Here’s what happens when you don’t give plants enough light when you’re growing them, also when you don’t harden them off before planting outside. It’s OK though, these were just extra and for fun. I might try a couple more straight in the ground.
January 24, 2009
Started Irish Red.
Should have made starter a couple days ahead per instructions. Used WYEAST 1056 Propagator. Did make starter, used for ~2 hours.
Used a ~5 gallon pot. Didn’t have any problems with over foaming.
Cooled the wort by placing pot inside fermenter and adding ice to sides and inside while stirring. Only two applications were required.
The stirrer did an excellent job of cooling and aerating the wort. Angled at ~45 deg did a great job of getting air into wort. SG = 1.05 @ 78° F.
All ingredients smell great.
Made up water with 4lbs ice to cool and half gallonish for volume. boiled 4 gallons of filtered water for wort.
February 1, 2009
Specific Gravity = 1.012@ 65° F
Huge yeast colony on bottom of primary. 1-2 inches thick. Topped off with 1-2 quarts of filtered water.
February 13, 2009
SG = 1.011 @ 68° F
Using the starting and ending SGs a value of 5.3% alcohol/volume was found.
Roughly 47 bottles were made.
Had enough beer for at least two more bottles.
March 6, 2009
Beer tasting day. This beer tastes quite good, enjoyed by all.
I have noticed recently in a couple applications the effects of not enough light on plant growth. With a normally healthy plant when faced with poor light it will cauase the plant to become thin and leggy, often with long stretches between leaves. The stems are often weak as a result. This makes for poor plants for transplanting outdoors. When growing plants indoors, it is essential to provide adequate lighting.
Whenever you are preparing to do any digging in your yard you should always call to have utility lines marked. When beginning my lawn work I called my local utility and set up an appointment to have my lines marked. The call was simple and I was able to make an appointment for the next day. It’s a free service which can save you hassle and serious injury.
When my lines were marked I found that my electrical service goes all the way around the back of the house to get to the panel. If I had only been working in the backyard I might not have had the lines marked, and this would have lead to trouble. Even if you think you know where your utilities are burried, stay safe and dial 811 before digging.
Practice Smart Digging.
The seed tray has worked out very well for me. My attempts with using uncovered cups did not. I purchased another 25 spot tray, with a package of refills.
The beans and corn quickly grew to three times the height of the cover and I had to remove them. Also, I didn’t keep careful record of it and now I don’t know which beans are Cranberry and which are the Blackeyed.
I drew more detailed versions of each garden plot so now I have a better idea of how many seeds to plant. It appears that I might have some room for broccoli. Looking over the layout, I’m going to have a busy season.
While I was doing some yard work this weekend a good friend of mine called to inform me that he found a good sized grape vine growing in his garden. Oddly enough I spent a good portion of that day preparing a place to put a grape vine if I were to get one. I rushed over to dig it out and I’m very pleased with it. It’s about a half an inch thick at the base. Given what we know about where it was growing it’s probably one to one and a half years old. We were able to save good portions of all four tap roots. The various branches are roughly 8 feet long.
When I got it home I dug a shallow hole the size of the root area. Then, inside, I dug three deeper holes with the post hole digger to extened the tap roots into. I filled back in with a mixture of top soil and dirt from the hole and water it all in. I threaded some of the branches through the lattice.
Quick update on the tobacco. I few of the seeds have germinated and are showing leaves. It looks like I’ll need to plant some more in order to have a full crop.
