Raised bed of the month

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Rauls raised bedsHere’s a new feature to weeds where we salute the humble raised bed!

This month’s collection comes from our good mate Raul S in Estonia who has an excellent weekly radio show called vibratsioon and releases music as Ajukaja amongst other things. Nice beds, a nice cutlass/pruning saw and two great tunes by the way!

If you fancy sending us a pic of your raised beds please email them to onedeckpete (at) gmail (dot) com and everyone who enters the feature will have their name put into a draw with the chance of winning a quality greenhouse* at the end of the year.

*Subject to availability

On a pritt stick tip

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An afternoon of zinesThanks to Fliss C for letting us know about the next fanzine related event at Putney Library, 5-7 Disraeli Road, Putney SW15 2DR on Saturday 7th May 2016 from 2-5pm.

They’ll welcome everyone who’s interested in fanzines especially people who are new to the subject too as they’re having a library for people to sample zines. Fliss herself is having an exhibition there celebrating her 20 years of my zine work. Brilliant stuff! More info here. She’s picked a very apt tune to accompany this piece.

And if you love all those old Punk fanzines take a look at the “Bored Teenagers” fanzine page (which features our old fanzine Ded Yampy alongside loads of others of that time.)

Bored teenagers

Vive la Prittstick, an old typewriter and a procured photocopier!

Citrus in Cyprus

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A big thanks to Haji Mike from the island of Cyprus for his spring garden update.

Tangerine Haji mike

“The smell of citrus fruits in the garden this time of the year is heavenly and intoxicating. Just sitting in the garden day or night and taking in those aromas is like paradise.

We have three in all, tangerine (above), lemon and orange. They are young trees so for the first few years not much fruit has grown. Things look different this year though.
Lemon Haji mike

The lemon above is one that blooms 3 times in a season.

Orange Haji Mike

And the orange above is known as Shekeriko, a tree common mainly in Cyprus. It yields small oranges packed with the living perfumed flavour. Be warned eat two or more and the acid gets to you…

Deep breaths mean time and meditations…. Haji Mike”

Thanks to Mike for the piece and pics and for choosing this apt tune from Maxi Priest.

Around the world for free

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A big shout to Doctor Strangedub and DJ Baby Swiss from KFAI’s Echo Chamber and everybody at Dan Dada records for including the track African Bass, a collaboration from our goodselves here at weeds Madtone, & Audiovert our good mate Paul G from Melbourne (whose garden was featured last year here) on the excellent compilation Echo Chamber –  Around The World In Dub Vol 7 & 8 out now.

Around the world

It’s a free download which includes 26 tracks from around the dub globe including Ancient Astronauts, Tony Freebird ft Lee Scratch Perry, Trevor The Technician McKenzie, Secret Archives of the Vatican, DU3normal, Spectral Dub, Dusza, Bandulu Dub, Dubby Doo and The Mutant Frogs and a whole lot more dub. One for a Saturday night download!

A big ta to our good mate Will J for telling us about The Echo Chamber in the first place many moons ago!

Springtime in TW9

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Flame vine_2Today we visited Kew Gardens for the first time in years and here’s some pics of the great stuff on offer. We loved seeing “in the flesh” the extraordinary Jade Vine (a member of the humble pea and bean family) that was featured in the post about the Prince Valley Guest House in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica last year here and here (pic below: the vine in situ in JA.)jamaican jadeGod knows what this wicker basket/hand-grenade flower below is but it certainly is special. You know we here at weeds love an out of the ordinary plant.Pon the mike

oh lillyblue bells at kewThere were some great water lilies, bluebells and spring flowers galore but as for the freshly watered vegetable beds below they’re well up our street.

I believe a sprit level, a length of string, a protractor, mucho patience and measuring tape have been involved to get these so neat. I wish ours at Weeds HQ were as bang on!ocd veg beds

A lust for lawns

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A big thanks to our mate John F for sending us this clip of Iggy Pop in his back garden. Be warned though, theres a bit of effing and jeffing near the end but it is The Ig what do you expect? He does some t’ai chi, waters his veg with his shirt off and even mows his lawn. Who said music and gardening don’t mix?

Our next post in this “musicians and gardening” series will be some old footage we found of Mark E Smith talking about exhibiting Chrysanthemums and his love of kite surfing.

Mark E smith on mums

Another one for Ron

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Ron on radio 4Big shout to “The Gangsta Gardener” Ron Finley who features on this week’s Radio 4 Food programme here.

It all started with a simple act. Ron was fed up with the lack of fresh edibles in his neighbourhood (South Central LA,) so planted some veg in the empty plot outside his house which usually was a dumping ground for the odd mattress, fridge etc. “There’s nothing wrong with that” you’re thinking.

His local council didn’t think so and took him to court for “gardening without a permit,” how daft is that? This spurred him on into getting people in the local community involved in the veg growing bug, starting food growing projects on waste ground etc and now his message is spreading worldwide thanks to his continuing work. In his own words “We gotta flip the script on what a gangsta is — if you ain’t a gardener, you ain’t gangsta.” 

There’s a film called “Can you dig this” about Ron and the other people involved in the project and the changes it’s provoked. Search it out!

And here’s some musical choices from Ron from when he picked some tunes for us a short while back here.


Home Grow – Keith Cross


Be Free – J.Cole


Breathe – Blaze (Ashley Beedle’s Exhale Vocals Mix)


Apparently – J.Cole

Cheers to Sonya M of the Facebook group Last Gang in Town for letting us know about Ron in the first place! Big up Ron!

I swear the sun DID come out, honest!

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Yesterday I spent a nice day outside in the warm sunshine tipping around, planting spuds and helping my daughter sow some seeds in her part of the garden.

As the day came to a close it started to get a bit cold so I stuck a bit of fleece over the freshly sown seeds/seed potatoes “as you never know what the weather will bring” I thought to myself. (Below) Fleece spread over freshly planted spuds just in case that damn frost shows it head (inset) What’s under the upturned plastic pot at the end of the bed.fleece it!Today it started very grey here in London and then in the afternoon it didn’t half tip it down. I later heard on the radio that it’s the beginning of Storm Katie, that’s going to bring some rubbish weather over the Easter holiday. Storm-KatieWhat next? A frost called Frankie or a snowstorm called Sid. What’s with the naming of weather all of a sudden?