Tag Archives: Percy thrower

The Blue Peter Garden at the grass roots of dub

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Here’s a new mix from One Deck Pete called “An introduction to Dub Gardening” and goes out to all dub gardeners everywhere and we welcome contact from (dub and non dub) gardeners wherever they may be. Dedicated to the late Percy Thrower.
The mix features:
Augustus Pablo – Melody Dub
Soulware – Augmented Seed (Dub Version)
Biggabush – Beat Dem in Dub
Jasmine Tutum & Madtone – Return to the Branches (no hams mix)
Vassell Meka – Flowers Dub
Madtone – Compost your mind

We’re not completely sure where the Dub Gardening phrase originates from but it may (or may not and we apologise if it was somebody else) have something to our good friend across the pond Dr Strangedub (alongside DJ baby Swiss) who brings you the The Echo Chamber which is broadcast on KFAI every Wednesday morning from 8 am-Noon UK time here.

A good few ago the good doctor put together a gardening related mix called In The Garden of dub which is below and has also been featured up on Weeds a few times but well worth posting up again! Features lots of artists inluding Singers & Players (ft. Prince Far I), Earlyworm, Madtone, Finn The Giant, Juno Gad Allstars meet Earlyworm, Leroy Sibbles, Jah Wobble, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bakshish, DubXanne (ft. Ranking Roger) and lots lots more. Big shout to all dub gardeners.

Beyond your back door

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Some very apt gardening advice for this time of year from the late great Percy Thrower at 2.19 mins in on the track Winter in June from Beyond The Wizzard’s Sleeve. “The more we do during the autumn and winter, the easier and better the gardening is throughout the rest of the year” and “There’s a tendancy to look out of the window in the month of January and say it’s a dit dull, it’s a bit murky outside, nothing of interest in the garden. If the garden is like that it’s not the fault of the garden it’s the fault of the gardener.” Wise words Percy!

In his lifetime he also uttered the great line “I’m a gardener. I’m not a celebrity, I’m not famous, I’m a gardener.” We very much doubt he’d be up for those very gripping “Big Brother”/”Castaway”/”Three celebrities left in a shed” type programmes if he was alive today.

And talking of Percy…

A garden update and a tune

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Thanks to our good friend across the pond Justin Patrick Moore for the sending us a photo update of his back garden. That’s what’s brilliant around this time of year, the garden seems to grow overnight and at a fair rate too. We all should really appreciate this time as autumn will be here before we know it. Above are the “Tiger Lilies gone wild” and below is entitled “When the Compost Takes on a Life of it’s Own” and we all know about that when we get those potato peelings and old onions sprouting! Is that a cucumber/courgette growing and are there a few mushrooms in there too?

And below a nice patch of borage that the bees love and the leaves are a good addition to comfrey if you’re making a liquid feed.

He also sent us a nice tune to accompany the pics from Anna Nacher & Marek Styczyński off the LP entitled Throbbing Plants (the title sounding very Genesis Breyer P-Orridge meets Percy Thrower.)

Thank you for the pics Justin. Please send your garden pics, no matter how small your garden is, even if it’s just a couple of pots on a windowsill, send them in! The address is onedeckpete (at) gmail.com we’d love to see your garden!

Said I’m a council man. And I’ve got (no) work to do

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Percy

Sounds from The South 10 – Never mind the Council
Our contribution to The Dirt this week is about meeting a couple of those Sex Pistols fellows while working as a council gardener in West London in the 1980’s. Tune of the week is from the great U-Roy & The Gladiators called Natty Rebel.

Have a listen on play again when it’s up later this week (5th October show) here (Sounds from The South is usually around 10 minutes in), alongside more gardening related stuff including funerals, morrisons, squashes and a tale about one of The Smiths. Cheers again to Si, Ricky and Paul!

That’s just reminded me, years ago I was told by a bloke who I doing an apprenticeship with (who wasn’t the full shilling on thinking back) that his brother was a mechanic who got a call one day in December 1977 to a coach that was carrying a famous rock band that had broken down on the motorway just outside Coventry.

He told me that when his brother went to fix the coach on the hard shoulder, it was the Sex Pistols and that all the band and their entourage were all dressed in “normal” clothes (flares, star jumpers and hair like Noel Edmonds etc) and all the punk stuff was “just an act.” Briliant, this rates as one of the best stories I’ve ever been told! But please don’t tell that to the dog-collared fashionista I seen at London Bridge station the other morning.

And if you want to vote The Dirt for your favourite show on Fab Radio International please cast your vote here!

The best dressed chicken in town

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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!

Read it in books

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The perfect plot (starting an allotment from scratch) – Kim Sayer – Simon & Schuster 2012

The other week I picked up this great book in Holborn Library. It’s a mine of information following an allotment in Devon from a germ of an idea, how it was set up (with advice on how to set one up yourself, getting grants etc) to how it is progressing now. Loads of information on the tools you need, soil cultivation, crop rotation, what to do season by season, pest control and interviews with everyone involved. A great read if you’ve just got an allotment, want to set one up or just want to grow stuff in your back garden. One of the main guys even uses the biodynamic method too, excellent!

Remember if you haven’t got the cash to spend on gardening books join your local library as it costs nowt (and don’t forget the web either) and if you work in a different town/borough join the one there too as that’ll give your more choice. I’ve library membership for three London boroughs and I don’t think you have to work or live in that borough to join one.

On Friday night I saw Goldie talking to Alan Titchmarsh on the telly at Chelsea about his love of Acers. I reckon he might be the next new breed of TV gardener with his tatt’s and gold teeth. What happened to the old percy thrower stereotype in their tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows wearing a clean shirt and tie while demonstrating “double digging”? Times are a changing indeed!

I’ve just noticed some flower buds forming on the super early spuds (below) that were originally started off on the homemade cold frame which are now flying ahead! The ones I put in a month or so ago are starting to get going now as well. Spuds I love em!

Jobs done this week: Weeding (just knock them off with a sharp hoe and leave them to shrivel up in this hot weather), mowing the lawn (it does appreciate a weekly cut), staking up tomato plants, tying back passion flower, clematis and sweet peas and giving the garden a good old water in the evening (I do it with using a bucket, it takes me ages but I like it as it gives me some quiet time on me own). Sowed outdoors this week: Dwarf french beans (nice one Will!), climbing french beans, cut and come again lettuce, borage, lemon balm, sunflowers and night scented stock.