Never mind the heatwave

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Even in the heatwave we’ve had some visitors to the garden. The stag beetle (we’re sure it is) above didn’t seem to mind the high temperatures. They look brilliant when they’re flying over at dusk (looking for a mate) like some small army tank/helicopter hybrid machine. More on the stag beetle here.

As it says on the site it’s good to keep some dead and decaying wood lying about as it’s a vital habitat for them. So don’t “Keep it tidy” when it comes to some parts of the garden, the beetles will thank you for it.

Also the compost heap at the bottom of the garden seems to be thriving in the heat. We’re trying to give it a daily turn over with a garden fork making sure the ingredients are well mixed up which at the same time adds air into the pile this speeding up the rotting process. The pic below is pre “The Big Mix Up”. We prefer the traditional pile now as opposed to those dalek ones that seem to take the skin off your hands when giving it a fork over.

Enjoy this spell of cooler weather!

Sunshine, sunshine do your job

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The strange vegetable bed at the bottom of the garden is looking healthy. We’ve red cabbages and tomatoes and a red hot poker but God knows what that’s doing there. The bed usually suffers with a lack of water but we added some organic material from the compost heap at the start of the season, feed the plants there weekly and make sure we get the watering can on it daily. Over the next few nights we may even give it a water in the evening.

Earlier this year we went to that great seed swap at Glengall Wharf Garden in Peckham and got several different varieties of tomatoes. We’re hoping that the toms above are the beefsteak Costoluto Fiorentino from the seed swap and the tomatoes in the raised beds halfway down the garden are the classic plum San Marzano as they look a bit like them.

We really should be more organised with some sort of colour coded notebook and plant labels but sadly we’re not. Let’s see what they turn out like at harvest time.

Life after 40°

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How hot is it today? The front garden is like the Sahara at the moment and we’ve been meaning to weed it of late but the soil is like concrete and the last time we spent a lot of time working out there was in lockdown. We cleared ten or so years of ivy off the front wall, then a couple of weeks later parts of the wall fell down. The ivy was keeping the thing up!

We put in a hollyhock last year, the main stem fell over with the mad wind early this year, then spikes grew out of the main stem on the ground and from the centre part a bush has formed. We’re not complaining as it’s covering the broken down wall and the flowers are attracting all sorts of bugs, pollinating insects and bees.

In this silly heat, do remember to give your garden a good water in the morning if possible and take it nice and easy, the garden will thank you for it!

As for cooling down sakes we’d recommend this excellent mix from Chris Coco, one to have on when all the windows and doors are open and there’s damp sheets hanging down from the ceiling (saw that on the internet) to help keep everyone cold what with the crazy heat today.

And Chris has very kindly put up the track listings too:
1 Calm – Long Summer Dream (Dub Mix) x Tangerine Dream – Love On A Real Train
2 Turbotito – To Feel In Love (Projections x Turbotito Version) x Althea & Donna – Uptown Top Ranking
3 SONLIFE – The First (Chris Coco Version x SONLIFE – She Misses You
4 Blair French – Honey Rooftops (Chris Coco Version Part 1) x Nina Simone – Here Comes The Sun
5 Sauco – Sun Goddess (Chris Coco Sunset Mix) x Scott Grooves – E2E4 Reframe
6 Hear & Now x Chris Coco – For You (The Chill Out Tent Edit) x Hear & Now – Aurora Baleare
7 Reggae Disco Rockers – The Whistle Song (Quiet Storm Version) x King Tubby – A Better Version
8 Quinn Lamont Luke – Don’t Run Away (Chris Coco Version) x Mr Fingers – Can You Feel It
9 Projections – Original Cell (Chris Coco Version) x Thomas Newman – American Beauty
10 Dexter Scott – Break Noise x The Pop Group (Dennis Bovell Dub)
11 Coyote – Home Grown x Gregory Isaacs – Cool Down The Dub
12 Joan Bibiloni – Castanets Eivissa / Mar Blava

Welcome back my friends to the WELK that never ends

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Thanks to everyone who’ve been sending us their accordion classics since last week’s transmission of WELK.

Thanks to John F. who alerted us to Kimmo Pohjonen. We had no idea that this sort of madness existed, talk about taking the accordion to the next level! We love Kimmo’s get up but don’t think the local allotment committee would allow this sort of gear to be worn on-site especially in this forthcoming heatwave. A great tune by the way.

And he reminded us about this great tune by Les Negresses Vertes a band we here have seen a few years ago but had well forgotten about.

And also Slim of the Urban Voodoo Machine, Slim Cyder Co etc. Here’s the great man in action with Joe Ely from a few years ago.

He also mentioned the Grace Jones tune “I’ve seen that face before” a reworking of Astor Piazzolla‘s “Libertango”.

Steve Barker had also said about the maestro Astor Piazzola amongst lots of others (Clifton Chenier, Rocking Sidney, Boozoo Chavis and Amédé Ardoin and many more) which we’ll look into soon. He also mentioned Flaco JImenez and this tune with Ry Cooder.

And last and not least Mark Paytress who sent us this classic and called it “perhaps my fave squeezebox tune of all time” and he may be right! The Three Suns “Delicado”.

Keep on squeezing as they say and thanks to everyone who have got in touch with their recommendations.

Could you get your feet off the seats please?

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Big shout to all the bus and train spotters out there! This Sunday grab yourself a shortwave platform ticket and hop on aboard CTRN via WRMI at 2200 utc on 9395 kHz for some locomotive classics.

Below is an old CTRN from last year with all sort of railway tunes including a mix from One Deck Pete at 40 minutes in called “Off the rails”.

Here’s the track listings:

Instantly Distant: Samples, Foley and Field Recordings – Bank Negara Station
The Lamplighters – London Station
Commodore 98 – Mind the gap (interlude)
Dennis Brown – Westbound Train/Version
Dub Syndicate – Night Train

All’s well that ends WELK

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Cheers to everyone who have been sending us recommendations of accordion tunes over the last week or so on Twitter coinciding with our two WELK transmissions.

Thanks to CatfaceMcMeowMeow for sending us two tunes, the first from Patrick Wolf called Pigeon Song. This isn’t a million miles away from us here at SE23 as it seems he may be from the parish of Brixton. Good tune!

And we love this one from Red Elvises called Memoirs of a Phuket Geisha. Brilliant! Thanks CatfaceMcMeowMeow!

Steve Barker from the great On The Wire radio show played a track off this LP by Pauline Oliveros the other week. Great cover by the way and what a smart accordion!

And also thanks to Mark Paytress for suggesting these two which contain some serious squeezebox. The first is from Melanie called In The Hour which features some nice bass playing too.

And also this one Back Street Girl from The Rolling Stones. Cheers Mark!

And this tickled us the other day, an example of that well-know thing Air Accordion, brilliant stuff and we love his smile!

And there’s even a bit of squeezebox in this one from Rod Taylor called Lucifer.

Last night’s transmission of WELK 2 is now online below featuring all sorts of squeezebox tunes and includes One Deck Pete‘s “More squeezeboxes on shortwave” mix at 20.58 featuring tunes from Ellis Island Sound, Nijim, Danijel Zambo, Yanga and Dubskrollz.

More WELK on the shortwaves

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Another adventure into accordions this evening on the shortwaves. WELK 2 is broadcast this evening on 9395 kHz at 2200 UTC thanks to the good folks at WRMI.
It features a mix from One Deck Pete at 21 minutes in called “More squeezeboxes on shortwave” featuring tunes from Ellis Island Sound, Nijim, Danijel Zambo, Yanga and Dubskrollz. Tune in for something a little Lawrence Welk-like this Sunday evening.

Life on the wild side

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It’s going to be hot this forthcoming week, we’re looking at nearly 30°C in SE23 and we think the garden is going to enjoy it. So get the watering, weekly feed and any fiddling with a hoe out of the way early and then park yourself in the shade and enjoy the weather.

The courgette/zucchinni plant we stuck in a pot as we couldn’t find any space (above) is doing well, giving us some nice flowers. The area around it with the raised beds of potatoes (below) are also on their way but impatient as we are, we keep looking around the plants and still only getting golf ball sized spuds.

The one raised bed of tomatoes are now setting fruit and we’re checking that there’s no side shoots forming and tying the main stalk to the support canes when we remember.

And on the wildlife tip, we’ve put another “pothole pond” down the wild bit (below) after being influenced by Bill Shimmers’ great pond here. We stuck some wood leading into the water after Bill mentioned in his reply of our effort on Twitter. “Any water body adds extra wildlife habitat to a garden. One thing I always include, any steep sided ponds need a sloping shelf or ramp to allow critters to get out as well as in. Stones or branches will do.” Our one is not exactly steep but we’re including the sticks to add further disguise to the former B&Q product container.

And in our main pic this week are the inhabitants of our pond, well part of the mob that are in there at the moment. And the big question is where do they disappear to? Enjoy this great weather when pondering on that thought.

Raking up the Hugel

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Cheers to our good music/gardening/radio friend Justin Patrick Moore for sending us some great reading on Hugelkultur, this time on the greatly named Druids Garden (which has no affiliation to Ken Barlow sadly) site here. 

We’d never even heard of the system before he told us about it a while ago but it’s looks well interesting and if you can get your hands on some logs, you’re in!

There’s more on the way!

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A big thanks to our good gardening mate Gerry Hectic for sending us pictures of the story so far in his garden. Loving the runner beans in the pot with a trolley from Aldi at the bottom so it can be moved around to catch the maximum of sunlight. Our other good friend Phil Harmony in Berlin used to also use that idea on his balcony for his veg growing. As The Merton Parkas used to sing “You need wheels”.

The peas and tomatoes look great too! Just water them daily and add a weekly feed, all will hopefully be grand! More pics of your progress in a few weeks please Gerry!