Jen and I took advantage of a snowy Sunday morning to get our seedlings started after a breakfast of homemade pancakes. Having already set up a better light stand, I went out and bought a pair of new seedling trays and a variety pack of heirloom tomato seeds. This year we’re doing Amish Paste, Beefsteak, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Roma, Large Cherry, & Yellow Plum Tomatoes, as well as Italian Flat Leaf & Thai basil. There should be at least 10 seedlings to choose from for each variety, which will be more than enough to fill our containers.
Along with the seeds I got an outdoor timer for the grow lights and set up heating pads and the lights downstairs.
Other than that, and an afternoon walk with Hazel, I didn’t do a damn thing on Sunday until the Super Bowl, which was, as usual, underwhelming. I was sad to see Frat Bro win yet another ring and the Tampa Bay defense run over the Chiefs; Mahomes tried to do everything he could but he’s only one man, and he didn’t get much help from the rest of the team. The highlight was live-texting back and forth with Mom, Renie and Jen up until the third quarter when we all saw the writing on the wall and gave up on it.
As mentioned earlier, I set up a new growing station in the basement a few weeks ago to be ready for seed starting, with a 4′ grow light, two growing trays for 60 seeds and heating mats. I ordered a timer and a pack of 6 varieties of tomato seeds from Amazon this morning. I’m excited to get some seedlings going. The Farmer’s Almanac says I should be starting right now but that feels very early to me—especially when we’ve got two inches of snow on the ground. Asking Jen about this on our morning walk today, as we trudged over sections of new ice that had fallen overnight, she said something to the effect of, “duh, Bill, why do you think the plants at the store are so big in the spring when they go on sale?” Duh, indeed. So I guess I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.
In the greenhouse, the plan is to buy an inexpensive shelving unit for the back corner to free up the spare table, and move that over to the south side wall for more planting space. It’s pretty clear I need to prepare the containers better before planting, probably with some kind of fish-based fertilizer. Outside the greenhouse I’m going to go scorched-earth on the weeds out back and put in some kind of simple pavers to keep the ivy from returning, as well as build a new water barrel platform to replace the rickety one I’ve been using for 10 years.
Finally, I’ve got to find a mop on an extended handle that I can use to wash the plastic on the greenhouse; the oak tree overhead tends to drop a lot of sap, which collects dirt and cuts back on the amount of sunlight making its way inside.
Here’s an updated version of the energy graphs I plotted last week; this is a two-part visualization that shows the difference between summer and winter.
A couple of weeks ago I found an old fluorescent light fixture up in the attic of the garage while I was organizing stuff, and hauled it into the basement to take a closer look. I don’t remember where it came from. It needed a new cord, but other than that looked clean, so I picked one up from Home Depot and wired it up. Then I took the light stand down and rigged it up from the ceiling over by the brewing stand. Now, instead of taking up the entire workbench, there’s a dedicated growing setup for starting vegetable seeds. Now I just need a 3-prong programmable timer. The goal for this year is to build on last year’s success. I’m going to prepare the bins better this time, with better fertilizer at the beginning, better positioning, and a selection of new seed for some variety. I’m also going to pick up some inexpensive plastic shelving to clean up the greenhouse and open up space for growing.
There are several tomatoes coloring in the greenhouse, and I am READY for them. The cherry plants are still producing fruit randomly; every week I go out and bring a handful in for the girls. I’m going to have to go out and consolidate a bunch of stuff this weekend and finally put the panel in the back wall to keep things warm overnight. Winter is coming…
Here in the office I finally took the time to go through some drawers and bins and boxes full of old computer gear and set aside a bunch of crap to get rid of: ancient CD-RW drives I scavenged from old towers, a pair of AirPort Base Stations that date back 15 years, miles of old Cat-5 network cabling, first-gen iPod FireWire wall warts, old manuals…there’s certainly more to get rid of, but I’ve found that if I’m going to keep old machinery it’s critical to have the gear to support it. So I’ll still hang on to the AirPort Express that will talk to the G3 Powerbooks that will still run OS9 so that I can access design files from 1997…
One of the things I dug out of the archives is a Sony Watchman MD-10, something that came out of the unclaimed personal property of a repo when I was in college. I took it back with me junior year and it allowed us all to stay current on Seinfeld episodes when we were on break during late night classes. For its time it was an amazing little device, and I wish it had DC input, because as I recall it ate AA batteries pretty fast. It’s useless these days with the advent of digital broadcasting; I could theoretically hook a digital antenna up to an RF modulator and broadcast local analog signal to it, but it’s really not worth the trouble. Interestingly, Gizmodo just did an article on this very model a few months ago; I share the author’s hesitation to get rid of his.
The greenhouse is winding down from its peak this summer. I went out this morning and chopped most of the plants that are still producing way back and yanked four plants that have stopped producing out of their tubs. Most of the cherry plants are still producing fruit and some of it is reddening, but there’s a lot of green fruit out there that might not make it through the fall. My plan is to pull the plants out of the bins and hang them upside-down from the roof to send all the nutrients downward to the fruit before it gets too cold. There are two green heirlooms in the same situation; I’m hoping I can get those to ripen as well. Sadly it also means I’ve got to put the door back in place.
I donated to the Biden/Harris campaign last week, voluntarily opening the floodgates of spam campaign mail, and after hitting DONATE I realized I wanted to get a yard sign. Heading over to the store I saw that a 24″x18″ sign is $25, which is entirely too much money to spend on too small a sign. I had some 4×3′ plywood left over from the Chic Shack and I have an overhead projector, so I decided to make my own. It was easy to find a PDF of the campaign logo, and after I printed it on a transparency I busted out the projector and set it up in the living room facing the wall.
Once I had the stencil drawn, I cut it out on the production table and transfered it to the wood. I’d whitewashed the wood on Saturday so it was ready for paint. At Lowe’s I got two pint-sized samples of red and blue paint so I covered the red section and shot the blue through the stencil with the sprayer. When that had dried I masked off the red section with painter’s tape and brushed it on.
From there it was an easy matter of cutting some leftover wood down for yard spikes and pounding them into the lawn with a deadblow hammer. I have to go back out and straighten the west side sign a little bit, but overall I’m happy with the results. It’s right outside the office window so I get to see the neighborhood walk past every day.
Until Thursday evening, I’d had about 200 files from the March scanning project still waiting to be color-corrected and processed. I ran out of steam toward the end of the project, after I’d been sitting and staring at them for several weeks on end. After the girls went to bed last night I worked my way through the last batch. I wish I’d done all of this before my Dad passed, as I think he’d be blown away by how modern technology and a professional eye can save an underexposed or poorly processed negative—of which there are many in this collection.
The greenhouse bounty is winding down now that we’re getting into September; the cherry plants are sending out their last bunches of fruit, and the heirlooms are almost done producing. There are maybe 10 large tomatoes still ripening out there, and then the plants can come out and the greenhouse cleaned up. I’m happy to say we’ve enjoyed every tomato that’s come out of there, and I can’t wait to build a better version with more variety next year.
Hazel has been battling various side effects of the medication she’s been prescribed for side effects of medication she was prescribed since we’ve had her. To recap: she was given all manner of vaccinations as a puppy, some of which she developed allergies to, and they started breaking down the blood vessels in her ears. We were prescribed different medication to help with this condition only to find it lowered her immune system, causing her to break out with warts across her body. We got the ear thing under control, finally, and her dermatologist decided we were going to take her off that medication and switch to a different one. It’s been a month or so since the switch, and her ears are still clear and the warts are finally disappearing. Meanwhile, the Easy Lead we bought a couple of weeks ago, while not her favorite object in the world, makes walking her about a million times more enjoyable. We’re doing about three miles daily, a long walk in the morning and a family walk in the evening, and it seems to be great for everyone’s mental health.
After fucking around with multiple different approaches to installing OX El Capitan on my 14-year-old Mac Pro, I decided to give up on janky scripts and poorly written directions and just clone the copy of Leopard I had running on it before to test that the SSD was viable, which did work. Now I’m going to have to buy a copy of 10.7 Lion from Apple (it is not available as a download anymore for reasons I can’t fathom, and among the hundreds of archived backup and install discs I’ve got in my collection, I don’t have this installer) and put a clean copy of the last officially compatible OS on the drive.
There’s a wealth of information out there about Mac Pros out there, which is super handy for keeping the original 2006 version I own (and the 2010 version I use at work) running smoothly. It’s hard to believe my work tower is that old, but it still cranks along happily, earning its keep. I see people complaining about the high cost of pro Apple gear, but if I amortize the purchase price over the time I’ve used it, it’s an incredible bargain.
Tomatoes are officially in season here in the greenhouse and the girls haven’t been able to keep up with the harvest. We have a bunch of Cherokee Purples ripening on several different plants, and they’re all about due to be picked. I pulled several beautiful Chef’s Choice on Saturday with a bowl full of cherries. At the same time there are several basil plants getting fuller with the heat.
Everything in the greenhouse has gone nuts in the last week. Where there were only a few tentative blooms on a few plants, now every plant has three or four branches filled with yellow flowers, and half of those already have fruit beginning. Even the difficult varieties are producing: the Cherokee Purples have five or six fruit apiece. They’ve suddenly gotten taller as well, and I’ve been pretty ruthless in cutting back the secondary growth unless it’s already got something growing. As a result the plants look thin and spindly compared to giant leafy bushes, which I’ve been accustomed to growing in years past. This time I’m pruning everything back except that which will produce, hoping they’ll mature and ripen faster.
I think the only stuff that hasn’t bloomed yet is the strange tub in the back, with seedlings that always seemed slower than the rest. Those plants have shot up in the last week but they’re 1/4 the size of the others. I think they’ll wind up being producers late in the season.