I saw this on facebook the other day and just had to share it. If you ever see me doing a crazy dance outside my cab then you'll know why.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
My spring onions.
My spring onions I planted on Tuesday are up already and in a week or two I'll be transplanting them out into the veggie garden.
This is the progress of the french heirloom iceburg type lettuce 'Reine Des'glaces'. I have four growing and today I applied a side dressing of Searls 5 in 1 (about three hand-fulls for each plant) in order to keep them growing quickly as recommended for lettuce. Fingers crossed so far so good.
An the progress of my 'Taxi' tomato. I transplanted one into the veggie bed proper and I'll keep this one for growing in a pot. It will go for another 2 or 3 weeks in this pot before I pot it up a size. Hopefully between the two plants I will get a healthy crop of nice yellow tomatoes for making jam with.
Well that's it for now, with some luck and kindness from mother nature the weather will cool down some and allow me to get some more seed planted and weedind and composting as well. Defiantly plenty to do at this time of the year.
Cheers
Stewart
Friday, February 18, 2011
What'll I do?
This time I'm going to try 'Searles 5 in 1' and see what results I get from it. For now with the odd shower of rain and high summer temps I'm getting a lot of crusting of my red volcanic loamy soil which resists watering and dries out very quickly, so I need to keep up a good supply of organic matter and mulch.
This, along with other parts of the veggie garden, is the proposed recipient of todays treatment. This is a savoy cabbage I planted from seed about 3 weeks ago. The soil has been leached of most of its organic content and does not hold moisture very well.
A close up. Dry crusty soil leeched of most of its organic matter.
Three large handful's of Searles 5 in 1 spread about a half sq mtr around the cabbage.
Light forked into the top soil.
Now lets see what happens over the next few weeks.
Just a footnote on Searls 5 in 1. I'm not keen on using it but my main objection is on price. It cost me $11.50 for this bag and while it will cover a lot of my veggies I find it defeats the purpose of growing my own veggies in order to save money. But without a car and with the recent heavy rain we've had to endure this is , for now, my best option.
Cheers
Stewart
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Clap your hands
If your happy and you grow it, clap your hands
If your happy and you grow it, then you really ought to sow it
If your happy and you grow it, clap your hands
If your happy and you know it, plant a seed
If your happy and you know it, plant a seed
If your happy and you know it, then you really ought to sow it
If your happy and you know it, plant a seed
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Doing something
As I have mentioned here before one of my news years resolutions was to spend at least one half to one hour in the 'my veggie garden' on the days that I have available. The main reason for this is to circumvent my sometime poor self starting and self motivation. And after six weeks I have to say it is working. I have seedlings growing, soil prepared, weeds weeded composting composting, mulch mulched, green manure manuring and on it goes.
While this won't be a revelation to most people I have found this simple goal to work extremely well for me. I find it so easy to say I'll do it tomorrow, day after day, until it gets to the point that every thing has died from lack of watering or the weeds have overgrown an area . If I go out and do one half to one hour no matter what then jobs don't become insurmountable.
The problem I seem to have is just starting. I don't care how much time someone spends in a garden there will always be something to do and by making regular visits to the garden you can stay on top of problems. Weather it's finding a snail eating your lettuce, watering a thirsty plant, pruning, staking, weeding, mulching the extra attention you give to the veggie garden by making regular working visits can/has avoided a lot of disappointments. I'm guessing the 'she'll be right' attitude should be avoided when it comes to the veggie garden.
And if anyone finds themselves in a similar pickle as I have from time to time in the past and can't get themselves off the couch then it might be worth giving this simple goal a go.
Another commandment you can bolt onto this goal is 'Do it when you think of it, or at least write it down to do it.' I find when I do get myself out in the veggie garden I'll think of a job that needs doing and if I don't do it straight away it usually gets forgotten. So I do it when I think of it, I can always come back to the job I'm on.
So what are you waiting for. Get the bloody hell out there.
That's enough suggestive preaching for one day.
Cheers
Stewart.
While this won't be a revelation to most people I have found this simple goal to work extremely well for me. I find it so easy to say I'll do it tomorrow, day after day, until it gets to the point that every thing has died from lack of watering or the weeds have overgrown an area . If I go out and do one half to one hour no matter what then jobs don't become insurmountable.The problem I seem to have is just starting. I don't care how much time someone spends in a garden there will always be something to do and by making regular visits to the garden you can stay on top of problems. Weather it's finding a snail eating your lettuce, watering a thirsty plant, pruning, staking, weeding, mulching the extra attention you give to the veggie garden by making regular working visits can/has avoided a lot of disappointments. I'm guessing the 'she'll be right' attitude should be avoided when it comes to the veggie garden.
And if anyone finds themselves in a similar pickle as I have from time to time in the past and can't get themselves off the couch then it might be worth giving this simple goal a go.
Another commandment you can bolt onto this goal is 'Do it when you think of it, or at least write it down to do it.' I find when I do get myself out in the veggie garden I'll think of a job that needs doing and if I don't do it straight away it usually gets forgotten. So I do it when I think of it, I can always come back to the job I'm on.
So what are you waiting for. Get the bloody hell out there.
That's enough suggestive preaching for one day.
Cheers
Stewart.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Chilli TIPS:
This is a blatant rip off direct from the "Chilli", facebook page, but the advise is simple, direct and concise so I decided to re-post it here for you to consider.
Chilli
TIPS:
Chillis are grown as ornamental decorative plants and for their fruits, these can then be harvested when green, for some cuisines, or be left to ripen, mainly to red but some will turn orange, yellow or even chocolate brown depending on variety, this usually takes about another 2 to 3 weeks. Chillis will grow in similar condition...s to tomatoes although better results are achieved in higher temperatures and humidity. A better crop will be achieved by growing under glass, although they can be cultivated outdoors in sheltered sites with plenty of sun. Plan to grow your plants to give them a long season to ensure ripe fruits before the days shorten and cooler weather arrives, therefore sow in early Spring with a heated propagator, transplanting when all signs of the last frost has gone.
There you have it. A bit late for this season but good to get in early for next spring and get your chillie's going.
Cheers
Stewart.
TIPS:
Chillis are grown as ornamental decorative plants and for their fruits, these can then be harvested when green, for some cuisines, or be left to ripen, mainly to red but some will turn orange, yellow or even chocolate brown depending on variety, this usually takes about another 2 to 3 weeks. Chillis will grow in similar condition...s to tomatoes although better results are achieved in higher temperatures and humidity. A better crop will be achieved by growing under glass, although they can be cultivated outdoors in sheltered sites with plenty of sun. Plan to grow your plants to give them a long season to ensure ripe fruits before the days shorten and cooler weather arrives, therefore sow in early Spring with a heated propagator, transplanting when all signs of the last frost has gone.
There you have it. A bit late for this season but good to get in early for next spring and get your chillie's going.
Cheers
Stewart.
Friday, February 11, 2011
I'm reading a book. Pt.2.
It all started when an old school friend sent me this note *(the BBC Book List) from Facebook. No, it probably started before that when upon reconnecting after more than thirty years through facebook my friend got the impression that I was a bit of a book reading nerd, meant in the nicest way of course.
*You may not be able to access this link so I have posted the full list at the bottom of this post.
Now, while I have read plenty of books over the years it seems I've managed to avoid the so called classics and highly acclaimed books that were listed on the BBC Book List. And being only able to say that I've read two books from the list my friend expressed her surprise at the smallness of books I've read, so I've taken it upon myself to catch up on some of my reading of the classics.
Along the way I've also been posting, on facebook, my progress along the way and so it was that my friend posted yesterday's video about reading a book because it's been head down, bum up reading ever since I got the list. And so there you have it. I'm reading a book.
Now if I could only knit and read a book at the same time my life would be complete.
Cheers and happy reading and don't you ever ever interrupt me, cos I'm reading a book, I'm reading a book.
Stewart
The BBC Book List
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.
Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne (probably not the "real" version!)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
*You may not be able to access this link so I have posted the full list at the bottom of this post.
Now, while I have read plenty of books over the years it seems I've managed to avoid the so called classics and highly acclaimed books that were listed on the BBC Book List. And being only able to say that I've read two books from the list my friend expressed her surprise at the smallness of books I've read, so I've taken it upon myself to catch up on some of my reading of the classics.
Along the way I've also been posting, on facebook, my progress along the way and so it was that my friend posted yesterday's video about reading a book because it's been head down, bum up reading ever since I got the list. And so there you have it. I'm reading a book.
Now if I could only knit and read a book at the same time my life would be complete.
Cheers and happy reading and don't you ever ever interrupt me, cos I'm reading a book, I'm reading a book.
Stewart
The BBC Book List
Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.
Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne (probably not the "real" version!)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
It's all a bit hit and miss.
The saga that is The Taxi Tomato (TTT) continues.In the last TTT post I commented on the my seemingly eventual success at getting a start on growing my TTT.
Well success turned to failure when they rotted off at ground level due mainly to the excessive soil moisture after our unusually high rainfall.
So there's nothing for it except to start again.
It's still pretty wet here so in order to prevent the same thing happening again I planted the new seeds into a well drained potting mix housed in a terracotta pot.
As you can see from the photo so far so good.
I've also included a photo on the progress of my climbing beans and again so far so good.
As for failures I'm racking up the frequent flyer points atm. Three different lots of bush beans have failed, I can't seem to grow parsley or spinach from seed and lettuce is proving difficult. I have no idea what is happening as I've never expericenced problems with any of these before so I'm just going to have to keep trying until I get something to germinate.
As for success I've managed beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, rocket and climbing peas so it's all a bit hit and miss at the moment.
I'm really missing my parsley and spinach so I might have to cave in and buy some seedlings from the local nursery until I can work out what is happening.
Anyhow cheers and happy veggie gardening
Stewart.
Well success turned to failure when they rotted off at ground level due mainly to the excessive soil moisture after our unusually high rainfall.
So there's nothing for it except to start again.
It's still pretty wet here so in order to prevent the same thing happening again I planted the new seeds into a well drained potting mix housed in a terracotta pot.
As you can see from the photo so far so good.
I've also included a photo on the progress of my climbing beans and again so far so good.
As for failures I'm racking up the frequent flyer points atm. Three different lots of bush beans have failed, I can't seem to grow parsley or spinach from seed and lettuce is proving difficult. I have no idea what is happening as I've never expericenced problems with any of these before so I'm just going to have to keep trying until I get something to germinate.
As for success I've managed beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, rocket and climbing peas so it's all a bit hit and miss at the moment.
I'm really missing my parsley and spinach so I might have to cave in and buy some seedlings from the local nursery until I can work out what is happening.
Anyhow cheers and happy veggie gardening
Stewart.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Farewell Gary Moore
Have I mentioned I'm a fan of the blues?
Well, sadly, one of it's (the Blues) greatest exponents of the genre passed away on 6-02-11 and this video is typical of his music.
Celebrated rock guitarist and former Thin Lizzy star Gary Moore has been found dead in a Spanish hotel room.
Well, sadly, one of it's (the Blues) greatest exponents of the genre passed away on 6-02-11 and this video is typical of his music.
Celebrated rock guitarist and former Thin Lizzy star Gary Moore has been found dead in a Spanish hotel room.
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