Greenhouse classics (revived)

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Cheers for Justin Moore for starting us off again on the search for gardening related music with his recommendation for Mort Garsen‘s Cosmic LP “Mother Earth’s Plantasia” last week here. Also a big thanks to the good Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI for his mix a few years ago below and Pete Haigh from the monthly Funkology radio show (on “On The Wire” on BBC Radio Lancashire) for his gardening-related chart here. We’re now looking for more. Know any deep house classics that mention “potting on”? Or some dubstep that mentions dephiniums? Or just some fine tunes you like to like to prune the roses to? Send us your nominations please. Remember music and gardening do mix!

Hell on wheels

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We discovered yesterday that the robo mower we saw in Lincoln’s Inn Fields hasn’t been made redundant or ran out of double A’s, it was just having a rest. As the sign says, ‘Lincoln’ works 24/7 in all weathers so there’s no overtime to be shelled out, wet money for working in the rain and there’s no threat of him taking a Monday off as a “sickie”.

We are angry and we will fight against this motorised enemy of the people. Plans are in progress for some home-made ramps, ski slaloms and road-cone zig-zags (to confuse ‘Lincoln’) to be put in the park under the cover of night. We cannot let these machines take over. Who’ll be doing the skiving when the humble council gardener and parkie are a thing of the past? Who’ll be wearing the Donkey Jacket? #Savethecouncilgardener

Journey through the secret life of plant pots

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A big shout to our good friend Justin Moore in Cincinnati for letting us know about this far out LP by Mort Garson (who sounds like an interesting fellow) called Mother Earth’s Plantasia from 1976 subtitled “Warm earth music for plants and the people who love them”. Any LP that has a track called “You don’t have to walk a Begonia” is alright by us. The LP originally came with a copy of “Mother Earth’s hassle-free indoor plant book” by Lynn & Joel Rapp too. What a bargain!

Turns out Mort’s earlier output was used as incidental music during the 1969 moon landing. I mean come on it had to be, if one of the participants was called Buzz Aldrin. Lock those greenhouse doors from the inside, tune in and drop out!

Robo mowers and radio hams

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Back in January (here) we mentioned that we saw a robo mower happily doing its job in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Whilst walking through said park today we saw it under a hedge in a right rejected state and it looked like it had been there a few days too (can robo mowers be made redundant?) We would’ve been tempted to put it in a bin bag and take it home but the promise of the pin-code alarm security put us right off! 

Also thanks to Jazz’min Tutum for putting this up on her Soundcloud this week, it’s a rough mix of a radio-inspired piece from Jazz’min & Madtone called This Frequency. It a track that goes out to all redundant robo mowers out there. Remember a robo mower is not just for christmas you know.

Under starter’s orders

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We popped into Shannon’s yesterday morning for some seed potatoes and more seed compost. It was great even though it was well grey outside to see it busy with gardeners ready at the starting blocks for the new season.

There’s more seeds to start off this weekend and we can pat ourselves on the back that it’s March and we are now just starting to thinking about sowing some tomatoes as we usually do that in January and at this time of year have a mountain of leggy tomato plants on the kitchen windowsill (above pic from a few years ago in March!)

Things are starting to wake up outside now, look at that foxtail lily go (above pic, please ignore the penicillin growing on the inside of the terrarium cloche).  And wherever you look in the Weeds HQ there’s always something gardening-related, I mean look at the dahlia tubers hiding under the bed, strange goings on indeed. It won’t be long now…

Right back where we started from

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It’s blowing a right old gale outside tonight so let’s turn our minds to bit of indoor gardening for a few minutes. Big shout to our good mate Ciarán over in Vancouver for sending us pics of his chilli seedlings and judging by the ones at the top they’re looking well healthy at the moment unlike ours which didn’t even germinate!

Here’s what we’ve got on. There’s some pea shoots, herbs and some sweet peas just poking through on the tray to the right. Send us pics of how you’re getting on with your sowings. Roll on the warmer weather!

The cloche is off!

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Look at that foxtail lily. It’s been threatening to lift off it’s plastic cloche for days and it’s only the start of march. What a mad plant/triffid it is!

The plastic protector was put back on over it but it looks like Storm Freya has taken it on a journey half-way down the garden (remember when storms didn’t use to have names and we just used to say things like “The weather’s crap outside” or “It’s tipping it down out there”?). The lily it lives!

More life

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While listening again to this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI we came across this gem that we missed the first time around. It’s a lovely 6 minutes thing by The Spy from Cairo with Beirut Skank. The longer it goes on the more dubbier it becomes! A tune to listening to in the back room while looking out the back window saying to yourself “I just don’t get this weather, it was lovely at the start of the week and now when it comes to the weekend, it’s like this?” One to listen to with a Bacardi and Coke in one hand and some Cheese thins in the other.

Life in the echo chamber

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Big shout to Dr Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss for the first exclusive worldwide playing of Jazz’min & Madtone’s “Open up your heart” on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI at 85.20 minutes in (also Madtone’s Interval Signal Jazz is used as a bed at 84.03). Link to the play again of the show here.

As usual it’s a first class show and includes music from The Hempolics, Alborosie meets the Wailers United, Trevor the Technician and this excellent tune from Anchorsong called Testimony (above). Tune! Big up the Echo Chamber!