Thanks to our good friend Dr Strangedub from The Echo Chamber on KFAI in Minneapolis for sending us an update of his garden this year and it’s looking well healthy!
The good doctor writes: The collage above features my vegetable garden. In the top left is some type of chilli pepper; the bottom right is a bit of herb (oregano and thyme) in a planter; the other two photos are of tomatoes and peppers (and my drip hose.)
Above is my perennial shade garden. The largest image shows a couple of hostas, a bit of ornamental grass, raspberries in the foreground and some tiger lillies (no flowers as yet) near the upper left corner. The two smaller photos, some ostrich ferns and some hemp.
You bring out the gardener in me
A big thanks to Vic Godard from the great Subway Sect and his partner G for sending us these great photo’s of their garden. If you remember earlier this year their excellent runner bean wigwam was our beanpole of the month. It’s featured again in the photo below as a backdrop to those squawking parakeets you often see around these parts.
Love the tomatoes in the grow bags with the great watering devices, they look like cut off pop bottles if I’m not mistaken.
In the flower department the garden features some wild roses, mallow and sweet peas. They look great!
Best of luck to Vic and his forthcoming run of gigs starting with The Latitude Festival next week (19th July) and the also for the release of “1979 Now” in October. Cheers Vic and G, ta for the pics!
Who’s gonna drive you home tonight?
The 2 Bears – Angel (Touch Me) – Southern Fried Records
Bonkers video from The 2 Bears (Joe Goddard/Raf Rundell) for their new single heard on the Rob Da Bank show last week. Don’t do this at home kids as this is not behaviour that’ll get you a pass first time. Great tune though!
Also this week I heard someone on the radio refer to the plant borage as “bor-raj” like how you’d say garage in Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage. That isn’t right is it? Or was the presenter giving it a Hyacinth Bouquet? Everybody know it’s “bor-ridge” as in porridge. Answers on a postcard please to the weeds up to me knees elocution department.
Saturday morning (moody) blues dance
Jon Hopkins – Abandon Window (Moderat Remix) – Domino
A slice of moody electronica for this also moody (and cloudy) Saturday morning in London. One to have on loud while trying to decide whether you should get out there and start weeding or have a cup of tea and go back to bed.
Much strangeness in the garden
A big thanks to the good Doctor Strangedub for putting us in touch with another dub gardener Phil Harmony who presents the excellent Dubnight Radio Show from Berlin (listen to the latest episode of the show here.) Phil grows a wide selection of stuff on his balcony including tomatoes, peppers, raspberries, strawberries and the hot as hot, ghost chilli (nagaia jolokia.) More to come about Phil’s balcony soon.
Phil also mentioned to me about the Prince Valley Guest House in the Blue Mountains in Jamaica who grow their own coffee, and last night looking on their Facebook page was this picture of probably the maddest plant I’ve ever seen. It’s the Jade Vine, a member of the pea and bean family so it’s related to the humble kidney bean down the allotment, how good is that, and the bats love them too. Ah, I’ve just read it’s not frost tolerant, so it’ll won’t be much good in my back garden then! From one great Jade to another…
Black Jade – Drum Fashion – Jade (off the excellent “Contempo” LP)
What a difference a day makes (pt 2)
Horace Andy – Rain from the sky
The Aggrovators – It’s raining dub
I think these two tunes will give you some idea to what the weather’s been like in London today.
On a tomato tip
This morning I had a look at the excellent vertical veg website (run by Mark Ridsdill Smith who picked out that corker of a tune from Bessie Banks on The Dirt the other week) and found some great tips for growing tomatoes. I’ve a few plants in the ground, one in a well overcrowded hanging basket (plonked inside another hanging basket, novel eh?) and others in reused ready-mix cement buckets up near the house.
I’ve staked them up with bamboo canes, give them a regular water, a weekly feed and take off any sideshoots so all the plants energy goes into making the fruit. When the plant has formed about 4 or 5 trusses I nip out the top except the hanging basket one which I’ll leave. Most have been raised from seed except the ones kindly given to us from Dig This Nursery, who will be having their annual tomato festival on the 9th of August and know a thing or two about toms!
On vertical veg, Mark speaks to a guy called Nick Chenhall who runs the website Tomato Growing about growing the ‘umble tom in growbags and containers. Some brilliant tips on the video (see it here) like feeding them little and often (dilute the feed more than you usually would) and one mad one I’ve never heard before, adding a cup of used washing up water to your watering can once every couple of weeks which acts as a wetting agent, and helps bring back moisture to areas that have dried out.
Even better, at the end of the video the guy from Tomato Growing is seen serenading the toms in his polytunnel with a classical guitar. It’s that old music/gardening connection again, brilliant! Me, I will be playing mine some happy hardcore and see if that gets results!
After the sun has gone
Temples – Move with the Season (Beyond the Wizzards Sleeve remix) – Heavenly
It’s been a lovely day today so there’s been a bit of flymo-ing, weeding, sowing root veg of the beetroot and carrot variety and this evening, big action with the garden hose, all the while wondering if all those tales about watering in sunshine are true.
Then this evening it starts to chuck it down. Brilliant, as usual I am bang on with my timing. To accompany this tale of gardening woe here’s some mad Eroll Alkan/Richard Norris business on a well trippy tip and if it weren’t so blimmin warm I’d get me kaftan on. But then again if I did, I wouldn’t be able to give it large to the tune below.
Thanks to our good mate Will J for passing this mad tune on. Is that the sound of bagpipes? And I do love the punk rock style ending!
All under one (greenhouse) roof raving
A great tune from Jamie XX heard on Rob Da Bank this week, lovely steel pans and old school “rave’s not dead” samples. A chilled (dark) affair, one to play at low volume while trying to water the garden clandestinely at 10.30pm with a garden hose fitted with a silencer to avoid any (sudden) hosepipe bans or any annoyance to the neighbours. Love the “Fila, Head, Kappa…” sample at the end! We got the dance with the new stylee..
Bottom end veg and garden fetes
I’ve just spent an hour between showers weeding the veg bed at the end of the garden, it’s ideal for lettuces, spinach etc as it doesn’t get full sun all day so they tend not to “bolt” (go to seed quickly). Apart from the lettuce and spinach, there’s a couple of cabbages, climbing french beans, one purple sprouting broccoli, early spuds (that are nearly ready to dig up) beetroot and a pink tree stump (don’t ask!) Also in shot, a couple of dalek compost bins procured off the council, a wheelbarrow which was left out on a local street with a note saying “take me” on it, the wormery (the white bucket) and the comfrey liquid fermenting in a bucket with a council garden waste bag on top filtering out the toxic gasses.
Peter Tosh – Johnny B Goode
At the same time down the road the local church fete was in progress. I knew it was on because earlier I popped to the shops and saw local firefighters decked out in face paint (imagine them turning out like that to a shout!) showing kids around their appliance and a bouncy castle was in full swing. While I was tending to the veg patch a RnB band started up with the amps cranked up really high (much to the disgust of the neighbours). They banged out “Route 66,” “Johnny B Goode” and a cover of The Subways “Be my Rock n Roll Queen” with lots of added shouts, iggy pop-isms and yelps which made me laugh while I pulled out weeds and filled in the gaps with more sowings. Mid-set the lead singer read out the results to the Tombola (“The star prize of £200 goes to…”) and then into a another rocking version of “Johnny B Goode”. Brilliant! What do you reckon the vicar thinks to all this rock n roll behaviour? “Jolly good” I hope is her reply.





