So many contrails!

Posted on June 15, 2026 by james

Almost more contrail than cloud 😀

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More blood pressure stuff

Posted on June 15, 2026 by james

This is about the limit of what I can stand at the moment. If my blood pressure goes any lower than this then I really can’t cope. As long as it doesn’t drop too far below 180 systolic then whilst I feel a bit shaky I can usually overcome it. (Note also the high heart rate.)

I’m wondering as well if diet doesn’t play into this somehow. Last week I mainly ate salads for lunch, often with a little cheese and things didn’t feel too bad. However, on Friday in an effort to use up some bacon that I found in the fridge I had BLTs with spicy mayonnaise. Within about half an hour I felt as though I was really struggling.

My understanding is that after eating the body directs more blood flow to the gut whilst contracting arteries elsewhere and causing the heart to beat more strongly. How much blood is redirected seems to be dependent on what is being digested as far as I can see. Quite what the interplay is with drugs that restrict contraction of the arteries and limit the power of the heart I really don’t know. It doesn’t sound like a sensible situation to me, but my understanding could be completely wrong.

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No dig diary, 12th June 2026

Posted on June 15, 2026 by james

Finally got the next compost bay empty today. Just as well, because there’s very little space left in the current one.

I also used some of the water pipe hoops that I cut a couple of days ago so I could temporarily put netting over the sweetcorn plants to prevent the deer eating them without any risk of crushing the plants. They seem to be quite delicate when they’re small.

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No dig diary, 11th June 2026

Posted on June 11, 2026 by james

Another showery day meant that working outdoors wasn’t likely to be fun for long, so I did some watering and planted some peppers and tomatoes in the polycrub.

Since I had my “pepper head” on, I then found some four litre pots and planted up more peppers into them, in line with the suggestions from “Chillichump”. They’ll stay in these until the roots fill the pot and then they’ll be moved into something bigger. Depending on how things work out, I might do a second plant of each variety. My intention is to keep these ones in the greenhouse for the year.

(Tomatoes and leeks photobombing the picture there.)

In the polytunnel we actually have our first tomato. It’s nowhere near ripe yet, but it can’t be long 😀 Sadly my phone camera just couldn’t be persuaded to focus on the actual fruit, so no photo.

Also in the polytunnel, more mushrooms are popping up. I’m really hoping this bodes well for the mushrooms that I’m hoping to grow on logs.

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What’s the collective noun for ladybirds?

Posted on June 11, 2026 by james

Shedload? After yesterday’s surprise I was even more stunned today when I visited the compost heap. At one point I counted fourteen native ladybirds mooching about around the vegetation. Some are visible in this photo, but yet again others were camera shy.

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So many native ladybirds!

Posted on June 10, 2026 by james

For ten years or more we’ve been “overrun” by Harlequin ladybirds and sighting a native variety has become quite uncommon. For some reason however, this year things have all changed. I don’t think I’ve actually seen a Harlequin at all this year, but we have so many native ladybirds. At one point today I counted nine on the vegetation I added to the compost heap yesterday, though by the time I managed to take this photo I think four or five had become shy and hidden themselves.

I have no idea why this particular reversal has taken place, but it’s certainly very nice to see.

It’ll be quite nice not to have the Harlequins invading the house at the end of Summer, too.

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No dig diary, 10th June 2026

Posted on June 10, 2026 by james

There were many heavy showers this morning, so first job of the day was to cut up some of the left-over water pipe from last year’s mains leak into lengths for hoops to use in the veggie plot, which I could do under cover in the workshop. These should keep me going for a short while.

Then as the day dried out a little I cut the polycarbonate for the polycrub door and fitted it which, as ever, turned into a fair bit more work than I thought. The polycarbonate sheets were previously used in a now-defunct cold frame that my father-in-law made years ago and has succumbed to the damp, but I needed to remove at least some of the hinges. Unfortunately being exposed to the elements the nuts and bolts retaining the hinges had corroded, some needing aggressive application of one or more of mole grips, a Dremel and a drill. Then I had to find the plastic fittings that retain the window which involved braving the brambles and nettles that are trying to invade the barn where I’d left them.

Got it all done in the end though, and I suspect that there’s enough polycarbonate left over to fill in the open section above the door.

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No dig diary, 9th June 2026

Posted on June 10, 2026 by james

Yet more weeding today 😀 This time mostly in the cut flower bed which I’ve mostly ignored so far this year due to lack of time. The compost heap is looking rather full once again. It could well be time to stop feeding this one and move on to the next.

I also planted out most of my sweetcorn plants — those that I felt were tall enough. I still have nine plants that were late germinating to come. Every year something seems to nibble at the young plants, so this year I’ve temporarily put some netting over the top. I’ll replace it once I’ve cut some more support hoops or remove it when the plants have grown tall enough, whichever happens first.

And to finish off I planted out some bush borlotti beans. I’ve never tried this variety (Stregonta) before as I’ve always grown climbing ones.

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Plant spacing

Posted on June 8, 2026 by james

I read a few days back that the plant spacings given on packets of seeds for vegetables owe more to commercial production than addressing the needs of the domestic gardener and that it may well be possible to plant at a greater density when one doesn’t have to worry about the size of cultivating or harvesting machinery and suchlike.

I’ve been searching without success for a bit more information on the topic, but haven’t really found anything useful as yet other than one video on YouTube that wasn’t particularly convincing.

Sounds like it could be a good idea though, so as I still have some brassicas to plant out, I might give it a try.

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A pretty weed

Posted on June 8, 2026 by james

No idea where the seeds came from for this, but it started flowering about a week ago in my “edible flowers” bed. I had no idea what it was though I thought it looked vaguely reminiscent of a mallow. Turns out I wasn’t wrong: I’m told it’s actually a common mallow.

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