Don’t try this at home

Seen at Herne Hill Market the other week, a great one from the artist called Julie Lomoe from 1969! Great graphics with a wonderful sense of humour about Hip Ski Tripping. Far out! That’s a cool jumper the skier is wearing and also some nice ski kecks.

Polytunnel business

The polytunnel is now up and we are in business! There’s nowt much in there now apart from some assorted chillies, a few different types of tomatoes and some freshly sown spinach but we’re sure that’ll change in a week or so.

It took us a good morning and a bit of “That isn’t the right piece, where’s 5B?”, the thing falling apart and it looking like a skeleton of a whale on the lawn, and parts moving when they weren’t supposed to but we got there in the end. After a good tighten up, the frame was put into place (above). Thanks to Alan C for lots of tips, especially this great one: “I put a layer of woodchip under mine but some use wood strips or gravel/stones. This gives a nice evenly flat base and slows the frame rusting – the woodchip quickly dries out and separates the poles from the soil.”

As soon as we put the cover on we dug a little trench and tucked the excess of the cover into the ground and put broken concrete slabs, bricks and whathaveyou to weigh it down and then backfilled with soil and more woodchip so it is hopefully stays put in the wind.

As we said there’s not much in there at the moment but we’ll update you. Cheers to Alan C again for his tips and advice. Big up all Polytunnel crew!

 

 

Trees and pears in north London

Thanks to Debby H for sending us some pictures yesterday. The first is a council planted hibiscus tree (as Debby said, it was common practice for councils to plant London Planes in the capital and not much else, years ago). The tree seemed to be surviving well during this prolonged drought we are going through this year. Sadly, her plant at home (below) is not doing as good as the above example and “has shed its leaves in favour of producing a flower.” That is so sad but what a wonderful flower.

We were told recently by a chap who cultivates and sells plants for a living, that it will be next year where we may see what damage has been caused to the plants through the stress of this drought. Some good news though, as Debby picked her pears and herethey are in (below). She is now waiting for them to soften up and ripen. Thanks for the pictures and for keeping us updated.

Harvest time in a Skybird Radio International style

Cheers to our good friend in Cincinnati, Justin Patrick Moore for the pictures of his harvest from the other day, some brilliant eggplants (aubergines) there and is that a small cucumber? Brilliant stuff Justin.

And from Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay some great Haricot Beurre (butter beans) which he said “has a nice taste and are delicious with tomatoes” and talking of tomatoes, here’s his first Black Crimea beefsteak (below)

And below a Beefheart (also known as Coeur de Bœuf or oxheart tomato). Wow they look great! Cheers for sending them on Spike as they look great.

And talking of the great captain himself:

 

We didn’t see the eclipse as it went dark

Strange lighting was the order of the day when we witnessed the partial eclipse of the sun in SE23 around 7.16 pm this evening. The colander was out and reflected said phenomenon onto the fence. Crazy stuff!

The earth didn’t stand still and the birds didn’t stop singing but it was an interesting evening all the same and it was nice when the light went back to normal again.

Here’s an eclipse-related (originally for shortwave) mix from a few years ago called “Can you see Baily’s beads?”

Tracklistings:
A Man called Adam – Moon
Cosmos – Summer in space (Mark’s Harmonic 33 mix)
Cedric Im Brooks – Blackness of Darkness
Cornell Campbell – Stars

The colander is now back in the cupboard until the next eclipse in 2056 or whenever it is, the birds have gone to sleep for the evening and the world continues turning…

A mad one for a Sunday

An absolutely bonkers tune heard on this week’s On The Wire here originally from 2007 by Paul Rooney called Lucy from Lanchashire.

Fenny who played said tune, mentioned that Lucy is a spryte that was found in a pair of puma pumps that were hanging on a telegraph wire over a bus stop on the A666 also know as the Manchester Road, Bolton Road, or Blackburn Road.

Well worth listening to all 16 minutes of it. More on the release here and more on Paul Rooney here. We are ashamed that we never knew about this tune the first time around.

“The stories outline the role of dub music in thwarting a Satanic prophecy of world domination originating in the witches cauldrons of Lancashire, and involve the many correspondences between Lancashire and the Satanic: the Pendle witches, the A666 motorway, The Fall’s occult interests, and many more.”

Lucy Over Lancashire

A harvest report from France

More great harvest pictures are coming into the Weeds news desks. The one above is from our mate Spike from Morschen43 in Le Puy-en-Velay. As we keep mentioning, all his hard work from earlier this year here is now paying off! And don’t you love the recycled steps idea! Cheers Spike for keeping us updated.

The new wave of continuous wave

This great track above was heard on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI (here) which is as you know, a great show from our Dub Gardening friend Dr Strangedub and DJ baby Swiss.

The track is from Jah Wobble and Youth called “Inspector out of Space” and it’s the Youth Inner Space Dub. There’s some morse featured a few times throughout the tune. Any CW people out there that can can decode it for us?

Talking of Samuel Morse: