The Winter Garden In April

by A.J. Coltrane

The backyard garden hasn’t yet fully transitioned to “summer”. Maybe next week. The whiskey barrels have some energetic flower starts — Territorial Seed’s Bee Mix, Bug Mix, and Nasturtiums (Jewel Mix).

As of March 2nd, these containers only had gravel in the bottom. They’re in the coldest, shadiest part of the yard that will eventually see good sun as the season progresses:

(Front to back — a container of Bee Mix, a container of Bug Mix, a container of 1/2 Bee Mix and 1/2 Bug Mix, a container of Nasturtiums. We’re now planted Marigolds – “Brocade Mix” in the spots that haven’t germinated.)

Next, a close-up picture of the Nasturtiums. We planted about nine seeds. Seven of those germinated. It looks like seven plants is going to be plenty:

The raspberry plant (with a blooming rhododendron behind it):

The raspberry plant needs some pruning. I’m holding off until I’m dead certain nothing is going to grow out of the older stems.

As far as everything else: The mache and chard bolted at the first sign of warm weather. I’m hoping we can harvest mache seed at some point — they’re blooming now. The carrots continue to size up, and it looks like we should be able to harvest those in the next 30 days.

The garlic will need to be harvested in the next 30 days to make room for the summer vegetables as well:

The actual work on the backyard garden starts soon.

Container Garden Update — April 17, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

This weekend it was time to harvest the rest of the bunch onions that were planted last fall. It turned out to be just over four pounds:

We separated the onions into whites, stems, and greens and ran them through the slicing disk of the food processor. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge time savings. The boy cat had to check it out:

I think the processor actually did a better job than the photo implies. The bigger pieces mostly wound up on top.

All in all, it turned into about fifty bags at one-half cup per bag.

The salad table is finally moving forward. Direct seeding is slow in the spring. It seems the better idea would be to start the seedlings inside and transplant. The “tall” stuff towards the right side is arugula:

The peas were planted on February 8. They’ve now getting grabby with the netting:

Sometime in February a critter came through and dug in the pots. Look what has popped up on the other side of the walkway:

Can’t stop ’em.

GNOIF: GNOIF’s Three Hour Tour

by A.J. Coltrane

GNOIF #22 recap — GNOIF’s Three Hour Tour (Games about water, islands, and pirates.)

Games That Got Played: Avalon – Resistance, Dominion (Seaside), Pandemic, Pirate’s Cove, Pirate Fluxx, Forbidden Island, Ultimate Werewolf.

Games That Didn’t Get Played: Amerigo, Carcassonne, Forbidden Desert, Island Port.

I enjoy teaching new people Fluxx for the first time. It’s quick to learn, and players always have fun once they wrap their heads around the idea that the rules change almost every turn. It’s a goofy game, but planning still gets rewarded sometimes.

Fittingly, the forces of failure were everywhere — we managed to lose at least one game each of Forbidden Island and Pandemic. The evil team won two out of three games of Avalon. The werewolves won two out of three games of Ultimate Werewolf.

Thanks to everyone who played!

Those Poor People….

Galaxy Quest: A must-see movie if you haven’t already watched it.

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In other news, we just passed 1 million sp*m, thank goodness for filters.

The Belated 2016 Bracket Of Peril Results

by A.J. Coltrane

Congratulations to Annie S. for winning the 2016 Bracket Of Peril! She finished at the 94.7 percentile, despite not having the eventual winner, Villanova.

Of course, that means that nobody else picked Villanova either, despite the fact that they wound up #1 in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings. They were likely only picked by Villanova alumni and a couple of other weirdos.

Annie S., have fun with your big prize — a great big bunch of nothing!

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I believe that this also makes it something like seven out of the last eight years that a top 21 defense has won the title — Villanova was #2 in defense. And #6 in offense somehow. Offense helps win games too.