Spot the muppet

Posted on March 6, 2024 by james

Anyone seen them both in the same room?

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No dig diary, 5th March 2024

Posted on March 5, 2024 by james

More seed-sowing today, to go into the propagator tomorrow after I make some space. A second round of sweet peppers and chiles to start with, though distinctly average germination of my first round of jalapenos means I’m going to need to buy some more seed. As well as the peppers I’ve also done another round of sweet peas and busy lizzies. There’s more to go this week, but I need to cut even more holes in the bottoms of module trays first.

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Memory Lane, 9th August 2022: Next from the scrap pile

Posted on March 5, 2024 by james

Now I have my new table saw I decided it was time to do something about the fun of jarring honey from a bucket, particularly as the level gets near the bottom. So I made a bespoke “bucket tipper”.

The platform is hinged, and the two diagonal battens are arranged so the bucket hangs sufficiently far over the front edge that the tap and jar being filled easily clear the tipper at all reasonable angles of tilt. The platform is some scrap 18mm ply and the sides are some offcuts of something like a 6″x2″. The rest was just whatever I could find lying about.

The lower section has a number of cross-pieces spaced to hold a wedge (seen here lying flat).

As the wedge is moved forward the upper platform tips forward more without the risk of falling off whatever pile of books or other temporary wedges have been used to prop up the back.

Finally I added some clips to keep the entire thing closed when I was moving it around. It’s no fun having something like that snap closed on your fingers because you’ve not realised they’re in the way.

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Not even single use plastic :(

Posted on March 5, 2024 by james

I needed some more four litre-ish plant pots, but I had no reason to be going anywhere near a garden centre (nor in fact anywhere else) for a while so gave in and ordered some plastic ones online. I try to avoid buying plastic stuff where possible, but in this case they were just the most sensible option.

I was quite distressed when they arrive to find two of them broken:

Having to use more plastic is bad enough, but not even being able to use it when it arrives makes me quite unhappy. Perhaps I can trim them down and make use of them somehow, though my experience is that once the integrity of the rim is compromised the pot loses quite a bit of its strength.

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Bird damage?

Posted on March 4, 2024 by james

I had this tray of beetroot seedlings in the greenhouse.

It took me a while to understand what might have been going on with the plants on the left hand side. A couple of days ago I opened the door to find a bird in the greenhouse, presumably having flown in through one of the roof vents. Next to the module tray was a small pile of compost, so I’m guessing that the bird (it disappeared too fast for me to identify it) had been digging in the compost for some reason. Perhaps it likes beetroot?

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Memory Lane, August 2nd 2022: Double-walled hives

Posted on March 4, 2024 by james

Whilst sorting through some old kit I was given years back, checking out what was effectively beyond use and what just needed some TLC, I came across this unusual (to me) national hive with single-walled front and back, and double-walled sides.

A bit of research suggests that it’s a design that might go back as much as 100 years and was still in use in the 1970s, which I guess makes them quite possibly antiques 😀 I wonder if that means they’ll fetch more if I put them in the local BKA used equipment auction?

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No dig diary, 4th March 2024

Posted on March 4, 2024 by james

“I feel the need, the need to weed”

I’m sure at least some of you recognise the quote from that 1986 classic, “Top Soil”. It’s still apparently Winter, so why have I just had to weed my polytunnel and greenhouse for the second time this year? The second time in seven weeks, in fact. Stuff is growing like mad in there. Even the salad rocket and leaf radish are on the point of flowering in the next few days.

The main veg plot itself still needs a round of weeding finishing off too, but my only inflatable dinghy is too wide to fit between the beds. It’s almost a shame we didn’t have snow here at the tail end of last week as happened along the western M4. I could have worked from skis instead.

As you may have guessed, it’s been quite a wet day here (again), so weeding under cover is perhaps the most productive thing I could do. I was going to sow more seeds, but I’ll need even more propagator space and given that we’re forecast temperatures down to freezing for the next couple of nights I don’t want to move my germinated peppers out into the main greenhouse just yet so I shall hold off for the time being.

I did think I could fill some module trays with compost in preparation for more sowing, then discovered that I only had three left where I’d punched holes in the bottom of the cells, so I’d best get one with doing some more of those as well. So far this year I’ve sown over sixty module trays of seeds.

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No dig diary, 3rd March 2024

Posted on March 4, 2024 by james

The stars didn’t exactly align for sowing this weekend for multiple reasons, the main one being that I was away at a birthday party for much of it and was quite tired by the time we were home (it turned into quite a late night). The greenhouse is full, the propagators are full and a frost is forecast.

I managed to make a little space in the greenhouse by ditching some pepper plants that I was hoping might spark back into life this Spring but in the harsh light of day really aren’t showing any signs of doing so. That allowed me to sow more Romanesco cauliflowers, borage and a number of varieties of poppy — I have a white breadseed poppy, some wild poppies and a couple of varieties destined for the cutting garden.

In the hope that I can make space in the propagators (probably by getting the “emergency propagators into use) over the next few days, I have also sown lots of tomato seeds — Garnet, Lotos and Amish Paste that I grew last year along with Skykomish, Latah, De Colgar and (I think) Dív?í Prs.

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I think I’ve started something…

Posted on March 3, 2024 by james

We have been away this weekend, close to where we used to live before we moved to the south-west. Quite horrifying to find that what was a sleepy little town when we lived nearby has become what appears to be a massive housing estate. However, the reason for the visit was to attend a birthday party for the wife of a university friend. For the first time in perhaps twelve or so years I met their daughter who was one of the bridesmaids when my wife and I married. At the time of the wedding she was only four years old. The last time we met was when she was about thirteen or fourteen. We threw a large party and she came with her parents, drove the tractor around one of the fields pulling a trailer full of lots of the younger children and, most relevantly to this story, took part when I grabbed a frame of honey that I’d not yet extracted and let the children break it open and taste the honey.

We were chatting at the end of the evening when her boyfriend wandered over and she said to him “You know I’ve always talked about keeping bees? This is the person who started it” and recounted the story.

Right now they live in a flat in the centre of the town so it’s not immediately practical, but it’s lovely to think that sharing a frame of honey more than ten years ago with a group of children is still remembered and planted a seed that I feel sure will end up with another beekeeper joining the ranks in the none-too-distant future.

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No dig diary, 1st March 2024

Posted on March 1, 2024 by james

It apparently may have been one of the wettest Februarys on record in the UK this year. And one of the warmest, too. We’re in a cold period now though and I’m getting a little concerned that some of my seedlings need to be out of the propagators and into the greenhouse where they’re in more light. But we might still get more frosts and I don’t want the plants to be damaged.

Need to think on this tomorrow.

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