Posts Tagged ‘allotment’

This is not houmous !

Saturday, July 1st, 2023

This is not houmous ! I’ve created a weapon of mass destruction!

I’ve been growing organic horseradish on the allotments for over 15 years, and I’ve recently dug it up, and started to prepare it for homemade horseradish sauce!

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Dead SATA Hard Disk Drives – this one definitely has crashed heads!

Sunday, March 13th, 2016

This is what they look like inside, if you’ve ever wondered!

I’ve had a stack of many SCSI, IDE, SATA, SAS disks on the shelves for many years, ranging in sizes from 40MB, 9GB, 36GB, 72GB, 146GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB, time to test them all. Out of 50 SATA drives, 6 had failed just because they had been sitting on the shelf doing nothing.

I’ll strip them down, and use the spinning platters, as bird scarcers for my allotment, to keep the pigeons at bay! It takes me 30 seconds to strip them down and remote the platters, and then I’ll shuffle the platters, and string them on my allotment, that’s stops my data being recovered!

This SATA hard drive, the heads have crashed into the platters, and started to score them, see here

This is what a hard drive should look like

Here’s a single platter

A stack of platters for my allotment

here’s a short video of the inside of a hard drive, with the cover removed, with crashed heads.

here’s a short video of the inside of a broken hard drive, with the cover removed.

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Strawberry Fields Forever

Sunday, June 15th, 2014

Let me take you down
Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real

(c) John Lennon, 1966

strawberryfields1

strawberryfields2

Okay, not exactly Strawberry Fields, but my allotment!

But it still my favourite fruit, and Beatles Song written by John Lennon!

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Allotment Update – May 2013

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

Many of you are probably thinking, my blog has turned into a VMware site, so here are some pictures of the strawberry plants, down on the allotment, I’m still working on. These were planted out last year, and the weather has been so cold, I’ve now covered and cloched two rows, so I’ll hopefully have some strawberries a little earlier.

Just finished weeding my asparagus patch, more photos to come.

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My Allotment in October 2012

Sunday, October 14th, 2012

My allotment in October 2012, it’s been a productive year, considering the wet, and the Allotments only started in April 2012, I’ve had many strawberries, a few raspberries, a few cauliflowers, and planted my asparagus beds. a few Sweetcorn, onions, garlic and shallots. Potatoes and Sweetcorn, were a disaster but it’s a start!

I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in 2012 with my allotment, now start thinking abour 2013!

I’ve just finished weeding approx 10m x 5m, and finished weeding the asparagus beds, planted some onions, and spinch to over winter, and broadcast some green manure, Hungarian grazing rye.

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Allotment on 20 June 2012, before the rain!

Sunday, June 24th, 2012
Allotment on 20 June 2012 before the Rain!

Allotment on 20 June 2012 before the Rain!

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Andy’s Asparagus

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

My joints are aching, I spent a long day on the allotment preparing trenches for my asparagus beds yesterday. I’ve planted four beds of asparagus with the following asparagus varities – Backlim, Gijnlim and Purple Passion.

In the past few weeks, I’ve also added another two rows of strawberries, to add to the existing two rows of Elsanta, I’ve added Amelia and Marshmarvel. Amelia is a late cropping variety from June to September, Marshmarvel is an early cropping variety from May to September, peaks in June, with possible second crop later in the season. Elsanta is a mid cropping variety from June to July. So better ask my Mum, how to make “Jam’n’ Jerusalem”!  because I could have a few starberries next year!

I’ve also added a few rows of sweetcorn, planted jerusalem artichokes and horseradish, completed moving the goji berry and raspberry bushes, I think the redcurrent, blackcurrant and whitecurrent, gooseberry bushes have not taken – possibly too dry.

My water butts have arrived, I’ve finished preparing the rest of the allotment to add other vegetables this week. The allotment has been bone dry, hence the need for water butts onsite to store water, we did have a wet day last week, which has helped me with not watering every day, since the rain.

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More April Showers on Andy’s Allotment!

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, it’s still damn raining, and the allotment is disappearing under more water, I’ve planted my comfrey, rhubarb and horse raddish. But the ground is far too wet, to plant my potatoes, onions, garlic and shallots, they will just rot in the ground.

My strawberry plants and asparagus corns have arrived, I’m not sure when I’ll get these planted now as the allotment is too wet, and looking at the weather forecasts, rain until Saturday!

here are some more photographs of the allotment developing…

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April Showers on Andy’s Allotment!

Thursday, April 12th, 2012

the weather has been terrible, and we’ve been plagued with heavy showers, I was waiting for the ground to settle, now I’ll be waiting for it to dry out…or maybe a rice paddy or water cress?

looks like planting will have to wait, the allotments, are rather wet……

andysallotment-april122012-1

andysallotment-april122012-2

andysallotment-april122012-3I have planted something, I’ve moved some Comfrey “Bocking 14”, up to the allotment plot, but must move my rhubarb and raspberry canes up shortly, if the ground is not to wet.

My Allotment is at http://gravelpitallotments.org.uk/

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Andy’s Allotment Easter 2012 Update

Saturday, April 7th, 2012

I’ve been preparing the ground on the allotment, which measures 20m x 5m. Breaking the soil, weeding and removing stones and tree roots.

(it burns off those Easter Eggs!)

Ready for me to plant, potatoes, white and red onions, shallots, garlic, carrots, beetroot, horse radish, asparagus, raspberries,  strawberries, goji berries, rhubarb – just a few things to get me started.

Here are some photographs, of my progress so far…

Andy's Allotment on 21 March 2012

Andy's Allotment on 21 March 2012

In the super, summer week in March, the allotment looked like this! But I was a little busy, to prepare the ground.

Andy's Allotment on 4 April 2012

Andy's Allotment on 4 April 2012

April showers, we did not have heavy snow as forecast, just missed out, bit it left the allotments very wet!

Andy's Allotment on 5 April 2012

Andy's Allotment on 5 April 2012

Start of preparing the gound…

Andy's Allotment on 7a April 2012

Andy's Allotment Start of 7 April 2012

Ploughed the day before…

Andy's Allotment on 7 April 2012

Andy's Allotment End of 7 April 2012

finally tilled….I’m waiting for the ground to dry out before creating my trenches for potatoes and asparagus.

A funny picture, this is Plot 2, it shows how wet the allotments have been..

Plot 2 next to my allotment! see how wet it is!

Plot 2 next to my allotment! see how wet it is!

My Allotment is at http://gravelpitallotments.org.uk/

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