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I got a bargain, 30 packs of seeds for £6 odd with postage (let’s hope there’s not a load of duplicates and some well out of date!)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.
Listen to the podcast of this week’s episode of The Dirt on Fab Radio International here.
There’s some great things on the show this week including lots of talk of about Beetroot, the first of a brand new feature “blog of the week” with Agents of Field, Sounds From The South (at 26.02 mins in) is about why Beetroot is my favourite vegetable (tune of the week is Big Youth – Some like it Dread) and Amie Sagar interviews the person on the street about the shocking pictures of the new killer Robin that has now settled in the UK ready to cause aggravation! Get orf me bird bath! Ta to The Dirt for letting us reproduce the shocking photo’s they obtained here!
I popped into Shannon’s yesterday and treated myself to some onion sets and garlic to overwinter in the garden and I bought one of these bulbs. I can’t remember what the flower actually is but I know it will grow into a 6 foot monster. Not bad for £7 odd. I will update you when it sprouts! Mad is not the word and very halloween.
A big thanks to Fliss who produced the great Gardeners Delight fanzine for sending us some pics of her new allotment in deepest South London.
I asked her for some before and after shots but as she says “as it’s such a huge plot it is hard to capture in a definitive before and after way! It was literally covered in hip-high weeds at the start, in early May (above). I must admit some of them got up to neck height before I could tackle them, too!” I understand 100% and looking at the pics here, you’ve done loads of work on the plot and it shows!
And below are the results of her hard work plus some grapes and tomatoes which she received as gifts from other plot holders. Great stuff!Fliss picked two corkers of tunes to accompany her pics. The first being Desmond Dekker with “Beautiful and Dangerous” as an ode to the many and interesting bites, stings, scratches and scrapes she got into along the way.
And the very excellent “Young wings can fly” from Johnny and the Attractions which she dedicates to “the mighty rose chafer beetle that alarmed me when it flew so noisily above me when gardening. A new discovery on me, those things, they’re very weird!”
By the way Gardeners Delight Issue 1 is still available and well worth buying (it would suit beginners and anyone interested in growing veg and fruit) and Fliss is still producing more fanzines which is admirable in this day and age what with online blogs etc.
There’s a recipe fanzine called “Eat Y’self Fitter” inspired by songs from The Fall, Tambourine Dream (great name!) all about Brian Jonestown Massacre and The All Thrills, No Frills Music Bill which has features on record shops, strange vinyl and an interview with Robyn Hitchcock, which sounds well up my street! All these are available on her Etsy page here.
Thanks again to Fliss for the great pics of her allotment and If you want find out more about her plot and how it’s progressing alongside other interesting stuff have a look at her great blog here.
Tune in tonight from 6pm to 8pm for The Dirt’s Halloween special on Fab Radio International here. At around 6.15 our weekly spot Sounds From The South will feature a story about a scary Halloween party in a South London pub’s beer garden! Thanks to Maz and Marc B for getting us that invite for a night I’ll never forget!
Three corkers this week, one from the back garden and two from Ross Allen and Andrew Hale’s brilliant show on Misoul available here.
The above is the squash/blue pumpkin harvested this evening. This is the first time I’ve ever had success with squashes, I got this specimen (which was the only one) from a plant that I constantly watered and fed weekly during the summer. It went all sprawling over the shop, but it was worth it for this mad looking thing with weird eyelashes! Big up the squash!
Johnny Clarke – Babylon – Cha Cha And here’s two corkers from Ross and Andrew’s excellent show on Misoul, it’s been a while since listening to it and the first time back I wasn’t disappointed. The first is the excellent Johnny Clarke with Babylon, a Jah Shaka favourite which has a great dub too.
Gloria Ann Taylor – Love is a hurting thing Next is a tune I’ve never heard before and one that puts me in mind of Siouxsie and the Banshees “Happy House” and Eddie Kendricks’ “Girl you need a change of Mind” with Liberace at the controls! Don’t listen too hard to the mix as the kick drum is well up front. Two tunes to take your mind of the bad weather of late!
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!)
A big thanks to Fliss who produced the great 
Weeds up to me knees 