Seed saving and other stories

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Cheers to our good friend Marc B for letting us know about a feature which was up our street on BBC’s Gardeners’ World this week about a “seed guardian” in Wales called Adam Alexander.  It’s excellent stuff to watch and it’s on i-player here episode 22 at about 25 minutes in. Have a look at Adam’s blog too (here) as he’s an interesting chap to say the least and has loads of advice on growing stuff, collecting seed and a lot more!

Talking of saving seeds and the like here’s news via @freedomseedbank of a great free event at the Skip Garden Harvest Festival on September 22nd at the Skip Garden, 1 Tapper Walk, London N1C 4AQ which includes a seed saving workshop explaining amongst other things “the theory and practice of saving seeds” which sounds great stuff. For more information and to book pop to their eventbrite page here.#saveyourownseeds

We thought we lost you

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We were feeling sad at Weeds HQ earlier this week as we thought the forty odd quid solar fountain for the pond we bought a couple of years ago had died on us. There was no light on the control panel and it looked like that was it a goner.

Today we gave it one more chance and laid the solar panel directly in the sun for a few hours and the thing shot back into life later in the afternoon. The battery was as flat as a pancake. Salute to solar power! By the way the goldfish bought from Lewisham’s “premier” pet shop are still there but went a bit camera shy when this photo was taken (don’t worry that pesky Heron hasn’t had them!)

Three tunes and a lemon verbana tea please

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It was through a facebook post of Haji Mike from Cyprus a few years ago that we learned of the great lemon verbena. The fragrant herb grows well in our parts too but you have to watch it in the winter as it’s not too hardy. This year for the first time we even noticed some flowers on it. The best thing about the plant is the lovely zingy tea made out of a few fresh leaves (more on the tea here.) And to accompany a cup of the stuff here’s three tracks in a downtempo breakbeat style.

The first is Paraiso from ANF on the NAFF label (it certainly ain’t!) out of Canada, nice stuff indeed! The next is a great one from I-Cube/Oeil Cube called XXXX (Abel’s edit) that I’m sure we may have featured before and slightly puts us in mind of another top tune Barbara Mason’s Another Man. 

Finally we have a corker from Skeleton Army called Touch on Killer Smile which after a couple of plays has wormed it’s way into our brains. Love the music maker’s moniker origins (see here) and love the tune! Three to wind down with!

Hold your head up oh, hold your head high

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Visiting Shoe Lane Library this week we noticed a book on the shelves by Jon Ronson about the entertainer Frank Sidebottom who Jon played keyboards for in the 80’s. It’s a winning combination of happy, sad and the strange.

What tickled us were a couple of tales, one about when the band was travelling by van to a London gig. On reaching the Edgware Road the chap driving stopped and asked a passer-by: “Excuse me, is this London?” to which the shocked person replied “Yes”. The driver then said “Well, where do you want this wood?” Another was about a gig at Dudley JB‘s where the uninterested crowd of a dozen totally ignored Frank and the band, procured a ball and split into two teams and played football on the dancefloor. Frank supposedly rated it as the best gig he ever played!

We were lucky to see him live at a Late at the Tate in the early 2000’s but it was a performance he did earlier that day there that sticks in our mind.

We caught by chance an afternoon warm up gig by Frank outside an adjoining gallery to the Tate (where an exhibition of his artworks were). It was as daft as you’d imagine and towards the end of it a strange incident occurred. Frank had just passed out the microphone to the crowd of about 20, encouraging a bit of audience participation. One of the punters held his nose and shouted in a mock Frank Sidebottom voice “I am the real Frank” (it sounded like that to us). Frank’s mood changed from being all jolly to very hurt as he gave the keyboard a hard blow which set off a three note funeral type march and walked off very slowly with his head bowed as if  following a coffin and an air of doom and gloom came over the place. The three note drone continued for a good 5 minutes until someone in the crowd turned the keyboard off. Was it a set up? Was it part of the show? It was odd whatever it was.

If that weren’t mad, we walked off to get a pint and returned to catch the exhibition of his artworks in the gallery. It was then we noticed 3 or 4 Tate staff frantically scrubbing off freshly painted graffiti from the outside wall of the gallery which wasn’t there when he was playing. Was this the work of an mad and angry Frank? What was it all about? Who knows. R.I.P Frank Sidebottom. #franksidebottom

It’s a bit previous but…

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Talk about looking into the future! We’ve just found out that the dates for next year’s London Potato Fair are 9th and 10th February 2019 11.00am-2.00pm, yes it’s over 2 days! The venue is the same as this years: Roots & Shoots, Walnut Tree Walk, Lambeth SE11 6DN.

Not sure if it will include a seed swap but you they’ll be more info nearer the time on the Roots & Shoots website here and for details of all potato days in the UK next year are at http://www.potato-days.net

If you’re organising anything like a potato day, plant sale or seed swap, do give us a bit of notice and send us the details and we’ll post it up!

In a Lionel Ritchie style

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https://soundcloud.com/isle-of-jura-records/jura-soundsystem-udaberri-1

Three tunes for that “Easy like Monday night” feeling. The first (above) from Jura Sound system called Udaberri Blues (dub version) is a nice breaky number complete with the soothing sounds of the sea. What better tune to soothe those nerves on an Monday!

Next is the Chandeliers with High Diamond a slice of electronic funk with a slice of atmospherica then follows a slow mo dub affair with Joe Ariwa with King Moses at 33rpm. Tunes to wind into the week to!

The seedy side of swapping

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We at Weeds like to mix it up when it comes to getting our seeds. We purchase them from our local garden centre, have more than a fondness for a ebay “vegetable seed job lot” (if it says “rare” or “unusual” then all the better) and do we love a seed swap. What’s nicer than passing on something you got a few of and exchanging them for something else.

Organised seed swaps are fun events to attend, you’ll meet like-minded people (great for exchanging gardening tips and information) and you’ll probably bag yourself something that you’ve never thought of growing before or some heirloom/heritage varieties you rarely come across.

One of our favourite seed swaps was in a pub in Hither Green on a Sunday night; a small crowd of gardening enthusiasts gathered to drink, chat horticulture and flick through boxes of interesting looking seed packets (some customised and hand-decorated, much more interesting than your average pack). That’s how a Sunday evening should be spent rather than having to put up with the likes of Highway and Antiques Road Show.

We never like to go to one empty handed and try to bring things as interesting as possible, these have included: chitted seed spuds, Egyptian walking onion sets and a couple of packs of night scented stock as we’re always trying to turn people onto growing those.

Once at a seed swap we saw a girl (dressed in a steam-punk style) pull out of her pocket a list of “what she had” consisting of 2 double-sided typed A4 sheets. Her black gothic style rucksack (with metal bits and all sorts) was filled with tons of numbered “dealer bags” full of seeds which came complete with home made labels and even sowing instructions. That’s a bit over the top for us here but that’s how passionate people are!

Sort of related are the annual potato day/seed fairs arranged by Pennards plants that combine a seed potato sale, heirloom/heritage seeds and sometimes have a seed swap section. Have a look at www.potato-days.net for your local one.

So save your own seeds this year (there’s lots of sites online that’ll give you pointers on how to do it) or see what you may have left over in your seed tin and next year have a look on google/facebook/twitter for a seed swap near you and go down and participate and see what you can bring home! Why not make a weekend of it and go to the big annual Seedy Sunday in Brighton (Sunday February 3rd 2019). Also have a look online as there’s numerous sites that encourage the art of seed swapping without even leaving your own home. Good luck! #onaseedswaptip

Respect to Mr Reel

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It was very sad to hear about the passing of the reggae writer Penny Reel this week. Today we listened to the excellent Worldwide FM show from last year with Paul Bradshaw that featured Penny playing some excellent tunes from his massive record collection, reciting some poetry and reading passages from his books.

There’s some fantastic music on the show including the one above by Hy Mann called The Lord’s Army. It’s a killer and sounds not unlike one of our all-time favourite tunes M Robinson‘s Follow You. Both are from the same producer Ossie Irving/King Ossie, from the same year and sound very similar to us (the guitar parts are almost identical and so’s the horn bit at 1.17), are they even from the same session? More mentions on both the tunes here. Listen to the Worldwide FM show for more musical inspiration. R.I.P. Mr Penny Reel.