No dig diary, 24th May 2026

Posted on May 24, 2026 by james

The plan today was to spread more compost in the polytunnel and get the rest of the tomatoes planted out in it. Even relatively early in the morning it was clearly way too hot however so after one wheelbarrow’s worth of compost I gave up on the plan.

Instead I assisted my daughter mowing the grass and got through some weeding of the “edible flowers” bed that I’ve largely ignored for the last nine months.

The compost bin became quite full, but I’m not ready to move to the next one because I’m still using it for storage, so I added some extensions. I’m sure it’ll all die down over the next week anyhow…

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Exmoor Ales’ secret is out

Posted on May 24, 2026 by james

I picked up some spent hops from Exmoor Ales recently to add to my compost heap. Little did they know that they would be giving away the secret of the flavour of their beer: added rabbit droppings 😀

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No dig diary, 23rd May 2026

Posted on May 23, 2026 by james

Started planting my tomatoes out in the polytunnel today. Thirty-two plants so far, a mix of Garnet, Orange Banana, Skykomish, de Colgar, Lotos and Dív?í Prs. I still have Amish Paste and Polish Linguisa to do once I’ve spread more compost in the beds at the sides of the tunnel. Some got a bit leggy in the dull weather, so I’ve planted them quite deep.

Not sure why I bothered to water them in. I think I sweated enough in the polytunnel to do the job quite satisfactorily by itself ?

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No dig diary, 22nd May 2026

Posted on May 22, 2026 by james

Today I made one final large pick from the lettuces in the polytunnel and then removed them so no plants other than the garlic are left. I’m hopeful that within a couple of weeks the outdoor lettuces will be ready to harvest. The intention is to get rid of any aphids on the lettuces before starting to plant out the tomatoes and peppers, to which ends I’ll leave starting to plant them out until tomorrow.

What I did do however was start spreading compost on the beds to feed the soil before the new plants go in.

That meant that I finished emptying compost bay 3 and started on 4. After moving a load of stuff from the top of 4 into 3, that was.

It can’t stay there long though as we’ll soon finish filling bay 2, which is still a quite toasty 69°C, having reached the giddy heights of 73°C a week ago.

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What a scumbag!

Posted on May 22, 2026 by james

I see it’s being reported that Bill Winters, the head of Standard Chartered Bank referred to some employees as “lower value human capital” at a conference recently. Of course now he’s been called out on it he has apologised for his wording, but the fact remains that anyone with an ounce of empathy would never have thought it an acceptable thing to say in the first place. Never have even thought of the expression, in fact. Shame those people are probably not in a position to be able to just walk out of their jobs today. Then he might find out exactly how valuable they are.

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I think you have it wrong

Posted on May 22, 2026 by james

BBC headline today:

Reality TV risks sinking ‘into the gutter’, warns ex-Channel 4 and Ofcom boss Michael Grade

Mate, I think you have it completely wrong. Reality television started in the gutter. It’s been going downhill ever since.

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Vine-ripened tomatoes

Posted on May 21, 2026 by james

It occurred to me the other day to wonder what “vine-ripened” actually means on a pack of tomatoes, as opposed to what supermarkets want us to think it means.

As far as I can find, it means you get charged more. That’s it. It doesn’t mean they’re picked when they’re ripe and ready to eat. It means they’re picked when they’re starting to colour up (as opposed to being picked fully green) and likely still “ripened” by exposing them to ethylene gas.

I even found a few links to research suggesting that there’s no difference in taste at all.

I guess that means I need a way to save my own tomatoes for as long as possible. To that ends I hope to get a reasonable crop from my “de Colgar” tomatoes this year. They’re supposed to store for several months after picking from what I’ve read.

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Lidl’s “Chunky Guacamole”

Posted on May 21, 2026 by james

My wife bought a pot of this recently and I’m pleased to report that I did (eventually) find a “chunk” in it. I was slightly amused that it is sold under the brand “Meadow Fresh”, given that none of the main ingredients will ever have been near a meadow.

I was more intrigued however that the 150g pack contains 3.5% tomato, so 5.25g. About a teaspoon full. There’s even less onion (2.5%) and even less coriander than that. I wonder if the average purchaser can actually taste any of that?

It also says “Improved Recipe” on the front of the packaging. I wonder if that means “tastes better”, or “cheaper to make”?

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An odd form of words

Posted on May 21, 2026 by james

I wouldn’t sully my eyeballs with the programme, but I’ve seen the news articles recently about allegations of rape on “Married At First Sight”, or “MAFS” as the chavs apparently know it. Yesterday it was reported that Channel 4’s CEO is “deeply sorry” over the rape allegations .

Note: Sorry over the allegations. Not sorry for anyone who has suffered as a result. Seems a dreadful way to address the situation to me. I’m not sure that it’s even worse because the CEO is female. Probably it’s beyond getting worse as it is.

Mined ewe, having read the underlying idea of the programme, it seems like an abuser’s charter to me.

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Another side-effect

Posted on May 21, 2026 by james

Side effects of my BP meds, #8192:

Coffee with milk. Tastes absolutely horrible now. I’ve started drinking it black instead. Seems a very strange thing to have happened, but perhaps health-wise it’s not the end of the world.

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