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Post by roofgardener on Sept 14, 2015 6:51:52 GMT
Zat Small Chicken is NOT a chicken it`s a BANTER.  
Roofgardeners Recipe for Battered Heron
Ingredients: 1) One sarcastic Heron. 2) One large stick. Method First, take one Sarcastic Heron....  |
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Post by Moonlight on Sept 14, 2015 9:44:55 GMT
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Post by dianthus on Sept 14, 2015 10:54:04 GMT
I wonder if battered dianthus tastes anything like battered courgette flowers?  |
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 14, 2015 10:55:53 GMT
You can batter courgette flowers ?
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Post by dianthus on Sept 14, 2015 12:02:36 GMT
They do it in some posh restaurant, something like a tempura batter
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 14, 2015 18:52:58 GMT
They... throw away the courgette... and eat the flower ?
Are the Belgians involved somehow ?
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Post by dianthus on Sept 14, 2015 19:10:23 GMT
No... the baby courgette is still attached, as the courgette flower has only just opened and not been fertilised.
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 14, 2015 19:29:08 GMT
The Roofgarden Re-seeded. Well, its finally (almost) complete. The first year (well, 10 months) with the Polytunnel has been a revelation. It has transformed my Gardening, and made it hugely more pleasant. I can Root in the Rain and Cultivate in the Cold. (cold outside that is, not inside.. obviously). My gardening has gone from a few hours at the weekend, to an hour every evening PLUS a whole BUNCH of hours at the weekend. Of course, my Polytunnel layout was.. well.. a bit extravegant with comfort items, and "living space". But... we are entering a New Phase. I now have my 2016-2017 "mission" to produce a years worth of onions.. AND strawberries for Wimbledon.. AND brussel sprouts for Christmas Dinner.. AND.. gosh.. LOTS of stuff. So the time has come to take it to the Next Level. I need EVERY square inch of growing space I can muster. And I need to take advantage of every bit of that space that has decent sunshine during the day. So here is a sneak preview... most of the work has been done; I just need to re-organise some of my 'standing' shelf units in the "outdoors" part of the Roofgarden. So, without furthar ado... (as ever, the pictures are posted onto the RoofNet, so you can click for a larger version).  | The right-hand staging has been lowered, extended, and made about 12" wider, to accomodate taller plants. The old storage shelves/staging at the back has been removed. No more kettle.
Of course, this means that the centre walkway has been made narrower
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| The view from the Comfy Chair (yes... I retained that. Austerity and functionality has its limits.... ). You can see the new wide standing on the RH side of the annexe area. Previously this was just storage, but I realised it actually gets quite a bit of sun, so the storage boxes where moved elsewhere. Its the usual Baking Trays Covered With Tarpaulin structure. Except... Wilko's had run out of tarpaulins, so I've improvised with a plastic tablecloth. | 
| A view from the Auxilary Greenhouse, showing the new Standing (now on the LH side), and the Polytunnel in the background. |  | "Standby for Action" - seedpots on display.
In the middle/back are my Miniture Cyclomen... back from the dead, and seemingly flourishing. Nearer the front... I'm trying to extract seeds from Marigold seed heads. |
| The new storage boxes. Compost/mulch etc on the left, and a small selection of seed trays/pots etc on the right |
Well, that's it so far. It's still a bit untidy, but the basics are in place I think. Yeah.. I know... I'm obsessing with the toys and tools and structure... where are the plants, you ask ? Well, like the movie said.... "If you build it.. they will come" |
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Post by markb on Sept 15, 2015 13:50:22 GMT
Good to see your plan coming together, roofgardener. What varieties of onion were you thinking of growing?
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Post by dianthus on Sept 15, 2015 14:58:01 GMT
Well, that is a lot tidier than my garage and back door stack of pots awaiting a sunny day to wash and dry them |
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 15, 2015 18:16:06 GMT
Well, that is a lot tidier than my garage and back door stack of pots awaiting a sunny day to wash and dry them Ah... but THAT is because I chose the camera angles carefully. The REST of the roofgarden looks like a scrap-heap. But I'll get it sorted... one bit at a time. |
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 15, 2015 18:18:09 GMT
Good to see your plan coming together, roofgardener. What varieties of onion were you thinking of growing? Ah.. well... therein lies a tale. All discussions of Onions is banned from this thread.  For ONIONS.. I would have to ask you to visit my Onion Blog  |
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Post by markb on Sept 15, 2015 18:40:06 GMT
Good to see your plan coming together, roofgardener. What varieties of onion were you thinking of growing? Ah.. well... therein lies a tale. All discussions of Onions is banned from this thread. For ONIONS.. I would have to ask you to visit my Onion Blog Sorry, roofy, posted on onion thread now  |
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Post by roofgardener on Sept 18, 2015 8:36:09 GMT
 What's the connection between a bin-liner, a Spider, and an electricity bill ? Well, yesterday evening I decided to start tidying away all my dead plants; throwing the plants in the Plant Bin, and trying to reclaim the soil into a big plastic box. So I went into my Polytunnel to get a new bin liner, from the ample and varied stock I had, all ready for precisely this eventuality. And they where all gone ! Every one of them !!.  They had fallen off their little shelf, and gone down the back of my work surface. Thing is, this surface isn't like a table; it's a solid block, so you can't crawl underneath it to retrieve stuff. Well, the solution is obvious. Go outside, lift the skirt of the Polytunnel up, and retrieve them that way. Except... a large and rather peevish-looking spider had taken up residence RIGHT where the rolls of bin-bags had fallen down. So I went back in, clambered over the work surface, and groped around, finally managing to hook ONE loose bin liner up. Result. So, 20 minutes emptying a few pots, and another 20 minutes or so filling 50 seed pots with seedling compost ... hardly world-changing, but useful progress nontheless. I celebrated with a glass of whisky, and then retired indoors for dinner. Thismorning I happened to glance at my electricity meter, and noticed that it was unexpectedly low; I seemed to have used up an unusual amount of electricity overnight. Curious.... but ... whatever. I left the flat and - passing the Polytunnel - heard an odd whirring noise. I went in and - gosh - it was REALLY toasty warm. And the fan heater was running !  I should explain that I had been experimenting with running a fan heater on a timer. However, I deactivated the timer thingy after the tests, so how the heck was the fan running ? Spooky ! It appears that whilst scrabbling and flailing around on the work surface the previous evening I must have put my hand on the timer switch and inadvertently reactivated it, and randomly pushed a lot of the timer buttons in as well. The end result was that the heater came on at about midnight, and gleefully heated up the polytunnel overnight. Using about £2.00 of electricity in the process. That's one EXPENSIVE bin liner  This shouldn't be a problem in the future; I've ordered a new gadget... a combined digital thermostat and mains timer. So I CAN heat the 'tunnel up overnight, but under controlled conditions. I've also ordered a little 'temperature logger' that measures - and stores - the temperature every 15 minutes. You can then upload this data into a spreadsheet, and produce graphs. This should allow me to measure how well - or badly - the thermostat is managing the temperature, and allow me to make appropriate adjustments. I may post some graphs, once I've puzzled out how to make it work It will give me something to do inbetween emptying plantpots, and worrying about Onions |
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Post by dianthus on Sept 18, 2015 18:11:08 GMT
You were lucky it was only £2.... it could have been a lot more than that.
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