Category Archives: Jazz Gardening

Remix awareness for a Thursday night

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Last year we posted up an LP called Social Awareness from Stinky Jim out of Auckland, New Zealand here. Cheers goes out to Jim who this morning let us know about the new remix LP here. If you love reggae, chilled out tunes and the eclectic you’ll love this!

On first listen Cry for the Ute (Solar Tropics Remix) really stuck and we now can’t get it out of our heads. Very subtle but also very grand. We’ve just found out that Solar Tropics are “an Ambient Art project based on Nature, Space and Magic” from California. Sounds like something up our street and have got a bandcamp site we’ll explore (here).

Like the original LP there’s some brilliant productions here, including Strange Fish‘s version of On The Ag and the strange warped sounding ice cream van type chimes and mad beats of Christophe El Truento‘s remix of Cry for the Ute. Flames of Love the Jefferson Belt Remix is tripped out and bassed out on a stripped down, less is definately more tip. More horizontal dreamery on Le Creak (Triblin Sound Remix). Who needs stress with these tunes. Looks like we have another favourite as well in Runs On the Board with Jefferson Belt on the desk, now this stuff brings the blood pressure down with its chilledness. If you want it bringing up again you can always listen to Loose Carry (18th Man Dub by Seekers International).

So if you like reggae, downbeat and a little bit of upbeat-downbeat (if that’s a thing) and you want to listen to something that encapsulates all of that but at the same time want something that takes you on a different trip, you must get this 16 track set.

By the way Jim runs Stinky Grooves the long running radio show on 95bFM out in New Zealand which is well worth lstening to if you love tunes of the dubbed and bassed out variety. Have a butchers here. Cheers again Jim for letting us know about this top LP!

Sundays on shortwave

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If you’re about the shortwaves this Sunday 16th July 2023 (with a radio or an online SDR here) there’s a couple of programmes that may interest you if you like the eclectic. The first is KNTS (Kearsarge North Transmission Service) from the Imaginary stations crew beamed to Europe via the services of Shortwave Gold in Germany at 2000 utc (9pm UK time) on 6160 khz.

Expect lots of shortwave, radio related sounds and even some tunes with CW (that’s morse to you and I) and at 15 mins in there’s a mix from One Deck Pete. If you haven’t a shortwave radio tune in here.

Then later at 2200 hrs UTC on 9395 kHz the great Shortwave Music Library returns via WRMI. DJ Frederick digs through his across the board record collection taking a few requests, pulling out some tunes and giving them an airing over the shortwaves. Sit back and relax with a COOL drink and turn that shortwave radio back on. If the batteries have been taken out of the shortwave radio by the kids you can always tune in here.

We didn’t sow that

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One plant we always have in the garden mainly through self seeding (thus being a volunteer plant) is the good herb borage. It’s great for the bees and its leaves can be thrown into the comfrey liquid bucket adding some extra goodness into the mix. More on its uses here.

Also if you remember we were a bit fed up of accidently leaving in potatoes when harvesting them and they regrow the year after leaving spuds where you don’t want spuds. One idea we were told about to get around this problem is growing them in a large pot, various containers and even plastic bags so all you have to do is tip the spuds and soil out in one easy action. Here’s one doing well (above) in a green shopping bag with lots of drainage holes in the bottom. Where there’s a will there’s a way as they say.

Empire state chilli

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The sun’s been away for a couple of days and it’s been feeling cold of late. Things are cracking on in the garden though, like the chilli plant (above) that is at the top of the weird hand-made hat stand we found in the street a few years ago here. Touchwood no slugs have scaled it just yet.

The zucchini/courgette plant (above) which is in the raised bed is now beginning to flower after we made some room for it after we pulled out the potato plant (with some spuds!) that was there before.

And indoors on the kitchen windowsill we have another chilli (one that we were given) and that’s fruiting too. We always used to think growing chillies were hard. So far it’s the chillies that are doing well next to the spuds. Regular watering and comfrey feed is our secret to success alongside not much else.

Much more (than) music

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Big shout to our good friend The Rhythm Doctor for playing this excellent tune below by URBS called Ever Golden on this week’s Waiting Room radio show on IDA Radio (Tallinn). Tune in every Monday from 9-11am for a cross genre of quality breakfast classics from downtempo, funk, reggae and in-between.

Here’s a couple more radio shows this time of the shortwave variety this Sunday 9th July 2023 from the Imaginary Stations Crew. The first is at 2000 utc (9pm UK time) on 6160 khz where X-Raydio will be broadcast to Europe via the services of Shortwave Gold in Germany (whose motto is “Shortwave Radio is dead – Long live Shortwave Radio”).

The show will explore some audio from unusual musical formats and will feature a piece on Bone Music by Stephen Coates from The Real Tuesday Weld (also of the excellent radio show The Bureau of Lost Culture on Soho Radio, London) and also a flexi disc mix by Shane Quentin (from The Garden of the Earthly Delights radio show on CRMK, Milton Keynes). If you haven’t a shortwave radio, tune in here on Sunday evening at 9pm UK time.

A couple of hours later at 2200 utc (11pm UK time) is this week’s Imaginary Stations show which is KDUB v Radio Clarion via the services of WRMI. There’ll be some dub, some trumpets and then some dub with trumpets. Tune in for some blazing horns! If you haven’t a shortwave radio, tune in at 11pm UK time here. Remember, radio is where it’s at!

The fruits of our labour

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We can’t believe that it’s July next week, how time flies (pic above: self-seeded poppy down the garden yesterday). It was just the other week we were thinking if there was going to be a frost or not so we could put those leggy tomato plants out. Gardening is all about patience and just getting on with it, the waiting game so to speak but we’re not very good at that. And talking of tomatoes we’ve got our first trusses of fruit developing on some of the plants we grew from seed (below). That weekly feed of comfrey liquid must be helping as well as sideshooting and a daily water.

The chilli pepper we were given the other week has now got fruits (below) and we were told by the patron of said plant that she started it off very early in January. We’ll be bringing the pot in this winter and see if we can keep it going next year. Peppers and chillies are perennials so we’re told, as it says here “...all peppers – that is sweet peppers and chilli peppers – are perennials, capable of living for several years. Peppers come from the tropics where there is no winter period.” The things you learn eh?It’s funny what with our “sow the seed willy nilly and forget we even sown them” method we still get suprised when something pops up like in the case of the oregano seedlings below. Yes it is in a pot with a plant label with “Oregano” written on it as clear as day but we’re still suprised. Perhaps we should have a colour coded spreadsheet with a map of the garden so we know when we sowed something and where. We reckon that would take the fun out of it though. Happy growing and may that spot of rain we had earlier today further boost up your garden’s growth!

Thursday night version excursion

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The other evening found a different cut of this fantastic cover version of the reggae classic “Queen of the minstrels” by Mr Day and we now love this happy snappy mix. It’s very soulful and upbeat with still a hint of the original in there. A tune and a very catchy one at that.

A view from one’s garden

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Cheers to Rich R for sending a photo his daughter took from the middle of Bassenthwaite Lake. It’s looking towards Skiddaw a mountain (and once volcano) in the Lake District that is 931m/3054 feet high. As Rich tells us “It’s the mountain that dominates the view in our back garden” Wow that is some mountain and if you see that from your back garden that is something else! Excellent Rich and ta to your daughter for taking the photo.

Metal made for the garden

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Cheers to Gerry Hectic for letting us know of a purchase made at that well known retail store Lldl recently. It’s a Bougainvillea Hybride and don’t look too bad!

It’s got a good heavy metal name too (below). Is there a Black Sabbath Rose by any chance or a GWAR geranium sitting in a garden centre as we write? More heavy rock plant names via the comments please.

Gardening connects us all again

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We know the fish are feeding hence near the surface but the barley straw may be working in the pond. It’s been two weeks and we can see a little bit of difference as you could only see the tips of the fishes mouths before. We will keep you posted!

Big thanks to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv, Ukraine for the excellent picture of one big palm tree in the glasshouse of one of the two botanical gardens there. Wlad was saying his good friend Sergiy UT3UFD (whose banana plant we’ve featured here and here) loves going there and Wlad said the thing that he personally likes when he’s also there are the tall palm trees as they are “Perfect antenna masts” brilliant Wlad! Links to both botanical gardens here and here.

Great to hear from Gerry Hectic who sent a recent pic of his pond. He was saying the water levels have gotten a little low and weeds have seemed to taken over but “I thought I’d just heard a frog croak!” Great stuff on that Gerry!

We also heard from Rich R again from the Lake District who showed us his great garden with breathtaking views at the end of March here. The picture above which locals call fox and cubs are all over his garden. He was saying the flower which is in the family Asteraceae is native to alpine regions of central and southern Europe. There is a theory that they may have been brought over by the romans alongside other plants including some fig trees in the area that are very old now. His garden is next to a roman road and about 15 miles from the west end of Hadrians Wall. Who knows but it’s interesting stuff!

Well it’s the longest day today so happy solstice to one and all and thanks to our mates all over for sending us some great pictures. We are always interested in plant and gardening related pics so do send them over!