Tuesday, March 24, 2009

 

A message for Ada Lovelace day

Today is Ada Lovelace day. "Who the &*^%$ is she?" you will say. Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.
So today is a day to celebrate women in technology! Which means me, as I work in IT! Ok this is a gardening blog, but what the fuck, gardening is also pretty technical I would say.
For more info: http://findingada.com/ or http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay
I think women bring a lot to the technological sector, we look at things from a more human perspective and often can have a great global overview of a product's usability. So I want to give a big cheer to my girlfriends that work in high-tech (and really do the high tech stuff not just make the coffee):
Celine, Helena, Anne, Dorothée, Sophie, Gillian, Yveline, Cornelia, Severine, Caroline and Morgane.

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

 

Vegetable sculpture

Saw this today in my browsing:

Veg sculpture

I thought it was almost ridiculously cute ;-)
I guess I prefer to eat them though.

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

 
Oh gosh, our friend "windy" from the A4A site has given me a terrific link!
Lasagna gardening
The basic idea is to cover the ground in a mix of rich organic material, presumably eliminating all the perennial weeds through suffocation, then planting very covering plants such as squash.
I think this is a fabulous idea! In fact I want to try it right away! OK maybe that is a bit optimistic. Because I am not sure where I would get all the material from! I guess I have access to plenty of horse manure, and maybe some friends could give me grass cuttings.
But I am wondering if I shouldn't try an experimental area with it, let's say for the beans or the courgettes? I am sure that would leave my site neighbours scratching their heads!!
I just love the descriptions on the site.

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Friday, March 07, 2008

 
Found the most amazing thing today: my allotment on Google Earth!!!
It is at these coordinates:
47º12'28.97" N and 1º37'18.63" W
and you can see clearly my paths and my compost bin!
I am almost smack bang in the middle of the allotments!
Isn't Google Earth amazing!!

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

 
Oh I must share with you this site that I spotted through Allotments4All.
http://www.david-frary.com/Plot/first_year_planting.html
It is an excellent description of what to expect the first year!! I felt a lot of sympathy as he describes the sowings that failed, the things that got eaten by slugs (speaking of which I saw a funny book in a bookshop window on the weekend, a French gardening book entitled "50 ways to murder your slugs"), the tomatoes that got sick and rotted away, all of which sounded like my 2007 season. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel like you are not alone and gives you some encouragement for the new growing season!

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