Your Victory Garden

I've gotten an early start on the garden this year due to the unseasonably mild march we are having. A few days ago I noticed a few things sprouting up so I knew the ground was thawed and it was time to turn some soil over and plant some cool weather stuff. I had half packets of spinach and radishes so those went in today. On thursday I'm planning to pick up some more cool weather seeds from the Urban Harvest people if they are back at the Dufferin Grove Farmer's Market. This early spring works out well for me as I'm going to be away from April 1st until the 22nd. Thats the normal time for getting spring planting done. Hopefully some of the stuff I put in will survive until I get back. That might be a tough challenge for many of the little sprouting seedlings as there will be no one here to combat the massive slug offensive.

Things look pretty dead out there from the back steps.


But upon closer inspection there is indeed life out there.
Chives-


This is the thing I was most surprised by. Due to our fairly mild winter it looks like two or three spinach plants that I planted last fall have survived and are showing signs of new growth.


The sorrel is also getting an early start.


The rhubarb is peaking through the soil to see what's going on.


Tulips and stone crop.

winter composting

I have been pilling up kitchen scraps and the odd handful of shredded newspaper on my compost pile this winter. We have had lots of snow so far so usually by the time i get another containerful out there the previous one is covered by snow. I don't think my initial pile that was built up in the summer and fall is big enough to stay warm enough to keep breaking down in the winter. But when things start to thaw I will have lots of ready to use compost hopefully and lots of new material for breaking down (the stuff i've been piling out there in the winter.) I'm looking forward to seeing what the pile will look like when things start to thaw and melt. When will that be? Usually not till April i'm thinking. All the snow means that the ground will have lots of moisture this spring which will be good.

A Historic Moment for Quebec

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2008/07/08/qc-margarine0708.html

Barack

Next friday is Doing it to Death at The Boat. Around this time each month I get excited about what I'm going to play, putting together new playlists, checking out new songs, re-listening to old songs, albums, 45s, etc. I'm not going to need to do any of it this month cause I'm going to be playing this song on repeat all night.


Cocoa Tea - Barack Obama

Carter III

The new Lil Wayne album leaked on the weekend. Two early favourites are the Lollipop b-side, A Milli and Phone Home. The latter is produced by David Banner and is a clever (obviously, its wayne) take on ET. The hook: WEEEE-ZY, PHONE HOME, etc etc etc

Brief end of the year list

UGK - Underground Kingz
Legends return for the comeback of the decade. A deep record that takes some time to
sift through but its worth it. Yeah there's some filler but the gold is serious gold on there. RIP PIMP C

Lil' Wayne - Da Drought 3
Mixtape thats not a mixtape, Wayne is releasing stuff whenever he feels like it. Again,
a lot to sift through and you can say he's not sayin that much which is true but dude's got the best word
play. My favourite moments are when he breaks down into this free form word association
style - look for it! The Crazy version is a misstep though, ah well.

Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Beach Boys are back from the grave

Charlie Louvin - s/t
Living Gospel Legend just keeps going

v/a - Studio One Rub-A-Dub
70s JA, nuff said
v/a - Studio One Dub Vol. 2
again, nuff said

Kanye West - Graduation
His rapping has actually gotten pretty good on this record. Somehow its a
singer/songwriter/folk record mixed with his own brand of emo hip-hop. Everything is
great except Drunk and Hot Girls, just skip that song. Also the Chris Martin collab
isn't bad! Woah

I'm probably missing a lot but from the top of my head this is new stuff I was digging this year.

latex gloves

Next time I go to thrift stores to crate dig I'm bringing a pair of disposable latex gloves. After an hour or so of going through old records your hands are just filthy. Compounded with that is my dry, chapped hands that I get in the winter. Cool yeah?
They will be in my bag at all times as digging opportunities can come up when you least expect it sometimes.