Vege Garden cont....May 12, 2008...trouble in paradise

Well..things are not going so well in the garden. The plants are not coming up as quick as they should be. The compost soil seems to have turned into almost a mud like substance and I fear that it is too hard for the plants to get through. Some seedlings have emerged, however, it appears that some just didn't make it at all.

The pak choi, which should grow in no time, has made no appearance. A small number of lettuce have emerged, by that I mean about 3 hahaha, not nearly the number expected going from other people's experiences with growing lettuce.

Today I used a small garden fork to break up the soil a bit to help the small seedlings have a better chance. It was a case of basically replanting the small seedlings into the broken up soil. So hopefully the little guys get a chance to grow now.

On a happier note the chillies seem to be doing well in their new pots, the spring onions are growing and the coriander (cilantro) is starting to flower which I am happy to see after I gave it some harsh pruning during it's growth. I basically tried to extend the leaf life of the plant by removing any parts that were trying to flower during it's growth. This seemed to work quite well and I got many, many weeks of great use out of it before I decided to leave it alone and let it go to seed. So I am very happy to see the flowers because I can harvest more coriander seeds in the near future.

So for now the adventure continues and if nothing else I have learned a few things along this journey, although a few vege to eat would be nice too...but for now I have to be content and wait...

Chillies coming along..

Spring Onions still at it...

Coriander starting to flower....

3 Lettuce......wow..lets make a REALLY small salad...
.

Fishing in Brisbane

It seems lately I have caught the fishing bug. I have an idea in mind but I am not sure how successful it will be. The idea is to only use lures and no bait. I also would like to fish off the shore or from a jetty.
I have tried a few places along the Manly foreshore in Brisbane, but so far no luck. The only thing I seem to catch is weed. My thoughts were to go at night about 1 hour before high tide and stay till about 1 hour after high tide.
I have read stories about success at night with flashing lures and glow in the dark lures. I even made my own 'glow in the dark' lures to experiment with.

I am wondering how much luck other people may have experienced fishing with lures around Brisbane?
Is it a complete waste of time or are there stories of success out there in the fishing world?

The hunt continues.........

Edited post to add a pic.....not the best pic in the world....sorry
The lures are made with a sort of glow in the dark latex rubber product that I had laying around for years called 'glow in the dark plasti-goop' from ToyMax.
Originally bought to make glow in the dark critters for Halloween parties many years ago, now getting a second life as fishing gear.

Gordon Ramsay -

I have been watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares lately and I am struck by one thing. Each show is like a factory production line pre-packaged formula piece of infotainment. This coming from a 'chef' who apparently hates prepackaged inferior product in favour of fresh produce....but this program is well past it's used by date.

So lets do the Ramsay Shuffle and take a look at the layout of these episodes. It does not take long before you are wondering if you are watching the same episode from last week, just at a different restaurant, with different staff. So the episodes start with Ramsay arriving at the establishment in question and proceeding to try some dishes. Oh surprise, surprise!!! he hates every mouthful and they all apparently taste like s*#t.

The number of times I have heard something like "why the hell would you put this with this?"....um it's called cooking Gordon and if you are so afraid of experimenting with food, you shouldn't be in a kitchen.

Then we have the assault on the kitchen staff, complete with insults and derogatory comments...we also move into 'renovation mode' because, surprise surprise, he hates the interior design of every place he visits as well. So in comes the 'makeover' team to change the interior of the place, completely ignoring any wishes of the owner, by the way, because all their ideas are insulted as well. It wouldn't surprise me if he walked into a room that looked exactly like something his design team would do and he would hate it anyway because he 'has to'.

So we move into the next phase which is the revised menu of his own ideas...oh and don't you dare try anything he makes and tell him you don't like it...you may not make it to the door alive!!

So the new menu is tried on a crowd of diners and then the formula kicks into high gear...it's time for the 'pat on the back' sequence for the staff...with such things as "come on big boy" and the like. After perhaps a few more thrown in hiccups here and there, it is time to wrap up the episode with some good old arse kissing about how great everyone did and so forth....basically turning monster Ramsay into supportive Ramsay and golly gee cheesecake photo moment, isn't he a swell guy everyone.....lets all hug and simply forget that this guy has been a prick for the entire show.

Then it gets worse....we have Hell's Kitchen. A show about chefs competing for a restaurant. Now I have no problem with him yelling at his own staff and swearing at experienced chefs who should know better than to do something really stupid in a kitchen....but this show made me stop watching Ramsay every again. He actually swore at a customer..I mean...what the hell?
The last time I checked customers are your 'bread and butter' and you simply don't treat a customer with that kind of disrespect. Not only did he swear at these two ladies, he continued to mock them as they walked away.

So for this viewer, from now on, any channel with Gordon Ramsay on it will be changed to another channel. I am actually quite surprised that no-one has smacked him in the mouth on a more regular basis.

Anyway.....that's my two cents.

Vege Garden cont.

Chilli Update......

This afternoon I transplanted the chillies to bigger pots. They should take off like lightning now with the more room to grow.

They look happy.

Vege Garden cont.

Well......2 weeks since planting and some seedlings are starting to show yeehaa!!!

The spring onion cut offs are regrowing as hoped and seem to be doing well.
I have a few lettuce starting to show and also the leeks are coming along nicely.

The chillies I planted a while back are now ready for larger pots.....I will also put 1 into the ground to compare growth rates.

Feels like I may have a vegetable garden on my hands.

will see how things progress next post.

Spring Onions doing well.


Leeks starting to appear.


Cos Lettuce Seedlings.


Chillies Much Bigger Now.