Sam Willis – Foxglissandro (Half Machine)
I’ve just got sent this glitchy recommendation from our good mate will. Reminds me of a bleepy nathan fake. Like it! One more before the cocoa boils over…
One more before bedtime
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Fly me to the moon
If my Maria Thun biodynamic sowing and planting calendar 2012 goes AWOL I pop over to this site to see “what time it is”…
http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/MoonPlanting.asp
I’ve got Friday on my mind
Guts – brand new revolution
Here’s a lovely old tune heard on this week’s gilles peterson show from last year. A nice bit of Latin-tinged electronica that puts me in mind of a very slowed down version of the excellent “together forever” by exodus (as played by the late great larry levan) crossed with fela and freddy fresh. A great combination. Tune!
Tiptoe through the tulips…
Here’s a well simple gardening tip which is so obvious but one I am very guilty of forgetting on many occasions and that is labeling your seed trays or rows of seeds when sowed outdoors. All it takes is the time to get a felt tip pen and write on a plastic seed label, simple! So why do I now have a lovely butternut squash on what I thought was a cucumber plant?
Saturday night out on the greenhouse floor
Moon Runner – Cultural Track One (Toy Tonics 003)
I found this one while searching soundcloud this week for some good mixes on Andrew Weatherall’s Transitions mix (http://soundcloud.com/everybodywantstobethedj/transitions-404-part-2-andrew). It’s a bit of a slowmo dancefloor banger but I mean, it is a Saturday night! Love the old school piano riff around the 1.54 mark. Let’s see those gardening gloves in the air!
Horizontal potting shed business…
Here’s a lovely old tune heard on Gilles Peterson’s show the other week. La ritournelle crossed with the andrea true connection with a bit of sade, all thrown in the compost bin in a chilled stylee. A tune to garden in the moonlight to, that’s if you have the floodlights and the fluorescent hoe.
The best dressed chicken in town
While looking through a 1960’s gardening book the other week I noticed that the chap who wrote it was photographed doing all the jobs in a lovely shirt & tie combo and sharply creased trousers. How the hell did he manage to work in all that get up?
When I was at the council there was a guy there who everybody knew as “Mr Clean”. He would always have on a crisp white shirt with a purple westminster council tie underneath his pristine council issue coach-drivers type jacket (which he’d get dry cleaned every few months!) There was a method behind his madness as when it came to working his excuse was that he couldn’t as he didn’t want to get his clothes dirty. It paid off as I never ever seen him do any. He was an expert with his custom made long-handled litter picker and could reach deep into bushes and shrubs to pick up coke cans/weeds without actually stepping on the soil, brilliant! I doubt if that sort of thing could happen today. Nice one Mr Clean!
Funnily enough last Thursday I chatted to another council gardener who was dressed unworkmanlike as well, in a lovely pink Lacoste polo shirt with the collars turned up (that isn’t going to get too dirty is it?). After watching him pull out summer bedding and perennials I asked him did they dump them like they used to do in my day at the council. I was pleased to hear they didn’t but composted all the bedding and gave away perennials including ornamental foliage plants to schools and charities. The usual practice years ago was to pull up the plants and spring bulbs and put them in brown sacks and give them to the binmen to take away but we’d give them out to keen gardeners we tipped off the day before while the gaffer weren’t looking. Waste not want not and all that!
Skins rule ok!
Here’s a great tip from the folks at my local garden centre, Shannons in Forest Hill. Ten days before you wish to harvest your potatoes, cut the top growth off (leaving a little stalk so you know where the spuds are when you come to dig them up!) The plant will then put all it’s energy back into the tubers (ie. the potatoes) and give you better skins. I didn’t know that!
Thursday night’s chilling
Dennis Brown – Say what you say (Joe Gibbs)
It’s funny, I love Dennis Brown but I’ve never heard this track before and the first time I did was only last week when I downloaded a recording of King Sturgav Hi-Fi (sound system of the great U Roy) from the late 70’s from the excellent website “who cork the dance” http://www.whocorkthedance.com/sturgav.html
The recording isn’t exactly hi-fi quality but it’s a great piece of reggae history on tape/MP3. Big up the late great D Brown! While I was writing this singing to the song on headphones, my 14 year old daughter came in very concerned and asked was I okay as I sounded “slightly high.” What, on a Thursday night on a glass of cheap Marks’ Sauvignon? I wish, It must be my bad singing!
A winter world of veg*
The garden is approaching the end of the growing season so now’s the time to put those hardy veg in to “overwinter” over the cold months and utilise your space to the max. The plants will make a start now, go dormant over the winter period then perk up in the spring, giving yourself a head start on the veg front next year. Vegetables like spring cabbage, kale, spinach, broad beans, peas, even lettuce (look out for a hardy variety like “artic king” at the garden centre) can be put in now for overwintering.
Last week I sowed some broad beans, onions and garlic. You can grow onions from seed but the most convenient way is to grow from “sets”, mini onions (think pickled onions in their skins!) that’ll save you time and effort. I got a bag of about 50/60 for £3, that’s well enough for yourself with loads left over to pass onto a gardening mate or two.
I prepared the area as per, taking out weeds, stones etc and made two rows about 10″ apart. I then sowed each set 5″ apart and buried them with about a quarter of an inch of soil above the top of the set to stop the birds and squirrels from having them. Don’t use force pushing them in or you will damage the sets. All you have to do then is watch for weeds and damage due to wildlife trying to rob them off you (you could even put a net over them on their early days if you’re keen!) and wait. Do remember to stick in some sort of plant label as you might forget. I do it all the time, that’s why I have a squash plant growing up some canes like a cucumber at the moment!
I’ve also started off some garlic. These are from a bulb not unlike the ones you use in cooking. Just carefully break it up and put the cloves in the ground instead of the pot. You don’t want to use any old one from the supermarket as you don’t know what variety it is and if it’s suited to you local climate so get especially for the plot from your garden centre. With planting just carefully put them in (flat end down) with about a quarter of an inch covering over the top so the birds can’t see them and space them about six inches apart. If you’re doing them in rows keep those about 10″ apart. There you go, how easy was that?
* An Englebert Humperdinck song no less!
Weeds up to me knees 