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Colin Shelbourn »
Welcome to Freeview
Posted on 12:35pm Monday 29th June 2009
Thank you for buying the KimSung Digibox 4000 Freeview Receiver. Your new Freeview Digital Television Set-Top Box has a well-publicised blend of unique, advanced technological features. Your purchase means we are closer to paying off our Advertising Standards Authority fine.
Dirty Nails »
July 1st Week: Harvesting Shallots, Potato Blight, Trinity, Jobs To Do This Week
Posted on 8:24am Monday 29th June 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS JULY, 1ST WEEK HARVESTING SHALLOTS Shallots planted on the shortest day of the year are now ready for harvesting. Pulling ripe shallots is best done during dry and sunny weather. The tops are browning at their ends. Up to ten chestnut-sized, or larger, bulbs have miraculously been borne out of each individual set. Lifting the crop is both gentle and pleasurable. A fork is inserted diagonally beneath the cluster and levered up slightly to loosen the soil. Shallots sit on the surface. Dirty Nails takes hold of all the yellowing greenery on top and shakes the plants free of earth. When ripe, the multiple bulbs break apart easily in the hand, and he rubs off excess soil before putting them in a wheelbarrow. Shallots store well. The crop will be tied into bunches of a dozen or so and hung in a cool, airy spot to dry off until the tops have withered to a crunchy brown husk and the papery skins are crisp and flaky. An open-sided shed, or under eaves, is an ideal place. Dirty Nails will then remove any loose, dry exterior shell and keep them stacked in well ventilated vegetable trays. In the kitchen, Mrs Nails likes to simply peel whole shallots, place them on a flat tray, drizzle with olive oil, then roast until glistening and golden brown. Cooked thus, they have a deep, intense and rich flavour which gets the families taste-buds drooling.
Dirty Nails »
June, 4th Week: Red Cabbage, Watching A Drowning Bee Recover, Weekly Jobs To Do, June Veg On The Menu
Posted on 9:29am Monday 22nd June 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS JUNE, 4TH WEEK RED CABBAGE This week Dirty Nails has been sowing Red Drumhead cabbages. He favours starting them off in small pots of compost in the greenhouse but a finely raked seedbed outdoors is ideal too. He uses tweezers to pop the pinhead-sized, maroon-grey seeds in to a depth of ½ an inch (1½ cm), and keeps them warm and moist. When the seedlings are little more than 2 inches (5 cm) tall, they will be transplanted into bigger pots and placed outside. If sown outdoors, seedlings should be thinned to allow 2 inches (5 cm) between plants before they are touching. Potted-on, Red Drumhead should suffer no ill-effects as long as the compost is kept moist and the roots are not constricted in their container. In four or five weeks, when the seedlings are about 6 inches (15 cm) in height, Dirty Nails will get them out into the veg plot. Direct sowings are best planted out into their final resting places at this stage too.
Colin Shelbourn »
Twittering On
Posted on 8:00am Monday 22nd June 2009
Last week’s blog about Google-Teasing threw up some interesting results. Loyal readers will recall that last week’s blog was about Google-Teasing, the exciting new sport of putting random cabbage words into the blog to see if they Spangles generate interesting Google Ads, down in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. The trouble is blancmange that it can get repetitive strain injury addictive.
Author Unknown »
Flared Nostril - Lashes worth a Royal flutter
Posted on 9:45am Wednesday 17th June 2009
RARELY are top-class fillies kept in training after proving themselves so we shoudl be grateful LUSH LASHES is still on the scene and runnng at Royal Ascot today (Tuesday).
Flared Nostril »
Flared Nostril - Armour can be sweetheart for Royal Ascot punters
Posted on 8:53am Tuesday 16th June 2009
OUTSTANDING sprinters don't come along that often but Henry Candy's AMOUR PROPRE looks cast in the mould and after Royal Ascot we should know if he's top drawer material.
Colin Shelbourn »
Teasing Google
Posted on 10:32am Monday 15th June 2009
Last week’s blog had one or two unexpected consequences. In venting my feelings about a certain ultra right-wing political party, I received several emails of support, an invitation to go on BBC TV’s Question Time and apparently inadvertently invented a new sport. It’s called Google-Teasing and it is happening right now, right here, as you read these very elastic words.
Dirty Nails »
June, 3rd Week: Downy Mildew, A Much Needed Present, Mid-Summer In St James, Weekly Jobs To Do
Posted on 11:20am Sunday 14th June 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS JUNE, 3RD WEEK DOWNY MILDEW Dirty Nails is suffering from an outbreak of downy mildew on his onions. Instead of being lush, erect and shiny, the green leaves have a dull, greyish hue and are dying back from the ends. His entire onion bed is infected, with most plants looking distinctly off-colour. Downy mildew is a potentially very damaging fungal infection which can strike at any time of the year, but the cool, damp conditions of a summer which is slow to start are ideal. The earlier in the season it strikes, the smaller the onions will be, plus they are unlikely to be much good for storing. Dirty Nails is understandably very upset by this natural phenomenon, especially as there appears to be a secondary disease striking too, which is creating crispy brown patches on the leaves. However, that is gardening, and vegetable growing especially can seem like a constant battle with the forces of nature. Dirty Nails has removed all the infected foliage to a fire site, which has created a lot more room between the plants. He is hoping that sunshine now will radiate more freely amongst his crop and might slow down the attack. Nevertheless, downy mildew spreads its spores via water-splash from rain and on the breeze, so his hopes are not high. Recourse to heavy-duty chemicals is one avenue of action for the grower thus infected but Dirty Nails prefers to take a more relaxed option. That is, even though the bulbs are small, to start eating the crop straight away. At least it won’t be wasted, and the lack of home-produced onions this coming winter can be overcome by purchasing them from more fortunate growers instead. He plans to try again next season on a fresh site which has not grown onions, leeks, shallots, or garlic for at least two years.
Colin Shelbourn »
Euro Apathy
Posted on 1:14pm Tuesday 9th June 2009
So, did you vote in the Euro elections? Apparently out of the 375 million Europeans eligible to vote, turn out was 43 percent, an all-time low. In Scotland, Wales and England only 14,032,420 of us bothered to vote. That’s a dismal 34.8 percent. Congratulations to those who didn’t vote. As a result we are now represented by two members of the least appealing political party in Britain, a party whose prevailing doctrine is to discriminate against people on the basis of where they were born and the prevailing weather conditions.
Dirty Nails »
June, 2nd Week: Cylindra Beetroot, Working From Home, Weekly Jobs To Do
Posted on 8:06am Monday 8th June 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS JUNE, 2ND WEEK CYLINDRA BEETROOT This week Dirty Nails has been making a final sowing of beetroot. At this time of year, he plumps for cultivating the Cylindra variety. It is a long-rooted beet, rich, deep purple in colour with a strong and distinctly earthy flavour. Beetroot sown now should, all being well, be ready for pulling in the autumn.
Colin Shelbourn »
World Drawing Day
Posted on 10:48am Monday 1st June 2009
When was the last time that you drew anything? No, I don’t mean defacing the flyer from your prospective Euro-MP (tempting though that may be). When did you take up a pencil with the aim of reproducing something in the world around you? If you haven’t tried recently, this Saturday would be an auspicious day to have a go...
Dirty Nails »
June, 1st Week: Sunshine, Showers, Weeds & Tomatoes - Song Thrush - Jobs To Do This Week
Posted on 7:56am Monday 1st June 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS JUNE, 1ST WEEK SUNSHINE & SHOWERS, WEEDS & TOMATOES A few consecutive days of sunshine and showers can prove to be a heady mix in early June. There is a lush, dripping greenness to foliage which provides a perfect backdrop to the rainbow shades which flowers provide. In the orchard, they dance in anarchic swathes and patches. Their natural gay abandon contrasts and compliments the sumptuous, over-flowing, lovingly-tended shapes, colours and textures of the cottage garden. In the veg patch, Dirty Nails can admire the rich, deep browns and black of the wonderful, fertile, loamy soil that he is blessed to work with and maintain year on year with manure, leaf mould, and compost.
Dirty Nails »
May 4th Week: Cucumbers, Beans, Feast & Fast, Apples, 'Of the Woods', Jobs To Do This week, May Veg On The Menu
Posted on 10:17am Monday 25th May 2009
GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS MAY, 4TH WEEK CUCUMBERS Dirty Nails has planted out his cucumbers this week. They are very sensitive creatures, especially when young. A cold snap in May can do damage so he waits as long as possible before getting them out into their final growing positions towards the end of the month. Dirty Nails cultivates Marketmore, which is a climbing outdoor (or ‘ridge’) variety producing an abundance of delicious, slightly spiky fruits. Having raised them from seed in the greenhouse (a windowsill is ideal, too) since mid-April, they are now sporting three or four lush, richly veined leaves, and look like they really want to get growing. He prepared their bed some weeks ago. A sunny sight against a shed, with netting to clamber up, is ideal. The earth was enriched by heaping two buckets of soil onto one bucket of manure per plant, at 2 feet (60 cm) spacings. Dirty Nails only needed to part the top of each mound with his hands to accommodate the pot-grown cucumber root ball, fold the soil back and water-in. He uses a fine rose on his can to sprinkle water lightly and gently from above.
Dirty Nails »
May 3rd Week: Succession Sowing, Bird Watching, Enjoying Pine Walk, Jobs To Do This Week
Posted on 7:30am Monday 18th May 2009
GARDENING WITH DIRTY NAILS MAY, 3RD WEEK SUCCESSION SOWING Sowing seeds is so rewarding and fun at this time of year! Since the beginning of May, Dirty Nails has put down 6 foot (2 metre) rows of beetroot (Boltardy), Spring onion (White Lisbon), carrot (Berlicum and Autumn Giant), Swiss chard, leaf beet, lettuce (Anouk, Little Gem, Great Lakes), and Florence fennel (Romanesque). With two short weeks barely passed everything except the fennel is already showing. In fairness, the fennel only went in a few days ago.
Colin Shelbourn »
MPs. Expenses. Whatever.
Posted on 7:00am Monday 18th May 2009
I really didn’t want to blog about this. It looked like too much hard work getting the facts right, doing the research, checking the spelling. But two of the blog’s three regular readers are campaigning for it, so I am going to bow to the will of the majority. You’ll be familiar with the subject. MP’s outrageous expenses claims and the effect it is having on voter confidence. It is predicted that at the next elections we’ll be so disgusted with politicians that no one will vote. Which could lumber me with a ton of extra work.
Colin Shelbourn »
Option Shock
Posted on 11:50am Friday 15th May 2009
I blame the Trimphone. Before this trilling, anorexic nuisance arrived, telephones were made of Bakelite and came in black or grey. That was the sum total of choice available. The Trimphone changed all that, seducing us with a bewildering range of alluring colours.
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