Author Archives: james

Memory Lane, 24th May 2022

Just a quick shot of the veg plot in late Spring. Most exciting are the asparagus plants in the closest bed producing their first ever shoots. This year they need to be left for the plants to develop. It’ll be … Continue reading

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Practice is the key…

Ages back I decided that I was going to try to teach myself to play piano. Sadly it all fell by the wayside for reasons I don’t really understand. Possibly the lack of progress to a standard where it became … Continue reading

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A job-hunting I shall go…

The time has come. I really need to sort out getting a new job now. I’ve not done any full-time paid work for ages and whilst I’ve achieved an awful lot with the time I’ve had free, the mortgage has … Continue reading

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No dig diary, 12th February 2024

Running out of heated propagation space is starting to look inevitable, so today I have cleared some space in the house for my “backup” propagators. One of them is definitely looking rather sad and could really do with a replacement … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 11th May 2022: Wax on, wax off

My bee shed needed to move so I’ve been pulling together everything that was in it. I’m mostly using starter strips and unwaxed frames now, so I’m not entirely sure what to so with this lot, that is “some of” … Continue reading

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No dig diary, 11th February 2024

I had to go out and do some weeding today. The state of the veg beds was quite distressing, with Hairy Bittercress like this: and sycamore seedlings already out of the ground and growing away. I managed to get two … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 5th May 2022

This is the first pineapple plant that actually survived when I tried to get it to produce roots in a jar of water, one year on. I suspect it has split into three separate plants, but information about pineapple propagation … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 4th May 2022 (last time!)

This is how I have supported my broad beans for the last few years once they’ve been planted out. They seem to do really well which is lovely, but also it’s a problem because the strings just don’t do a … Continue reading

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No dig diary, 10th February 2024: How many?!

When I dragged myself out of bed this morning the evidence of an overnight frost was there for all to see, but at least it was sunny and being outdoors appeared quite inviting regardless of the mud that keeps trying … Continue reading

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Stacking on Linux, deeply

Pretty much anyone who is into amateur astrophotography will be familiar with Deep Sky Stacker (aka DSS). It’s a great application that takes combinations of light and dark frames (amongst others) and merges them to produce a single stacked output … Continue reading

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