-hand shop in Coventry in the late 1970’s (the legendary “John’s” in Hillfields.) It’s seen better days but who cares, it’s a tune!

https://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/jingle-bells-unknown

Any info on this oldie but goodie is well appreciated (“WI-0-608-A” Matrix number fans) as we know nothing about this blank 7″ apart from it may be from 1964 as the other side of it (M Robinson – Follow You) was released in the UK on the Port-o-jam label that year. Season’s greetings to one and all!

If this global warming lark keeps a going, we’ll all be having a Bailey’s with ice out in the garden come Christmas day afternoon after a morning of weeding!

The good, the bad and the flexi

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bones xmassThrough the post today came the excellent x-raymass flexi-disc from The Real Tuesday Weld featuring Marcella Puppini with Those were the days. It’s a lovely flexicard featuring on the playable side, an image of one of those Soviet bone bootlegs (more on those fantastic records here.)

If you want one of the x-raymass flexi’s, they are only a fiver plus postage and are available here.

Now the ugly…wogan

This flexi’s been in my possession since coming through my mum’s letterbox around 1973. As it says on Discogs “Rare promotional flexi featuring the voice of Terry Wogan (the mystery voice concerned here.) This competition ran through to 31st January 1974 for various Lever Brothers consumer products.”

Obviously not a collector’s item as no one has it for sale or wants one on Discogs and I can only wonder what the fantastic prizes were, a family pack of Vim perhaps? Ah, those were the days (my friend.)

Cyprus calling, Cyprus calling…

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A big cheers to Haji Mike out of the lovely island of Cyprus for getting in touch and for sending us a pic of his Lemon Verbena bush. He writes “It’s in a shady place so the sun doesn’t get to it much in the summer and in the winter it gets some protection from the cold winds off the mountains” but looking at it now it’s looking great! Mike also mentioned a lot of people locally call it Mexican Oregano. Has anyone heard it called that before?

Anyway it’s a great smelling shrub and makes a refreshing tea, what more do you want out of a plant, get yourself a pot of it! Thanks again for the tip Mike.

Haji Mike's Lemon verbena