It's that time of the year, yet again.... I know there's still a few days to go until the end of the year, but I'm highly unlikely to spend anything further unless the ground dries up sufficiently to get a game of golf in on Wednesday afternoon... Here's a breakdown of where all the money went in 2015, and compared to the previous two years' spending ... click for a larger image.
The columns are ranked highest-to-lowest from left-to-right, based on the 2015 spend. Basic ground rules are generally aslast year's post, and a few points of note are listed below :-
After you've read this short post, you might consider that it's simply an exercise in the bleedin' obvious, but we've been thinking about which vegetables and, more importantly, how many of each we should grow next year. It came about because we recently planted some overwintering garlic for next year, and since the seed cloves were sold in batches of ten we had to decide how many to buy. In the end, we used some very simple reasoning and arithmetic. We probably use a whole garlic bulb every two or three weeks, so if we could grow and store enough for a year then we'd need around 20. So this is the quantity we bought and planted....
Here's an update of the combined portfolio as of the penultimate day of September (we're on holiday in sunnier climes at the minute, as from the thirtieth, and I knew there'd be no opportunity to refresh the spreadsheets on that last day of the month).
In late May and early June this year, we lost more than a dozen cucumber plants in the greenhouse because of late frosts. So I decided to buy a heater, which may hopefully take the chill off the air if it happens again next year, and I picked up this large old Valor 525-R paraffin heater on eBay for £20.
Here's an update of the combined portfolio as of the penultimate day of June (we were away on the thirtieth and I knew there'd be no opportunity to refresh the spreadsheets).
Older readers may recognise the title from a 1971 television advertisement for PG Tips tea, one of a series featuring chimpanzees. Although animals are still anthropomorphised more than ever on TV and cinema, it's usually done through animations and no doubt the use of live animals dressed in clothing and appearing in comic situations wouldn't be acceptable these days... Anyway, I thought I'd share a few pictures of our folding tandem, a wonderful piece of Italian engineering from the late 1960s.
