It may be cold outside but inside there’s always music

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There’s not much to see in the garden at the moment but the compost heap is still composting, the fish are swimming at the bottom of the pond and there’s protection all around the garden for the forthcoming cold snap(s). Apart from the odd bit of tidying up we haven’t done that much apart from visiting the compost heap with the odd teabag and veg peelings. When we can remember we always stick a small layer of already made compost on the heap from the dalek bin beside it which will hopefully help the whole process.

We’re also in the process of looking through our seed tin. Even if we can’t do anything in the garden at the moment at least we can plan for the spring.

And if you’re finding the cold is getting to you, get your stereo/headphones on and have a listen to the studio version of Radio Clarion for an hour of trumpet based delights, well worth listening to. It also features at 8.40 minutes in a mix from One Deck Pete called “Don’t blow your own trumpet” with tracks from The Conet Project, The June Brides, Goldmaster Studio, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit & Holger Czukay and Handbook.

And thanks to our good friend Gerry Hectic here’s a great trackfrom Telefís ‘Falun Gong Dancer’ with Jah Wobble – Donkey’s Gudge Dub. Excellent stuff with a nice video too.

(Good) Tune for a Tuesday

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Cheers to Your Host from This is a music show for playing the version of Show us the way from Hell & Fire on last week’s show, and what a tune! And one that made us think of the wonderful Joya Landis and John Holt duet from years ago.

And talking of the excellent This is a music show here’s said episode of the show for your listening pleasure!

The trumpets sound, the angels sing

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A week tomorrow (and the Sunday after) Radio Clarion takes to the shortwaves via Channel 292 with a trumpet themed broadcast. Tune in on your shortwave radio or by clicking here at 1200 UTC on Sunday 23rd/30th January on 9670 kHz.

There will be a mix from One Deck Pete called “Don’t blow your own trumpet” featuring The Conet Project, The June Brides, Goldmaster Studio, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit & Holger Czukay and Handbook. After the broadcast the audio of Radio Clarion will be posted up here. #shortwavesnotdead #trumpetsnotdead

A tune for a frosty Friday morning

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A big cheers to Your Host of This is a music show “The finest second-hand vinyl finds only on shortwave” for alerting us to this tune from The Romeos from an LP called Precious Memories which was played on the show the other week. There’s is something about this tune that grows on you!

Good times never seemed so good

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Here’s a great tune from a few years ago but just discovered the other night. It’s called Clarion from Handbook from the cassette and bandcamp set called Junky and it’s a tune. If all goes well it’ll be broadcast as part of a wind-instrument heavy mix called “Don’t blow your own trumpet” on the aptly named Radio Clarion over the shortwaves soon. Keep them peeled!

Also while looking through some old LP’s this evening we refound this tune, Darling Jeboza Macoo by Stranger Cole. It’s another version using the “Seeing is knowing” (by Stranger and Gladdy) and “Kimble” (by The Creators aka the late great Mr Lee Perry) rhythm. As we love those, we love this!

You know how it is…

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After the last post we were doing a little bit of research that took us to the Trilogy Tapes blog which is a great read so have a butchers at it here. That led us to the post about their all-time sly and robbie fave Baltimore which we’d forgotten how good it is! RIP Robbie Shakespeare.

Out there on a Wednesday night

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It’s looks like the cold weather is about to hit SE23 tonight, minus 4 or what? We suggest whacking the heating up and chilling out with the mix below recommended to us by our good friend Marc B.

It’s a very tripped out hour from Biscuit (Good Morning Tapes) for the Twin Womb radio show on Noods Radio (Bristol) from December last year. God knows what you’d call it but once you immerse yourself into it it’s serious stuff. One for the headphones crew!

More on Good Morning Tapes here and on Noods Radio (who have a plethora of great shows) here.

One last tidy

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Yesterday while watching the weather forecast (the one the farmers swear by) on Countryfile we were told that this present mild spell in SE23 will be replaced with some “normal for this time of year” weather very soon.

This afternoon we spent an hour or two in the garden tidying up, not that you’d think we did looking at the wild patch at the bottom (above) but as we’re trying to cultivate a “wild” look we really don’t know what to do for the best. Do we weed or leave?

Last year we sowed some Bee Bombs alongside more wild flowers using our random sowing technique (aka chuck them anywhere) and considering the area doesn’t get that much light we did alright but we’re going to give it another year and see what happens. It does look messy at the moment and the two random stalks of brussels sprouts don’t help either.

We also forked up some dahlia tubers (top pic) we didn’t get around to lift after the frost, got as much mud off them as we could and now they’re indoors in the dark and dry until the spring. We maybe too late as we took out some rotten parts already but we’ll keep a check on them. More info on lifting and storing dahlias here.

The raised beds at the side (above) are quite tidy and nice to see the overwintering onions and shallots doing well. The usual bucket over the rhubarb is back, to try and force some early stalks out of it come the spring.

We moved a bay bush we got years ago which was not doing well in its old location and it looks like the move has worked wonders. And below is the pond that is looking quite bare at the moment but give it a couple of months and it’ll be back to its former glory. We’re still leaving the pea netting on top as that Ladywell Heron has been seen of late standing motionless at the bottom of the garden the other week.

That’s our update, if the weather’s okay we may do a bit more but we doubt it with what was said on Countryfile!

And in the background while we write this, is the latest Rhythm Doctor’s Waiting Room from IDA Radio (Tallinn). Starts with some chilled Jazz from Finland and then progresses through some nice musical genres.

Played early on the show is this wonderful tune from Brenda Ray called Space Dustin’.

May 2022 be a good one…

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A big Happy New Year to all our gardening, music and radio friends from across the globe and from around the corner. May 2022 be a good one for you all, we hope your vegetables and flowers do well, that you find some great tunes this year and may Solar cycle 25 be with you.

We had a little tidy up this afternoon as the weather was so mild, we took the pump out of the pond and gave it a clean and a dry and have put it away until the spring. We also got a little fire prepared for a New Year’s Eve mini burn up later.

To end the year here’s firstly a wonderful tune from Grey Frequency called Chimes (Rai Internazionale) from the forthcoming Shortwave Transmissions project from Cities and Memories.

And in the background whilst writing the post we had on This is a music show 146 with the top 25 tunes Your Host found thrift shopping in 2021. As he explains on the website here: “This Is A Music Show” is a weekly hour-long music program featuring records found secondhand at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets. Each show features a wide variety of music from around the world. Some tracks are good, some a great, some are terrible, but it’s all interesting (I hope).” A show you have to listen to if you love music!

And at number 20 on this year’s countdown is the classic The Cables “Be a man”. What a tune! Here’s to a great new year!

Seed swap alert, seed swap alert!

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We’ve just found out about the Incredible Edible Lambeth Seed Swap and AGM at the Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB on Saturday 12th February 2022 from 12 noon – 3 pm. The cost is by donation and looks like to be a great event. As it says on the Eventbrite page “Meet up with fellow gardeners, share seeds, tips, stories and connect with the community” sounds good with us! Tickets available here.

Have you news of any other garden related events for 2022, if so send us them in the comments with an email and details with location, date and price.

And while we’re on the subject of seeds…