It’s that time again, or is it?

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We’re working from home for the foreseeable future and on Thursday lunchtime we went for a walk (in a social distancing style of course) to clear the mind. There were queues outside the doctors, pre-corona paranoia, not a soul on the streets nor a sausage in the shop. We popped into Shannon’s where it was well busy! We purchased a big bag of compost and some seed potatoes (below) whilst other people were getting herbs, tomato plants and all sort of good gear that’ll come in handy in the months to come.

God knows what’s going to happen when it comes to getting fresh veg in the near future so we may as well make a start now! We’re already overwintering some onions and garlic and now warming up the raised beds where we may stick the odd seed potato in this week and take a chance. We using all the stuff we’ve found in the street or in skips like the terrarium, the window frame, the odd jar and some plastic small cloches to do the job. We’ve got a few rows of seeds in already and we’re going to do more. Why not? You never know what the weather’s going to be like.

And this thing (below) covered with a jar is a courgette seed, talk about starting early! Keep safe and when loneliness hits you during the day working from home, don’t go down the local shops as you’ll be disappointed, walk out to the back garden and tip around with a hoe for half an hour. It works wonders!

Tune into the world outside

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We may be locked out from the outside world for a short while but don’t worry, that interesting thing called radio will help us through this mad time.

The next episode of DJ Frederick’s Free Radio Skybird will be aired on Sunday 29th March at 1100 UTC (1200 UK) on 6070 kHz via Channel 292. The show will be rebroadcast on Sunday 5th April at 1100 UTC (1200 UK) on 6070 kHz also. If you haven’t got a shortwave radio it can also be heard on the SDR link on Channel 292’s site here.

The programme will feature Justin Patrick Moore’s Radiophonic Laboratory and One Deck Pete presenting the Skybird Mailbag. There’ll also be an airing of Pete’s “Radio fanatics of the world unite” mix that has tunes from Nadezha Orlova, Duce Haus and Yemanjo and the Monarch Duo. Also in the next couple of months Free Radio Skybird will take to the air a little bit more. We will keep you posted!

And further radio help can be obtained from this week’s instalment of This is a music show available below. As usual there’s a mix of excellent music in a cross genre style, image data and a corker of a dub track. Our kind of radio show!

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-056

This is a blog post about this is a music show

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We’ve just recently discovered on twitter through @StrangeBeacons an excellent shortwave broadcast called This is a music show which is now on our weekly listening rota. It’s put together by someone called “Your host” and originates out of Toronto, Canada and their recent shows are up on their soundcloud page here.

https://soundcloud.com/thisisamusicshow/this-is-a-music-show-055

The show contains a real eclectic mix of music from records founds in thrift shops, lesser known international classics, pitched down disco, easy listening, across the board malarkey and some excellent dub! Added to that, there’s shout outs and even images and text broadcast in MFSK64 digital mode too, all in an hour, how do they fit it all in? Tune in, you’ll like it!

We tried on youtube to find one of the tunes played on the latest show Sanchez’s “One in a million dub” but only found the vocal version but these two related tunes turned up. We never knew that about the Eddie Floyd original that inspired the reggae version. Well you learn something new every day!

Every studio needs an oscilloscope*

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Here’s the main inspiration for our next mix “Radio fanatics of the world unite” to be aired on the next broadcast of Free Radio Skybird on March 29th at 1100 UTC on 6070 kHz in the 49 metre band. It’s a clip from a 1970’s Pirate Radio TV special featuring the legendary Radio Jackie.
There’s some brilliant footage here (no sound for the first few seconds though): the correct way to use a catapult to get an antenna up, denim a go-go, a demonstration of how not to get maximum power out of a sledgehammer, some brilliant barnets, sunglasses and clothes, fags on the go and nice walkie-talkies! We love the bit about the security of the station: “Behind every tree, under every bush, young men use walkie talkies to foil their own particular yellow peril”. Big up Radio Jackie!
*Title nicked from the Radio Jackie piece on www.amfm.org.uk

What? The sun is shining again?

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A massive thanks to all at the Thompson and Morgan gardening blog for the box of Beneficial Flower seeds containing all sorts of great stuff for bees and pollinators including cornflower, cosmos, dill, foxglove, catmint and wild poppy. After the last frost (have a look at this site here for estimated dates) we’ll be sowing them in the bed at the bottom of the garden. We’ll even mix some of the other box we got from the pound shop (nowhere as good as the T&M box but it was a quid!) the other week for added effect! Cheers again T&M, we’ll keep you posted!

Prompted by the person who said to us the other month: “Why don’t you write a blog and keep track of what you planted where and when”, yesterday we sowed a row of golden acre cabbages and a row of red salad bowl lettuce (both from the free seeds from Kitchen Garden Magazine). It may be a bit early but they are sown under glass. This bit of window was found in a skip many many moons ago and is still in use at Weeds HQ. Waste not want not!

And to celebrate the sun coming out again here’s a belter of a tune that’ll if all goes well will be getting an airing later this month on the next episode of Free Radio Skybird as part of a mix called “Radio Fanatics of the world unite”. The tune is from Yemanjo & Monarch Duo called Roma (Yemanjo remix) on Jumpsuit Records. Any record label that describes itself as a “curation project of The Polish Ambassador and his cohort of scientists, spirit animals and vibe consultants” is alright by us! May the sun shine on all day.

It’s good to get out there (while you can!)

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We don’t know what the weather has in store for us today but last Sunday it was glorious and a few gardening jobs were done! The garden pond pump was cleaned and the wires put back together again with some dry solder joints and a good bit of electrical tape after some roadent had gnawed through them last year. The pond pump now works!

The back bed was dug over again and raked to a nice tilth as we’ll be sticking some wild flower seeds down there after the frosts and give the bed some rest from the vegetable growing for a change. Even the lawn got its first cut in true council style, one cut on very high, then one a little lower.

And some palettes we were given years ago were put into use as some raised beds. All we need now is a big bag of compost to stick in them to get them to a nice height!

When the sun’s out the old enthusiasm seems to lift. Roll on the good weather!

Daddy was a garden-er, he never hurt nobody…

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If someone tells you that gardening is expensive and that you need to spend a small fortune to grow something, tell them they’re having a laugh! Today from the pound shop in Catford we procured a 20 litre bag of multi purpose compost and a box of shake ‘n sow butterfly and bee seed mix for the grand total of £2. Well worth it if you’re watching them pennies.

With the said compost we sowed some peppers we got free from Kitchen Garden Magazine and some tomatoes that were left over from last year so that didn’t cost us much either. We cut up some individual plastic seed trays we got from Shannon’s a couple of years ago, popped the seed on the top and then covered them with a light layer of compost and stuck them under a plastic propagator cover by the window in the back room. Fingers crossed we’ll see some signs of life in a couple of weeks or so.

We also stuck a couple of trays containing more tomatoes and some Kitchen Garden cabbages outside in the garden in the upside down terrarium we found in the street years ago. Let’s hope it warms up weather-wise for them!

And the last bit of sowing was done in a couple of pots on the kitchen windowsill with some basil seeds and some cut and come again lettuce which we’ll use for micro-greens. And there’s still some multi-purpose compost left for next week. Thrift, we love it here at Weeds! Who says you need money to garden.

And the soundtrack to this piece was the excellent Ross Allen show dedicated to Andrew Weatherall which is well worth listening to, click here to tune in.

Spaghetti squash in the (kitchen) area

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It’s still been a bit wet and windy here so there hasn’t be that much garden-related to write about. Apart from yesterday, when we finally put the spaghetti squash we grew on the Thompson & Morgan seed trials last year in the oven with a bit of olive oil and salt.

The squash has been sitting on the kitchen windowsill since harvesting last autumn so perhaps we should have had it when it was a bit fresher. After the 40 minutes on about 200 degrees centigrade and a ruffle with a fork this is what it looked like. As for taste, it put us in mind of sauerkraut which ain’t a bad thing in our book. Next time when we grow them we’ll eat them straight away! Well worth trying though.

And there was a massive blow to music in general last week when we heard of the passing of the great Andrew Weatherall. We’re still in shock here, but the story in Time Out here about him still being on google street view brought a smile to our sad faces. R.I.P. Andrew Weatherall.

Today’s transmission today

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Here’s something for a cold Sunday night after another weekend of non-gardening, One Deck Pete‘s “Less is more” mix off an online SDR mix which was transmitted on Free Radio Skybird via Channel 292 on 6440 kHz this afternoon.

The usual thing happened today, heightened excitement as Channel 292 was received a couple of hours before Free Radio Skybird was scheduled to be on the air, with a wonderful signal in London on a portable shortwave receiver sitting on the kitchen windowsill. Come the time of its broadcast it disappeared off the dial and it was back to listening to it on the laptop. Shortwave radio eh? The tracklists go like: Mai – Fading, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian & Seventh Soul – Dream and Blanco – El Camino.

Anyway stay safe, stay warm, turn the stereo up and keep out that bad weather!