Category Archives: Environment

The Great Leek Scape

Posted on January 7, 2022 by james

Or perhaps not, given today’s weather, but the weather is presumably what is responsible for the behaviour of this particular leek that I noticed in the veggie plot yesterday and photographed today after a snow shower with the biggest snowflakes … Continue reading →

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Growing Degree Days

Posted on January 7, 2022 by james

I’ve come across the concept of Heating Degree Days or Cooling Degree Days in work I’ve done (basically the number of days where the temperatures has crossed some specific threshold where heating or cooling of a building is required) and … Continue reading →

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The rain gauge is playing up again :(

Posted on December 6, 2021 by james

When I put it back up things seemed to be going well, but over the last few days the rain gauge has been giving some very strange results. I suspect it has been counting bucket tips when there aren’t any, … Continue reading →

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Well this is quite unexpected

Posted on November 29, 2021 by james

This is a photo of some of this winter’s purple sprouting broccoli plants taken on 26th November. They’re starting to flower! The plants weren’t sown or planted out particularly early. In fact possibly later than the instructions on the packet … Continue reading →

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AAG rain gauge repaired

Posted on November 22, 2021 by james

Well, I hope so, at least. A new reed switch arrived and has duly replaced the old one. That turned out not to be too tricky. After unsoldering the original switch I bent the leads so the body of the … Continue reading →

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AAG 1-wire rain gauge (TAI-8575) circuit diagram

Posted on November 18, 2021 by james

I’m not going to claim this is absolutely spot on as I’ve reverse-engineered it from the PCB traces which aren’t always easy to make out, but below is my best current idea of the circuit diagram for the PCB inside … Continue reading →

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The rain gauge dismantled

Posted on November 18, 2021 by james

I’ve now got the rain gauge down and taken it apart. Possibly I’ve posted photos before, but this is what the guts of it look like: After ungoo-ing the PCB, I’ve come up with a first approximation of the switching … Continue reading →

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My rain gauge died again :(

Posted on November 18, 2021 by james

A short while ago my AAG 1-wire rain gauge stopped telling me that rain had fallen at all. The 1-wire device still shows up in Linux and is readable, but the 1-wire counters never change. I’ve checked by dribbling water … Continue reading →

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On the strange weather patterns that afflict us this year

Posted on May 18, 2021 by james

So many of the things I planned to do over the 2020/21 winter failed to happen because the ground was so wet and the weather sufficiently unpleasant that they became impossible. The clogs I wear outdoors became lethal because they … Continue reading →

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Unusual fungus

Posted on December 9, 2020 by james

I found this fungus growing in the polytunnel a couple of days ago. I think it’s possibly growing on some of the wood chips, but I’m not sure. I’ve no idea what it is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen … Continue reading →

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