Category Archives: Tunes to cheer you up

Around the garden while watering

Posted on by
Reply

It’s going to be silly hot today (around 32 degrees C), so we did a bit of watering this morning before it goes too mad. The first (above) is from our Marvel of Peru (AKA Four o’clock plant) that we grew from seed and the first flowers are just forming. It’s a bit of a different kind of plant as in the flowers usually open from 4pm attracting all sorts of moths and pollinators. Supposedly the flowers have a great smell too! More on that here.

A new arrival to the Weeds garden (above) that we saw when we went to the Chelsea flower show. It’s a Lychnis flos-cuculi “Petit Henri” and giving us some clusters of great small white flowers and it’s a perennial too! More here.

We’re even getting some progress on the tomatoes (above) at the moment. Nothing ripening yet and still small, but there is fruit!

And meanwhile down the pond our Echeveria is kicking out some great plastic looking flowers! We do love this gardening lark!

We’ve also been checking out an interesting Jamaican gardening blog called Hopey’s Garden. It’s an interesting read if you want to try different type of vegetables and stuff. The article above is very interesting and has some nice tips contained on there so do give it a look over.

Reports from Bristol, SE23 and France

Posted on by
Reply

We’re a bit behind here with posts at Weeds, the other week we received a message from Kit G5KIT, who said “We had 37 degrees C here in Bristol today. The only ones enjoying it are my chilli seedlings, which are now ready to put into containers as the roots are starting to come through the sides of the fibre pots.” Now 37 degrees that is hot, but he’s right, those chilli seedlings (above) are looking great!

Ours are in the ground after we took a bit of a frost risk earlier this year and we are getting a lot of growth and we are just starting to see the flowers appearing (above). Next to the chillies are onions grown from seed that need a bit of thinning out.

 

We’ve been having a good few reports from Spike from Morschen43 from a very sunny and hot Le Puy-en-Velay in France over the past few days. His garden is looking well bountiful now. We start with a rose (above) which he said was from the mountains called Rosa Centiflora (aka ‘Cabbage’ or ‘Provence’ rose). He was also saying that the rose can tolerate temperatures down to -15 degrees Celsius. Wow!

Here’s a selection of what’s growing in his garden now, some wonderful stuff here, a few different varieties of Tomato, Aubergine (Eggplant), Courgette (aka Zuchinni), green pepper and runner beans. We’ll have an update from Spike’s yard soon as there is so much there!

This post was written while listening to the latest Ross Allen Meltdown show on Soho Radio. Guest this week was Jimmy Lindsay who was in the great Cymande, we didn’t know that!

Nothing to do with Zak Bagans

Posted on by
2

 

Excellent couple of releases found by accident tonight from Soul Diggin out of São Paulo, Brazil. The first is a wonderful tune called I See Dead People [not like us dub version]. Nice rhythm and soulful dub!

The second is an excellent version of Ela Partiu featuring the vocals of Tim Maia over the No, no, no rhythm. Clever stuff. Both tunes are worth checking out.

 

May the sun keep shining on our gardens!

Echoes of a worldwide vibe

Posted on by
Reply

Big shout to Dr Strangedub for featuring the mix called “We love shortwave” from One Deck Pete on this morning’s Echo Chamber on KFAI here at 83 minutes in here. Track listings are as follows:

Radio Sweden Interval Signal
Triptica – Mysterious Radio Signals
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – This Frequency
Shortwave Sounds – Reflections
Madtone – Spoken Words from Ibiza
Holger Czukay/Jah Wobble – Hiss n Listen
Gregory Morris & The 18th Parallel – Dub In Your Stereo (dub of Message in your radio by Kumar)

It’s lovely to hear Radio Sweden’s old Interval Signal over the airwaves alongside some great dub and downbeat on a Wednesday morning from 8-12am. Tune in and enjoy the show every week here at the allotted time! Cheers again to Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss.

And talking of the Echo Chamber here is the person who actually told us about the show many years ago, WIll Jeff. Here’s this month’s show from him called Lingua Franca show on Love Will Save The Day FM (below).”Songs from around the world you can sing along to” indeed. Some wonderful stuff on here in a balearic summery worldwide style. Tune in!

Vampire freaks and gardening

Posted on by
Reply

A big thanks goes out to Spike from Morschen43 from a very sunny and hot Le Puy-en-Velay, France for keeping us regularly updated about his great garden in the mountains (here). The other day he sent us pictures including some of how his tomatoes are doing.

We were only saying to ourselves the other day that we think the feed we are using (all-purpose feed rather than a specific tomato feed) is making the leaves dark green and were wondering were we feeding them too much nitrogen? We’ve now got a couple of flower trusses starting to show on our plants so they may be okay but looking at Spike’s plants with some large size fruits growing we’re not so sure.

The plants are looking well happy and we love the classic companion planting of Marigolds above (there’s a nice bit about companion planting here). Spike was telling us when he bought the plants they included these varieties below which we’ve never heard of before and they sound well interesting:

The Beef Heart “A heritage variety with a most unusual heart shape fruit. Beefsteak type with excellent flavour and few seeds. Ripens to deep red.”
www.mammothonion.co.uk

Black Crimea “An old, heirloom variety AKA ‘Black Krim’, this sweet and spicy beefsteak tomato has a wonderful aroma and distinctive dark reddish-brown skin ideal for soups, slicing and sauces. Named after the peninsula, ‘Black Crimea’ each olive-shouldered fruit can weigh in at 350g each!”
www.rhsplants.co.uk

Andean horned “Tomato Bellandine, sometimes nicknamed Horn of the Andes, is an indeterminate cordon variety producing long, elegant plum-shaped fruits. Each tomato typically weighs 180 – 230 g and measures up to 18 cm long. The flesh is firm, very fleshy, and almost seedless, delivering an excellent sweet flavour with a rich aroma.”
www.simplyseed.co.uk

Alongside the pictures of the tomatoes he sent us a picture (below) of the vine growing across the house which they got off a neighbour of his grand parents in Troyes (Capital of the Champagne region). Great stuff Spike. Do keep updating us as we appreciate it here!

If you love a bit of rock/punk and a bit of reggae, ska, dub, metal, hard rock, tune into Spike’s Vampirefreaks radio show here. The shows are archived here.

More stones of the standing variety

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve had some communications overnight about standing stones and we are well chuffed that people are interested in the stone giants like we are. Thanks to Rich in the Lake District for kicking it all off.

The first is from an old friend of ours, Pete B in Woolwich. Thanks for getting in touch and for sending us a great picture of The Callanish Stones (above) on the Isle of Lewis, the one Justin used on his yard sale flyer in the last post. He also sent us a link to a wonderful panoramic photograph (nearly 140 degrees!) of the Castlerigg Stone Circle.

He emailed “Nice to see the Castlerigg stones, some years ago I caught this panorama of Castlerigg when we were camping in the Lakes.”

For the picture click here.

As Pete added “Best viewed on mobile phone in landscape mode, maximised and with controls hidden – downward pointing arrow to the left-hand side of the control bar.”

Thanks also to Bongo Twisty for getting in touch via the comments and for sending us a great photograph. “The picture is of the Standing Stones of Stenness in Orkney. I was up there cycling about a couple of years ago.” Thanks a million for sending it over Bongo Twisty and for following the blog for a long while! All pictures are copyright the owners.

Ta for the pictures again both, keep cool in this present heatwave and take it easy!

 

 

 

Tomato fruit puller. Puller, puller

Posted on by
Reply

Whilst researching a future post, we found this great variety of tomato from Seed Spring Seeds (website here).

As it says in the blurb on the site:
A Romanian tomato producing large, roughly heart-shaped fruit that weigh an average of 365g and measure about 8.5cm in diameter. Captain Beefheart’s big taste is combined with a juicy flesh, tender skin and few seeds, making it one of the best large-fruited tomatoes you are likely to encounter. The plants are good growers and will produce fruit well into the autumn.

A pepper called Frank Zappa anyone?

The above is a fantastic Beefheart tune as played on the excellent Andrew Weatherall – Live at Antenna Studios mixtape here.

A bit of downbeat for the weekend

Posted on by
2

Here’s the fourth episode in the Downbeat on Shortwave series with Jesse Yuen and One Deck Pete that was broadcast this weekend on Imaginary Stations via Shortwave Gold.

Jesse and Pete bring you two 15-minute downtempo mixes each over the hour-long show. We’ve posted up two recordings, the above the clean studio version. The recorded off the radio, mono version complete with atmospheric sounds literally, is below. Enjoy the tunes!

Jesse Yuen Mix 1
Stress Assassin – Me We
Pugilist –  introspect Ft. Tamen
Drug Free America – Baby Doll and the Dolphin Burger (video edit)

One Deck Pete Mix 1
Deadbeats – Got it going on (Space Hopper original)
Stereo Total Vs Mad Professor – Das erste Mal dub trip 2
Transglobal Underground – Templehead – Burundi Beat mix
Madtone – It is AI but WE created it

Jesse Yuen Mix 2
Leslie Winer – King of sleep
99 Cents – Adrenalin Spaceboy (Dub Boy Extended mix)

One Deck Pete Mix 2
変化への恐れ – Shinogi シノギ
Mad Professor – Boombox version 2
Kuna – Decade Dub
Space To Crash – Holding Hands

It ain’t in FM stereo, but we like it!

Posted on by
Reply

Earlier this afternoon we tuned into Downbeat on Shortwave (brought to us via Imaginary Stations) using The University of Twente’s online SDR here. Propagation wasn’t brilliant but we got a signal, unlike the sound of static on our shortwave receiver at home. Hopefully tomorrow’s conditions will be better and the later timing of the transmission helps. Here’s what was heard.

Imaginary Stations bring you music you don’t usually hear on the shortwaves every week and has an archive that is well worth looking through here. Expect the unexpected as they say and a whole lot more! Never mind the genre, it’s all about great music on the shortwave bands with some added remixing thanks to the ionosphere and those groundwaves.

Tune in here tomorrow at 1300 UTC (2pm UK) and 2000 UTC (9pm UK) for some chilled out sounds from Jesse Yuen and One Deck Pete. A big shout to all the Imaginary Stations crew: Fred and NanSea, Justin Patrick Moore and Marc from Belgium. Here’s to more eclectic programming on shortwave!

More Downbeat on Shortwave this weekend!

Posted on by
3

This weekend Imaginary Stations bring you the fourth episode in the Downbeat on Shortwave series with Jesse Yuen (from Perth, Australia) and One Deck Pete (from Catford Village, Londres).

Jesse and Pete bring you two 15-minute downtempo mixes each over the hour-long show. Expect some ambient, dub, reggae and downtempo tunes for a chilled-out weekend.

The show is broadcast on Saturday 13th June at 1100 hrs UTC (12 noon in the UK) on 6160 kHz and then again on Sunday 14th June at 1300 hrs UTC (2pm in the UK) on 6160 kHz and 2000 hrs UTC (9pm in the UK) on 3975 kHz/6160 kHz. Thanks to the great Shortwave Gold for beaming those radio waves skywards.

Don’t worry if you haven’t a shortwave radio you can tune in via an online Software Defined Radio here (pre-tuned into 6160 kHz). Just plug in at the right time(s) and experience that shortwave mono sound with all the fading and cross channel interference live.

Here’s the older shows for your listening pleasure!

Programme 1

Programme 2

Programme 3