Seed potatoes and citizens of the earth


Big thanks to Mick Matthews of The Cambridge Self-sufficiency Group for letting us know about their 9th Potato Day and Seed Swap on Saturday 10th February. A nice touch is that they charge for the seed spuds by the kilo so visitors can buy as few or as many as they like. We love that idea here! If you are around those parts give their Potato Day a visit.

Cambridgeshire Self Sufficiency Group
9th Annual Potato Day
Saturday 10th February 2018 11am-2pm
All Saints Church,
Market Square, 
Huntingdon PE29 3NR
Doors open to CSSG members at 10-30am and to the public at 11-00am

Also a big shout to Dr Strangedub for playing Earth Citizen by Jazzmin Tutum & Madtone on the other week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI. The show which also features The Green, Sly & Robbie, Talisman, Zion Train, Lee Perry and Coldcut X On-U Sound airs the unreleased as yet track from Weeds’ very own Madtone at 1.43.35 here. #jazzminmadtone #earthcitizen

Tomorrow never knows

Thanks to @hincmariana for letting us know about the great free event tomorrow at The Garden Museum. We’ve left it a bit late but it’s an event worth going to if you like a seed swap like we do.

Incredible Edible Seed Swap
Sat 27 January 2017
1.00-3.00pm (no booking required).
The Garden Museum
5 Lambeth Palace Road
London SE1 7LB

And accompanying news of the seed swap here’s a couple of lovely tunes heard on this week’s Ross Allen Show on NTS which has been on rotation here at Weeds HQ. The first is by The Officials called Distant Drums on a very limited Soul Jazz/Studio 1 release.

The next is a previous unknown Four Tops track called Don’t bring back memories (we don’t think this was the actual mix Ross played but it is a tune!) Best of luck to all who are going to the seed swap tomorrow!

It’s that time of year again

Happy New Year and a big shout to everyone who’s survived the festive period without a cold, the flu or a chest infection! Sadly we’ve been out the game for a couple of weeks due to illness but we’re back on track now. A date we’re looking forward to is Sunday 11th February when there’s a Seed Potato and Vegetable Seed Shop at Roots and Shoots, Walnut Tree Walk, London SE11 6DN. It runs from 11am until 2pm and looks like it’ll be a good morning out. More details here.

And for no reason at all apart from hearing it on BBC Radio 6 this evening, a odd sausage of a tune by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot called Bonnie and Clyde from the grand old year of 1968. The big question is, is it a Cuíca or a human voice making the strange sound?

An alternative to Dad’s Army

A few nice tunes as an alternative to the quality programming on telly this evening. The first “Surrealiste Skank” from Von D off the Wicked Scam EP on the great Dub Stuy label out the U.S. starts with Bunny “Striker” Lee put through some mad bandpass filter which gives the flavour of what’s to come on the track. It features what sounds like King Tubby’s famous “squawky” sound messed up to the max. A tough, tough tune to say the least!

And the next a nice catchy dubby sausage from The Maghreban off the Pots and Pans 12″ called Elka on Zoot Records. Funky, drummy and dubby! One for the xmas evening Turkey white bread sarnie crew.

And the final one, a DJ version from Trinity called The Book of Roots over a mighty dub of Delroy Wilson’s Have Some Mercy. May you all have a good Christmas night from here at Weeds and do remember, Val Doonican is on the telly at 10.15pm tonight. #wewon’tbewatchingdadsarmyheretonight

Tis the season (for sprouts)

When it comes to growing brussels sprouts we never usually have much luck. Over the years there’s been many attempts with results ranging from the sprouts being “blown” to a horrible incident from a few years ago we’d like to forget about. A week before Christmas a fox rubbed his rear-end against the one of the only brussel sprout plant leaving a nasty brown deposit on the stalk. Even after the plant had a good hosing down and it was clean as a whistle, it scarred us psychologically (possibly for life) and no way could our sprouts be served at the Christmas dinner table. We had to procure another “leg” of them from the local supermarket even though we’d been growing them for the best part of a year. That don’t make sense does it?This year it has been better, there hasn’t been any incidents nor any sprouts blowing out. We grew a couple of plants from seed (they were tiny in April here) and even though one of the plants are at a 45 degree to the ground (picture above) there are a decent amount of sprouts on it (close up of it below). 

The other plant has kept straight and has a fair few sprouts on it so you can say we’ve had some sort of success this year!Talking of sprouts and all things festive we here at Weeds wish all our readers a Great Christmas and a Happy New Year! We probably posted this tune up before but what the heck, it’s a festive one! Big shout out to a long gone second-hand shop in Coventry called John’s in the late 1970’s for having this Coxsone Dodd white label blank in its record boxes (which were just beside the owner’s snarling German shepherd). So have a great festive season and may the Bailey’s/Tia Maria (and non-alcoholic cocktails for the non-drinkers out there) be with you!

https://soundcloud.com/weedsuptomeknees/jingle-bells-unknown

A Sunday night odd sausage

It’s been another weekend of non-gardening as the weather’s been of the “something to be desired” variety but never mind, here’s a lovely tune from Monster Rally called Sunny Sloth that’ll make you smile! It’s off their new LP The Flowering Jungle released just last week. If you like nice exotic sunny type loops over lazy beats and catchy melodies that’ll stick in your mind, this set is for you. For further investigation have a look at their bandcamp page here. 

Those dahlias that have turned black due to frost damage that should’ve been pulled up over the weekend and dried off for winter storage will soon be forgotten about after listening to Monster Rally! #musicforgardenerswholovesunshine

A potato state of mind

This is bit previous but some news has just come in of Roots and Shoots’ second Potato Day. We sadly missed last year’s one but will go to this if all goes well. Not sure if there’s a seed swap there too but they’ll be more info nearer the time at http://www.roots&shoots.org

Sunday 11th February 2018 11.00am-2.00pm
Roots & Shoots Potato Day
Walnut Tree Walk
Lambeth, London SE11 6DN
FREE ADMISSION

The potato show continues a couple of days later on the Tuesday and Wednesday 13th and 14th February 2018 at the RHS Spring Sale at RHS Lindley Hall, London but they’ll be a charge for that one. More on the national potato day network here if you don’t reside in London town and would like your seed spud fix. If you’re part of a potato day or you know about any seed swaps do let us know and we’ll get the info out there. #potatoday #seedswap

Never mind the angle grinders

The builders next door have been at it since just after 8am this morning (and it’s a Saturday as well!) To drown them out this afternoon we’ve been listening to October’s edition of The Rhythm Doctor‘s Estonian Raadio 2 radio show loud (available here). The show includes a load of musical gems as per including this excellent tune from MAMA called Unmask Me remixed by one Ashley Beedle which is a winner. The version is nice too!

Don’t give ‘em to the council*

*Sung to “Go tell it on the mountain”.This morning we braved the cold and did about an hour’s worth of work in the front which ain’t bad considering we haven’t done much gardening of late. It was mainly raking the fallen leaves which we put in the gardening refuse wheelie bin for Lewisham Council to dispose of. Then we had a brainwave, why let the council gain from the ingredients of some potential leaf mould when our garden could benefit from the stuff when it’s ready.

It’ll take a while and ideally we should have made a chicken wire cage for the leaves where the air and rain could get to them but we remembered we had a darlek type compost bin in the garage with no top going to waste so we made use of that. It’s not ideal but it’ll do and probably make a good home for an overwintering hedgehog or two if we’re lucky. More on the benefits of leaf mould and how to make it here.

And guess what turned up amongst the leaves in the front garden this morning, the Theatre of Hate stone (above). This natural punk oddity was originally found on the beach at Camber Sands a few years ago and has been resident by the garden pond in the back for a long while. How it “chicken danced” its way to the front garden I don’t know. Next time Kirk Brandon is doing one of his gigs we’ll present it to him, we’re sure he’d love that!