Actually, it's a bit complicated because I didn't follow good scientific practice setting up my seed experiment.
I planted some of my seeds in toilet rolls (as seen on the Duck Herder's blog), but once I ran out of toilet rolls, I just chucked the rest of the seeds into a single container all together. Which I suspect is not the ideal way to do it. And it means I have two variables in my experiment instead of the ideal one.
So what happened? The spinach all in one container on top of the hot water system sprouted first. I now have *heaps* of spinach seedlings, all tangled up together. A problem to be dealt with on the weekend, I think.
The individually planted spinach seeds in the spare room sprouted next, followed by a single individually planted seed on top of the hot water system. None of the onion seeds or the seeds on top of the barbecue have sprouted yet. Which seems a bit strange to me as the destructions on the back of the seed packets suggest that the onion seeds should germinate faster than the spinach. Presumably there is some plant voodoo reason that they haven't.
Anyhoo, in other news, I've started making another top. I managed to cut out all eight pieces of the pattern before I got a bit overwhelmed by it all and had to have a lie down. And I've knitted the whole back of a vest. I ran into a bit of trouble though when I went to start the front and realised that I wasn't sure how many rows of ribbing I'd done along the bottom.
You live and learn.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
How does your garden grow?
Very well thankyou. So well, in fact, that I've had to expand.
The astute will notice however that I don't actually have any more plants. I've just spread the broccoli out a bit. I originally completely disregarded the destructions' claim that the seedlings should be planted 30cm apart on the assumption that some of them would die, making more room. For some mysterious reason, this didn't happen. As a result I had to make another trip to Bunnings for a new pot.
I also planted a whole heap of spinach and onion seeds (again on the assumption that a lot of them will die). At any rate, there is no way I'll be able to afford pots from Bunnings for all the survivors even if only half of them survive. I figured the tip shop would be the ideal place to stock up on cheap pots. Alas, this turned out not to be the case. Revolve had some plastic boxes that would have been perfect, except that they were "not for sale". Aussie Junk, on the other hand, has gone bust and is not offering anything for sale at Mugga Lane.
So what did I do? I went to Aldi. I have to admit, I don't have the knack for shopping at Aldi. They never seem to have what we want so I get discouraged and just end up going to Woolies. For instance, this time we wanted ingredients for lasagne and bread for breakfast in the morning. They didn't have any mince, spinach or bread. They did have some fresh basil and coriander though, which were tasty. And, most importantly, they had an empty styrofoam box with holes in the bottom. I was extra brave and asked the lady if I could have it and she said yes! So now I have a home for at least some of my seedlings.
The seeds themselves are currently taking part in an experiment. Some of them are living on top of the hot water system, some in the window of the spare room and some on top of the barbecue. My hypothesis is that the ones on the hot water system will sprout first because they have a fairly consistent source of warmth, the ones in the spare room will sprout second because it's not quite so frosty in there and the ones on the barbecue will languish and die. At any rate, we should have the results 10 to 21 days after Saturday the 8th.
And here is my latest creation, made with my shiny new sewing machine:
As you can see, the armholes are a bit funny. I think I'll try and fix them up a bit when I'm feeling a bit braver. I'm fairly happy with it for a first go though!
The astute will notice however that I don't actually have any more plants. I've just spread the broccoli out a bit. I originally completely disregarded the destructions' claim that the seedlings should be planted 30cm apart on the assumption that some of them would die, making more room. For some mysterious reason, this didn't happen. As a result I had to make another trip to Bunnings for a new pot.I also planted a whole heap of spinach and onion seeds (again on the assumption that a lot of them will die). At any rate, there is no way I'll be able to afford pots from Bunnings for all the survivors even if only half of them survive. I figured the tip shop would be the ideal place to stock up on cheap pots. Alas, this turned out not to be the case. Revolve had some plastic boxes that would have been perfect, except that they were "not for sale". Aussie Junk, on the other hand, has gone bust and is not offering anything for sale at Mugga Lane.
So what did I do? I went to Aldi. I have to admit, I don't have the knack for shopping at Aldi. They never seem to have what we want so I get discouraged and just end up going to Woolies. For instance, this time we wanted ingredients for lasagne and bread for breakfast in the morning. They didn't have any mince, spinach or bread. They did have some fresh basil and coriander though, which were tasty. And, most importantly, they had an empty styrofoam box with holes in the bottom. I was extra brave and asked the lady if I could have it and she said yes! So now I have a home for at least some of my seedlings.
The seeds themselves are currently taking part in an experiment. Some of them are living on top of the hot water system, some in the window of the spare room and some on top of the barbecue. My hypothesis is that the ones on the hot water system will sprout first because they have a fairly consistent source of warmth, the ones in the spare room will sprout second because it's not quite so frosty in there and the ones on the barbecue will languish and die. At any rate, we should have the results 10 to 21 days after Saturday the 8th.
And here is my latest creation, made with my shiny new sewing machine:
As you can see, the armholes are a bit funny. I think I'll try and fix them up a bit when I'm feeling a bit braver. I'm fairly happy with it for a first go though!
Monday, August 03, 2009
Sew far sew good
My seedlings haven't died! Not even a little bit. I'm not sure whether or not they're actually growing, but they're definitely not dead.
So that experiment seems to be going well. I haven't planted the onion seeds yet, due to a combination of rain, visitors and gin. If the broccoli doesn't die I won't have anywhere to plant them out to anyway.
As for the other experiments... The yoghurt cheese was deemed a success, although the dried apples in the apple and cinnamon one ended up a bit big. I cut the pieces up as small as I had the patience to do, but they grew a fair bit during the "cooking" process. At any rate, the principle proved to be sound.
So that experiment seems to be going well. I haven't planted the onion seeds yet, due to a combination of rain, visitors and gin. If the broccoli doesn't die I won't have anywhere to plant them out to anyway.As for the other experiments... The yoghurt cheese was deemed a success, although the dried apples in the apple and cinnamon one ended up a bit big. I cut the pieces up as small as I had the patience to do, but they grew a fair bit during the "cooking" process. At any rate, the principle proved to be sound.
I also managed to knit an actual thing from a pattern. Here we have crazy stripey hat:
For my next trick, I'm going to attempt a vest. But before getting started on that, I couldn't resist the temptation to try knitting two socks at the same time on one pair of needles. It doesn't actually seem that hard, provided you use a different colour yarn for each sock so you don't get them confused. I estimate that it will only take me a little bit longer than it would have taken to knit two socks one at a time, which sort of raises the question of the point of the whole exercise. I'll let you know if I work it out before I finish them.
And the last thing is a new toy!
Between the new toy and learning to knit, surely now I can conquer the world!
For my next trick, I'm going to attempt a vest. But before getting started on that, I couldn't resist the temptation to try knitting two socks at the same time on one pair of needles. It doesn't actually seem that hard, provided you use a different colour yarn for each sock so you don't get them confused. I estimate that it will only take me a little bit longer than it would have taken to knit two socks one at a time, which sort of raises the question of the point of the whole exercise. I'll let you know if I work it out before I finish them.
And the last thing is a new toy!
Between the new toy and learning to knit, surely now I can conquer the world!Sunday, July 26, 2009
Blog 2.0
So I've been doing some experiments at home and I thought it would be pertinent to keep a record of their progress. At least that's what they always told us to do at school. And this blog seemed like as good a place as any to record things.
And what are these experiments, I hear you ask (or would hear, were anybody reading)? Well, in no particular order, they are: making yoghurt cheese, knitting and growing my own vegetables.
The yoghurt cheese experiment was a direct result of my recent trip to Tasmania. In Tassie there is a company called Wicked Cheese, who make the tastiest cheese, including several different kinds of yoghurt cheese (also called labneh, according to the internet). On my return to Canberra, I couldn't find any at the local stupid market, so I decided to try making my own. Turns out, what you do is get some yoghut and drain all the whey out of it. Then you can call it yoghurt cheese.
A previous yoghurt cheese making attempt resulted in something akin to cream cheese. Which is good, but could be better. So this time I'm making cumin flavoured yoghurt cheese and apple and cinnamon flavoured yoghurt cheese. We'll see how it works out.
The knitting experiment was more of an indirect result of the trip to Tassie. With Phill staying on the Apple Isle for an extra two weeks, I had a bit of time at home alone to do stuff. So I decided to take up knitting. I have done some knitting before (ie knitted some stitches, not actually knitted an entire anything) so I decided I was beyond the ubiquitous beginner's project of making a scarf. Instead, I would follow in my Granma's footsteps and make a hat. Or so I thought. Turned out no. I needed something a bit simpler. So I scoured the internet for a suitable project. The end result was these:
Yup. Fingerless mittens. Easier even than scarves ;-) I'm not quite sure where I'm going to go with this experiment now though.
And the final experiment:
From what the internet tells me, spinach will grow in pots, and probably survive the nasty frosts we keep getting around here. It's also something we eat a lot of, and the internets say it will grow in pots. The larger pot contains 8 spinach seedlings. The smaller pot contains 8 broccoli seedlings. The internet tells me that broccoli hates the cold and shouldn't be planted in Canberra until October or November. Obviously I have completely disregarded this advice. I think i just got a little bit overexcited when I found the broccoli seedlings at Bunnings. The plastic covers are an attempt to protect the poor little things from the frost. They're made of recycled bags which once contained Ugg boots, and string.
In addition to the seedlings, I also got a packet of onion seeds and a packet of spinach seeds. The spinach seeds are back up in case the seedlings die. If the seedlings don't die, then I'll plant the seeds so we can eat them after we've eaten the plants that grow from the seedlings. I'm planning on planting the onion seeds in toilet roll holders and germinating them either in the bike room (which gets a lot of sun during the day) or on top of the hot water system, which will be warm (at least until Actew-AGL decides to cut off the gas again - they are not my favourite). In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I really should put half in the bike room and half on the heater, and compare the results. Yes, I think that's what I'll do.
Speaking of the bike room, this is what it looks like at the moment.
Yep, that's six - count 'em, six - bikes, 5 of which are suitable for off road use. Bask in the glow of their bikeliness.
And what are these experiments, I hear you ask (or would hear, were anybody reading)? Well, in no particular order, they are: making yoghurt cheese, knitting and growing my own vegetables.
The yoghurt cheese experiment was a direct result of my recent trip to Tasmania. In Tassie there is a company called Wicked Cheese, who make the tastiest cheese, including several different kinds of yoghurt cheese (also called labneh, according to the internet). On my return to Canberra, I couldn't find any at the local stupid market, so I decided to try making my own. Turns out, what you do is get some yoghut and drain all the whey out of it. Then you can call it yoghurt cheese.
A previous yoghurt cheese making attempt resulted in something akin to cream cheese. Which is good, but could be better. So this time I'm making cumin flavoured yoghurt cheese and apple and cinnamon flavoured yoghurt cheese. We'll see how it works out.
The knitting experiment was more of an indirect result of the trip to Tassie. With Phill staying on the Apple Isle for an extra two weeks, I had a bit of time at home alone to do stuff. So I decided to take up knitting. I have done some knitting before (ie knitted some stitches, not actually knitted an entire anything) so I decided I was beyond the ubiquitous beginner's project of making a scarf. Instead, I would follow in my Granma's footsteps and make a hat. Or so I thought. Turned out no. I needed something a bit simpler. So I scoured the internet for a suitable project. The end result was these:
Yup. Fingerless mittens. Easier even than scarves ;-) I'm not quite sure where I'm going to go with this experiment now though.And the final experiment:
From what the internet tells me, spinach will grow in pots, and probably survive the nasty frosts we keep getting around here. It's also something we eat a lot of, and the internets say it will grow in pots. The larger pot contains 8 spinach seedlings. The smaller pot contains 8 broccoli seedlings. The internet tells me that broccoli hates the cold and shouldn't be planted in Canberra until October or November. Obviously I have completely disregarded this advice. I think i just got a little bit overexcited when I found the broccoli seedlings at Bunnings. The plastic covers are an attempt to protect the poor little things from the frost. They're made of recycled bags which once contained Ugg boots, and string.In addition to the seedlings, I also got a packet of onion seeds and a packet of spinach seeds. The spinach seeds are back up in case the seedlings die. If the seedlings don't die, then I'll plant the seeds so we can eat them after we've eaten the plants that grow from the seedlings. I'm planning on planting the onion seeds in toilet roll holders and germinating them either in the bike room (which gets a lot of sun during the day) or on top of the hot water system, which will be warm (at least until Actew-AGL decides to cut off the gas again - they are not my favourite). In the spirit of scientific enquiry, I really should put half in the bike room and half on the heater, and compare the results. Yes, I think that's what I'll do.
Speaking of the bike room, this is what it looks like at the moment.
Yep, that's six - count 'em, six - bikes, 5 of which are suitable for off road use. Bask in the glow of their bikeliness.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Its a Sony...
The latest Reason For Not Going To The Gym that I've been able to come up with is that I don't have any music to listen to. I have an MP3 player, and, if I was organised enough, I could quite easily fill it up with enough music to occupy my intended gym time (and remember to charge the batteries), but I'm never that organised. The solution to this problem, I decided, was to buy an MP3 player with a built in FM tuner, so I would still be able to listen to the radio even if I didn't have any other music.
So on Sunday, I went to JB HiFi to make said purchase. I wanted a 1GB MP3 player with an FM tuner. Simple. So I got a 2GB Soniq player for $97 plus an extended three year warranty for an extra $30. I got it home and discovered that it didn't have integrated USB. Which means that I need a cable to transfer music from my computer to the player. Inconvenient, though not a huge problem, if I'm at home. A downright nuisance if I'm at someone else's house and want to, er, borrow some of their music.
So I took the Soniq player back today and swapped it for a shiny new Sony player. It's got 1GB of memory, integrated USB, an FM tuner and it charges from the USB port of my computer, for a mere $30 more than the original Soniq player plus the warranty. I took it home and unwrapped it, read the instructions and installed the software on my computer (whilst vaguely wondering what the software was actually for). The instructions quite clearly state that you must use the included software to transfer files onto the player, but, as a technical person, I figured I wasn't the intended audience for said instructions. Shunning the nasty interface of the Sony software, I attempted to upload my music the old fashioned way. Boy was I in for a horrible surprise.
There is a point to the nasty software. It converts my lovely MP3s into a horrible Sony proprietry format known as ATRAC. My fantastic new MP3 player can't play MP3s!
I'm just not sure how I feel about this. Fanatical audio buffs aside, there isn't too much difference between the two formats, quality-wise. I mean, there's always people out there who refuse to listen to MP3s because of their supposed inferior sound quality, but I personally can't hear it. And I can still store MP3s on my player, I just can't play them. But it's damn inconvenient - after all, I wanted an MP3 player. And the program that I have to use to transfer songs onto the player is a massive pain. It's probably alright to use if you're the kind of person who carefully categorises all their music by artist and album and puts nice tags full of random, useless information on all their files, but seriously, can you see me doing that?
So can I take this one back too?
So on Sunday, I went to JB HiFi to make said purchase. I wanted a 1GB MP3 player with an FM tuner. Simple. So I got a 2GB Soniq player for $97 plus an extended three year warranty for an extra $30. I got it home and discovered that it didn't have integrated USB. Which means that I need a cable to transfer music from my computer to the player. Inconvenient, though not a huge problem, if I'm at home. A downright nuisance if I'm at someone else's house and want to, er, borrow some of their music.
So I took the Soniq player back today and swapped it for a shiny new Sony player. It's got 1GB of memory, integrated USB, an FM tuner and it charges from the USB port of my computer, for a mere $30 more than the original Soniq player plus the warranty. I took it home and unwrapped it, read the instructions and installed the software on my computer (whilst vaguely wondering what the software was actually for). The instructions quite clearly state that you must use the included software to transfer files onto the player, but, as a technical person, I figured I wasn't the intended audience for said instructions. Shunning the nasty interface of the Sony software, I attempted to upload my music the old fashioned way. Boy was I in for a horrible surprise.
There is a point to the nasty software. It converts my lovely MP3s into a horrible Sony proprietry format known as ATRAC. My fantastic new MP3 player can't play MP3s!
I'm just not sure how I feel about this. Fanatical audio buffs aside, there isn't too much difference between the two formats, quality-wise. I mean, there's always people out there who refuse to listen to MP3s because of their supposed inferior sound quality, but I personally can't hear it. And I can still store MP3s on my player, I just can't play them. But it's damn inconvenient - after all, I wanted an MP3 player. And the program that I have to use to transfer songs onto the player is a massive pain. It's probably alright to use if you're the kind of person who carefully categorises all their music by artist and album and puts nice tags full of random, useless information on all their files, but seriously, can you see me doing that?
So can I take this one back too?
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Wire Less?
So, it turns out my wireless router has this really cool feature whereby it can work as a wireless router or a wired router, but not both at once. Cool, huh? And once something's been plugged into the LAN port, a computer with a WLAN connection can't access the router (or internet) at all, unless it's first connected via the LAN.
In other interesting news, I went to Queanbeyan for the first time today. It was everything I'd imagined it would be. Flannel shirts and mullets abounded. It was just like being in Ipswich, right up to the obvious effort the local council had put into making the centre of town nice, while ignoring the outlying areas. The sign on the way in says something along the lines of "Queanbeyan: country lifestyle with all the advantages of city living". Now whereas I would list 7-11s and public transport as the advantages of city living, I suspect the authors of this sign had things more like street lights and paved roads in mind. There's a reason Queanbeyan is called No-Hopetown. Seriously, the businesses there won't even hire the residents if they can at all avoid it.
So, what else happened this week? (I hear you ask). Not a lot. I went to work. I drove one of my friends to the airport on Thursday and got to drive around in his Peugeot for the day, which was fun. It went "zooom" and had power windows and power steering and all those fun things.
Oh, and yesterday I went to the Department of Transport to change my licence over. Which didn't go quite as well as I might have hoped. Apparently my car has run through five red lights since I moved to the ACT. I find this quite interesting, as I certainly have no memory of running any red lights. Dale was driving my car a fair bit when we first moved here, so I immediately quizzed him, but he claims not to have run any red lights either. And I'm inclined to believe him. Running red lights is just not one of those things that people do. I mean, everyone speeds a little bit every now and then, but who runs red lights? And there's red light cameras all over the ACT! Even if a person did have a secret red-light-running fetish, surely they wouldn't do it here?
We've come up with a few possible explanations, starting with "maybe the car was just a little bit over the line or something" and getting more outrageous from there - in Canberra, sometimes it's legal to turn left on a red light, maybe we got photographed doing that? At any rate, they're sending out the infringement notice next week, and I've requested to see the photos too. After all the problems they've had with fixed speed cameras in the last couple of years, I'm willing to entertain the idea of a fault with the camera. I just hope the picture shows enough to prove it if there is (and that it shows Dale driving, not me!).
In other interesting news, I went to Queanbeyan for the first time today. It was everything I'd imagined it would be. Flannel shirts and mullets abounded. It was just like being in Ipswich, right up to the obvious effort the local council had put into making the centre of town nice, while ignoring the outlying areas. The sign on the way in says something along the lines of "Queanbeyan: country lifestyle with all the advantages of city living". Now whereas I would list 7-11s and public transport as the advantages of city living, I suspect the authors of this sign had things more like street lights and paved roads in mind. There's a reason Queanbeyan is called No-Hopetown. Seriously, the businesses there won't even hire the residents if they can at all avoid it.
So, what else happened this week? (I hear you ask). Not a lot. I went to work. I drove one of my friends to the airport on Thursday and got to drive around in his Peugeot for the day, which was fun. It went "zooom" and had power windows and power steering and all those fun things.
Oh, and yesterday I went to the Department of Transport to change my licence over. Which didn't go quite as well as I might have hoped. Apparently my car has run through five red lights since I moved to the ACT. I find this quite interesting, as I certainly have no memory of running any red lights. Dale was driving my car a fair bit when we first moved here, so I immediately quizzed him, but he claims not to have run any red lights either. And I'm inclined to believe him. Running red lights is just not one of those things that people do. I mean, everyone speeds a little bit every now and then, but who runs red lights? And there's red light cameras all over the ACT! Even if a person did have a secret red-light-running fetish, surely they wouldn't do it here?
We've come up with a few possible explanations, starting with "maybe the car was just a little bit over the line or something" and getting more outrageous from there - in Canberra, sometimes it's legal to turn left on a red light, maybe we got photographed doing that? At any rate, they're sending out the infringement notice next week, and I've requested to see the photos too. After all the problems they've had with fixed speed cameras in the last couple of years, I'm willing to entertain the idea of a fault with the camera. I just hope the picture shows enough to prove it if there is (and that it shows Dale driving, not me!).
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Spring has sprung?
It snowed today. No really. If you're not keeping track, it's November. Summer officially begins in two weeks. And it snowed. Not proper snow, I'll admit - it never made it to the ground. And I didn't actually see it myself. But I'm willing to take the word of random people I've never met before. And there was definitely icy rain at the very least.
Canberra really has odd weather. The maximum temperature today was 13 degrees, at 1am. The minimum was 6 degrees at 4pm. It's going to be 0 tomorrow, with frost.
The one thing that I am slightly worried about is the weather warnings for today - there was a small boat warning for the lakes and a sheep grazier warning. So far I've managed to stay clear of sheep graziers, but you can never be too careful...
Canberra really has odd weather. The maximum temperature today was 13 degrees, at 1am. The minimum was 6 degrees at 4pm. It's going to be 0 tomorrow, with frost.
The one thing that I am slightly worried about is the weather warnings for today - there was a small boat warning for the lakes and a sheep grazier warning. So far I've managed to stay clear of sheep graziers, but you can never be too careful...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)