Woohoo

Posted by on May 8, 2012 No comments

I went down the allotment on Saturday to plant some strawberry plants and while I was there, I spotted a few radish, lettuce and potato seedlings poking their heads through the soil. It may not seem much, but hopefully its a start to a successful year.

After doing a little celebration jig, I planted the strawberry plants I got from Homebase and gave them a thick layer on mulch courtesy of the piles of wood chippings the other side of the site. Even if I get one strawberry from them, I’ll be pretty pleased as I’ve not had much success growing them in the past.

Last week, I joined the heritage seed library purely out of interest to see what varieties of fruit and veg they send out to members. Although I’m late for this years orders, they did send me a packet of french beans (I haven’t got the packet to hand and I can’t remember the name of the variety), which I thought was nice of them.

Tales from the allotment: My first full month

Posted by on April 30, 2012 No comments

It may seem that my allotments updates have dried up, but I’ve been busy weeding, constructing a frame ready for my beans and sowing little and often for a continuous supply of fresh fruit and veg throughout the summer. Although I fear that any seeds I’ve sown direct into the ground a few weeks back may have failed, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.

I’m pretty happy how quickly I’ve managed to clear the plot. My aim was to do a little at a time, but with the help of my dad, we managed to do 90% of it within a week. We have a small patch that still needs clearing up, but we won’t be using that for a while as we are going to plant some sweetcorn there.

My plans this week is to continue weeding and sowing, and to construct some sort of a cage to put over some strawberry plants that I’m going to plant by the herbs.

 

And we’re off….

Posted by on April 14, 2012 No comments

So this week I managed to finish digging the rest of my allotment with the help of my old man and hopefully I can sow some seeds tomorrow. I’ve also earthed up the potatoes to make it look like I’ve actually planted something, although I’m not sure if you have to wait until they are poking through the soil, but everyone else has done it on the site, so hopefully they will be ok.

Taters earthed up

During the week, I’ve found out I may have sown the leeks and onions a little too deep (misread the packets), so instead of waiting to see if they come through, I’m going to sow some more tomorrow. I’ve also been busy sowing sweetcorn (F1 Sundance) and also dwarf green beans (Speedy); both of which are either on my kitchen windowsill or in my dads greenhouse. I’m hoping to get the the beans in the ground at the end of the month followed by the sweetcorn shortly afterwards depending on the weather.

And as promised I have finalized where I’m going to plant everything. Although the plan might change and its not exactly to scale, it will give me a rough plan to work to. I still haven’t decided what to plant up the one corner so I’ve just left that marked as potted plants. So without further ado, my plan…

My allotment plan

I’ve tried to mix things up a little, so hopefully I won’t have too many problems, although I’m not sure if I can fit everything in. Time will let…

Tales from the allotment: A new beginning

Posted by on April 10, 2012 No comments

For some time now, I’ve always liked the idea of having my own allotment to grow my own fruit and veg. So earlier this year, I got myself on a few waiting lists and last Monday I had an email to say I’ve got one. Tuesday morning and I was straight down there to sign the agreement, pay the monies and to take a look at my plot. The plot itself is privately owned and is 12m by 5m with a 1m path running around it.

I got to work and started digging it over on the Tuesday afternoon with the aim to have what I’m calling the ‘tater plot’ dug over before the end of the day.

The plot before I started digging it over.

The tater plot

After a couple hours of digging the ‘tater plot’ was complete, even though I left a few weeds behind.

Couple of hours work and its done.

After admiring my work and having a walk around the site looking at other peoples handy work, I went home for a cup of tea and something to eat.

Wednesday was spent recovering from the day before, but I did manage to get some seeds, including some seed potatoes ready to go in on Thursday (although I can’t remember what varieties off the top of my head). Thursday, my dad come down and to help dig another section of the plot while I planted the potatoes, a few leeks and some onions, and also done some general clearing up.

Taters in and another section dug over

Hopefully I can finish digging the rest of the plot over by the end of this week and also finalise where I’m going to plant everything.

CCENT Update

Posted by on November 27, 2011 No comments

I was going to post this last week, but I’ve had a lot on at work and never had chance.

Anyway in my search to find some labs for me to practice with, I stumbled across Marc Bouchard’s Cisco CCNEA Lab Guides. I’ve had a quick look through them and I highly recommend them.

CCENT/CCNA

Posted by on November 14, 2011 No comments

For the last couple of years I’ve been toying with the idea of getting my CCENT and CCNA certs (Cisco certifications). I’ve got a small lab which I do experiment with and I’ve also got a lot of reading material, but I’ve never actually studied properly and got the certs

So today I’ve decided that I’m going to actually get the certs and study properly, and use this blog to keep me motivated.

My lab consists of two 2610 routers, 2500 router, 2920 switch and a 2960 switch, along with two ftp and web servers I use for testing (they are actually old PCs, but what the heck).

My Cisco LabSo sometime next week, there should will be another post regarding my certs.

Fab’s AutoBackup

Posted by on September 26, 2011 No comments

I discovered a pretty cool program over the weekend that I’m going to use for my business. The program in question is Fab’s AutoBackup 4 and so far I can’t fault it. Before whenever I had to back up data for a customer, I used to copy their files manually to a portable hard drive which took an age. With Fab’s it’s a case of selecting the folders and application settings you want backing up and letting it do its thing. Restore was a breeze and during my tests over the weekend, I managed to cut my nuke and pave time down by about 30 minutes.

Check it out

Looking for an old canal

Posted by on July 11, 2011 No comments

I grew up in Norton Canes, and one of my earliest memories of primary school was learning about the history of the village, focusing on the mines, railways and the canal that ran through it. So armed with some vague memories from school and my camera, I headed out to trace the route of the canal.

My journey starts just outside Norton, by the A5 where the canal is still present. A sign marks the location of the canal on both the East and West bound carriageway of the A5, although the canal actually stops before it reaches the road.

A sign marking the location of the canal

The canal actually stops short of the A5.

The canal then crosses the A5, where it continues to head into Norton Canes. At this point I’m unsure if the canal went over the A5 or under it. I would take a guess at the A5 went over the canal, but if anyone knows different, please let me know.

The view from the A5. The drained canal now heads off into Norton Canes.

Unfortunately, access is partially restricted on the next part of the canal. Partly because the M6 Toll cuts through it and partly because its overgrown.

M6 Toll cuts through the canal. The clump of tree's to the right marks the location of the canal.

I then pick up the canal at the junction of Betty’s Lane and Conduit Road, where you can walk along the remains of it. If you park up at the bottom Conduit Road and head towards the tree’s opposite the junction, you will then see a path to the left, which is the old tow path. You may also notice some bricks marking the edge of the tow path, so keep an eye out for them.

The canal at the junction of Betty's Lane and Conduit Road

Bricks mark the edge of the tow path

At this point the canal heads up Conduit Road and makes a left. I’m not really sure where it turns, but it’s somewhere by Chase Tyres. From here there isn’t much evidence of the canal until you reach the park on Chapel Street, opposite Castlecroft, where there is a dip in the field.

The park on Chapel Street. Note the dip in the field

The canal continues across the field, towards Castlecroft and through some tree’s. I was excited about the next part because the canal wasn’t actually filled in and you could actually see some of the brickwork, but it’s been blocked off and you can’t get down there.

The path is blocked. I was really looking forward to this part.

The canal runs next to Castlecroft until it reaches Washbrook Lane, where you will find large wall running along the road. The canal part runs along the road until it disappears into a field.

The canal wall that runs along Washbrook Lane.

Another picture of the wall. The canal would have been the other side of the wall.

Last part of the canal before it goes into the field.

From here on I’m not really sure on the exact route the canal goes, but I will doing some digging around to find out and hopefully post some more pictures. Also if you have any old pictures of the canal, I would love to hear from you!

Hello

Posted by on July 9, 2011 No comments

No doubt the style of the site will change over the next coming days, I still can’t make my mind up between this Mantra Theme or another one I’ve seen. Time will tell.