Well lets try and keep this up, I cant promise it will last but hey I will give it a great try, blogging can take up alot of time when you are a dyslexic! tip for any Dyslexics that stumble on my blog, just keep at it and write and read about stuff you love, sod what teachers tell you to read unless you are getting marked on it! There is nothing worse than reading / writing when you dont like the subject!

This little lot of pictures from my garden where taken today after what was my last mega mission in the garden for 2010. From now on its a little planting here, a little weeding there and just alot of minor stuff from week to week. The morning started early with me cutting back the weeds behind the fence, hoeing the weeds on the various plots and more weeding, got to love the weeding. Its really nice to see clear soil but  I just cant stand doing it. After weeding I planted some of my shallots, lettuce, monge tout, radishes, (red, white, lisbon) onions and cucumbers. I think there was more but its been a long day and I cant be bothered to think any more. I know there is no need for poly tunnels in June but due to the cats pooping on my plot I have had to do this so that they dont dig up my lovely little seedlings / seeds when covering it up.

Well this is all the trees, bushes and plants in there green wonderfully state for you viewing pleasure:

Nothing goes 100% perfect all of the time. Its only my first year and yes I still have a few issues going on. Some of the seedlings have died due to the plants falling over and loosing their base in the soil. Still got plenty growing so when thining out I will try to use all my little seedlings to make sure we get a good lot of crops. I am also going to use my pound store 4 for a pound seeds to try out a few different growing times and techniques this year but that s for another day and another post.

So enough of the chit chat, remember to water them all really well but not over the top! plus the pots are not featured in these images as there is no growth yet but week two images might just have a few little gems to show!

1 Week and this is what we have got to show for it.

** Use picture lense to view photos as its better than clicking on them! its a nice little slide-show / viewer

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Well I am going to try and make my posts on this years crop really easy to follow so that newbies to gardening can pick up just as easy as I did!

The first thing to remember is that if you water, feed and look after the soil, plants and seedlings you will get plenty of crops! Last year was my first year and I had way too much. During the summer and warm days you must water every day! if in the ground it does not matter if the ground is soaked. The plants, weeds and everything in the surrounding areas will suck it up before the next mornings sun was fully risen.

BTW the week that I started planting I also weeded and prepare the ground outside for this years crop. Will place compost and feed in the ground a couple of week before sowing seeds and seedlings outside.

My top tips:

1. Weed all the time, make sure the plants are not fight for water, nutrition and most importantly sun. If you leave them they will win and its alot hard to get rid of them when they are big with huge roots.
2. Make sure you water every day during the summer and every other day on the mild days where you can get away with doing it a little less.
3. Always use plant food. Not too much but every three weeks will keep the plants growing and happy. Its not expensive and if you go to the 99p store you can get it for a £1 a bottle. A small plot will only need one of two for the summer so you will not spend alot of money on that! but remember that if you grow toms that they love tomato food so buy some of that too in the 99p store.
4. Always harvest the fruit and veg as soon as you can, beans, tomatoes and cucumbers all grow lots of products and the more you pick the more the bush / plant can grow.
5. Look out for pests and insects, they are usually slow to move on in but when they do they can really mess up your crop so make sure you have treatment at home or can get it quick to stop the little buggers taking over.
6. Plant the crops inside in heated propagators or non-heated for slower results but make sure you plant them with plenty of time to get them established for the summer and stagger them going outside to get crops week after week and not in one go.
7. Enjoy it, its really easy and not every thing will work but if you follow my tips and step on time and in good time you will have a love crop and will get them “Green fingers” I cant shift!

So what did I do in week one (20th of Feb 2010)

1. Got my heated and non-heated propagators and 3/4inch pots ready in my spare room. I then filled them all up with compost (must be John Innes).
2. Read each packet of seeds to make sure you give them the right spacing and depth.
3. Plant them a little deeper and firm the soil! Gemma did not do some rows to deep and did not firm the soil making some seedlings die as they did not have enough root in the soil before they grew out the top soil.
4. Firm firm and top up soil where needed.
5. Water them very lightly and place in warm, bright and safe areas away from pets and children!
6. Keep them warm and at a constant temperature!
7. Tidy up the mess thats if you are like me.
8. Oh and label the seedlings!

Lets see what I did

** Use picture lense to view photos as its better than clicking on them! its a nice little slide-show / viewer

[View with PicLens]

Just before I went away on holiday I invested in a lovely DAB radio and iPod docking station. The Hitachi Vertical DAB Micro with iPod Docking station was my chosen product due to having some great little features for a good price. Its currently retails on Argos at £120 (at time of writing) but I paid alot less than that and it was a real bargain. Thats not to say its perfect, it does have some minor issues which sound petty but hey, I would like better from this product in these areas but would not stop my recommending it at all.

Specs

• 2 x 10 watts RMS.
• 40 station presets (20 DAB plus 20FM).
• MP3 playback.
• USB port.
• 1 CD tray.
• Digital tuner.
• CD-R/CD-RW playback.
• 60 tracks CD / MP3 programmable.
• Play/pause, stop, skip/search-up, repeat, intro, skip/search-down, random function.
• 5 equalizers (Flat/Rock/Classic/Jazz/Pop).
• LCD display.
• ID3 tag.
• Clock/sleep timer.
• 2 way speakers.
• 1 x earphone, 1 x video out and 2 x speaker out sockets.
• Made for iPod.
• External AC-DC switching power adaptor supports various voltages, 100V-240V, line in function.
• Headphone socket.
• Remote control requires 2 x AAA batteries (not supplied).
• Size of main unit (H)40.0, (W)15.4, (D)21.1cm.
• Size of speaker (H)16.0, (W)15.4 (D)21.1cm.

Con’s

So the cons first, start with a low and finish on a high.

1. When turning it on for the first time, it picks up your stations, sets the time and works quite nicely. But as a radio I want it to turn on and work straight off without any user interaction, so that it can be used as a security measure, as a deterant! but thats not the case. Its comes on and goes to stand-by! bloody hate stand-by functions on things like this, once turned on, turn on proper and go onto stand by if I tell you too.
2. The next thing for me is the shabby remote you get. For £100 you expect the remote to be of good quality and by not doing so you get annoyed by pressing so hard it feels like it might break. Then actually finding the right part for the infa red signal is hard work too. I often dont know if I am not hitting the spot or the botton is not working right.
3. Lastly is the annoyingly short areal, digital signal is so hard to get in certain areas of the country right now, which means you need a good areal or atleast an easy way to add another areal or use and extension lead / areal on the the end of the one supplied. I had to add a coat hanger for now till I get a long lead to hide under my table or along the floor out of sight to actually get all the DAB stations I want.

Pro’s

Lots of them so lets keep the detail short….

1. Good price for features.
2. Looks great, not to big but big enough to look like a proper docking station and DAB radio.
3. Has both digital and analoge radio.
4. Input options are great, the fact you can use usb, sd card, ipod and cd sources is fantastic.
5. The slide left and right of the door on the ipod holder and the cd player is nice and slick ( does need some space to the left to open fully)
6. The Ipod control is far greater than I thought, it charges the ipod while allowing you to move through tracks, stop, play, fast forward and all the other functions you need via the remote ( when it works ), this was really nice and made me consider using it all the time, I used to listen to it via the mixer I use for DJing.
7. Blue screen lcd display looks very nice and modern.
8. Packaged well, if not a little bit to well packaged.
9. Speakers look good with or without their covers.
10. Speakers are very good for sound quality and can be enhanced with extra speakers via the other output port for headphones. Currently it has two mono outputs, one each side, an improvement would be having them together at the back to join up a sound system using stero leads, without having to play about splitting the lead to reach either side.

Overall I would recommend this and would possibly give it a 8/10, may be 7/10, I think its around that point. I would have possibly spent a bit more money to get a better system but it does what I wanted so inactual fact the price you pay for what you get is really really good value.

Now go buy one…..

So, another type of drink for me to drink! I love the stuff! I will be doing, red, white and may be beer too. I have just done my rose wine, it looks like vinto but its really great. Its easy easy easy actually, wine consentration, water both cold and hot, sugar, yeast and a couple of other little packets of magic. It started bubbling yestserday and today its gone a little bit madder but by Friday I can add the other bits to take the wind out of it and then Saturday put it in bottles. Thats right just seven days, I get proper nice wine, home made! Cant wait.

So this is the home brew wine:

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This post is just a few pictures or whats happened so far, I will on my next batch do a proper how to. I did start one this time but I have learnt alot since doing my first lot of cider. Cider is hard, well, its not but, if you do not follow the clean, slow, nothing hard and fast rule you will be ok.

So please enjoy my pics and be aware that a rule proof guide is on its way! well, if it works for me its got to be

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