Ubuntu 11.04

I'm still trying to get use to unity, the new desktop packed with ubuntu. I've used 10.10 with gnome and docky for for long its hard to use anything else. It's like using a mac crossed with windows, although that's just a stupid metaphor since windows copies the other, and try as they might, no fanboy can really claim either is truely orginal since the dinorsaur Xerox PARC. I've tried playing around it, but there's little to change.

The Sun Also Rises

 

Finished this Hemingway book today. It's about Paris, Spain, women, drinking, fishing and bullfighting. Yeah. It's Hemingway.

"I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what is was all about."

Another greenhouse

A friend wanted to get rid of his greenhouse and offered it me. I took it. He and his Dad came round Sunday to the allotment and we unloaded the van, all the metal frame work and glass. No instructions. I gave him a huge bag of compost for it. I didn't know what else to give him, he needed a bag anyway.

After I cooked dinner and had an hour of head-scratching to sort the pieces, I started the base and got the front and sides fixed until I was working in the dark. When I got up today and had some coffee, I started on the supports and roof, finishing around tea time.

Every so often a tame robin would perch on the frame and look at me for a short while then fly off somewhere. He still has his baby feathers, grey fluff, at the back. I tried to coax him on to my hand with all kinds of worms I dug for him but he seems happy just follow me around the garden.

I've had way too much fun on this meccano set with no instructions. Throw the instructions away and do as you please. I will be installing the glass this week, taking my time, some of it is brittle.

Strawberries fruiting

Transplanted biggest brandywines

Starting early this year with the greenhouse heater.

Lettuce in the greenhouse

Soon to be in my sandwich, nom nom.

Brandywine tomatoes

I think this is the third or forth update. The leaves are now noticeably different, and I have noticed they are a little more difficult to grow, some have lost their lower leaves - I don't know why.

Independent people

I finished this book by Halldór Laxness last night. I read it because I'm visiting iceland in the summer, and wasn't disappointed with it's epic landscapes and history.
"Take my word for it, freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam."

What's in the greenhouse / Weather / Early strawberries

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-guB7yWPdIw?wmode=transparent]

Sat in the greenhouse having a look-see and it started hail??stoning.

The mini strawberry patch has some flower heads. Very early.

Pruning hops

If you want hop production you need to prune the amount of shoots or you will have a load of bines and foliage growth. Simply pick 3 or 4 of the strongest shoots and cut all the others down to the soil. The remaining shoots will now be your bines for training. This isn't recommended for new plants (first year plants benefit from being let loose). 

My cascades:

 

My crazy fuggles: