How even a complete amateur can set up a patio vegetable garden.

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A couple of months ago I decided to have a go at growing a few vegetables, I've always fancied growing my own veg since growing a few plants of a, ahem, 'different' variety back in my university days but I never got around to it.  So here I am a few years later in a rented house with a small patio thinking to myself that it's about time I got off my ass and realised one of my dreams, just a couple of problems.  1. space and 2. getting my deposit back if I turn my landlord's garden into a veg patch.  So I did a bit of digging around on the net and most people seemed to think that there are plenty of things you can grow in limited space and still get a decent crop so I figured 'what the hell, I'll give it a go'.

Like I said before I'm about 2 months in and things are going fairly well, take a look at a few photos:

I decided, don't ask why, to go with potatoes, tomatoes, aubergines, bellboy peppers, cayenne peppers, jalapeno peppers, carrots, coriander and basil.  The only things I did from seed were the potatoes, coriander, basil and jalapenos, the rest I bought as seedlings for about £1 except for the tomato plant which my Dad started from seed and gave to me (a bit of a yearly tradition as my parents are always away from home just as the tomato plant needs serious attention).  As you can see the plants don't take up too much room and don't seem to be suffering from being grown in pots and not in the ground.

All of the plants are just using regular pots except for the potatoes which I bought some potato planters for, I bought these as they're reusable and large enough to get several potato seeders in each bag.  I thought about doing a step by step guide to setting the garden up but in reality it was so simple it would read like this:

1. Buy pots and soil
2. Put seeds/seedlings into soil
3. Water
4. Harvest

I'm not kidding it really is that simple, I didn't need to read a book or visit and guides on the net, I just used common sense.  There are a few hints I can give due to my trial and error approach, I'm guessing most of you will know this already but here goes.  When growing the seedlings keep them indoors until the first frosts have gone (I've heard people have had problems with chilli plants outdoors so I left them out during the day and brought them in at night to help acclimatise them for the first few days) and make sure they're kept out of draughts in the house.  When re-potting go for the biggest pot you're going to need so you don't keep stressing the plants by continuously re-potting them and in the new pots add a few gravel chips to the bottom, it'll help with drainage so they don't suffer from over watering.  On that note, don't over water the plants they don't like it, some of the plants drink a lot, some don't, also they'll drink more as they get bigger (like I said common sense) I found that watering the plants when the very top of the soil was dry kept the plants healthy with no signs of over watering.  Feed the plants once a week, I use Miracle grow organic tomato feed which all the plants love, the bottle says only to feed after flowering starts but I gave even the seedlings a heavily diluted feed mix and they certainly haven't suffered for it, as they've got bigger I just diluted the feed less and less until I was giving them the feed it suggests on the packaging.  Keep the plants somewhere where they'll get some shade during the day and the sun moves, I know that plants love the sun but on the really hot days I found that the plants tended to wilt a bit if they were left in full sun for the whole day, also they were more prone to drying out meaning that if I didn't check regularly they could have dried out completely.  Check for pests and treat them accordingly, this was probably the only part that I had to look up as one of them plants got aphids, I found a post online that simply said to pour water over the plant at night and the aphids would just fall off and die - problem solved.

Most of the plants are starting to show signs of the vegetables so it shouldn't be long now before I can harvest a few things and see if the outlay was worth it.  All in I think I spent about £50 to set this all up including the seeds so I may not get that back in veg this year but almost all of the stuff I bought is reusable so after a couple of seasons it will have paid for itself.

They don't make them like they used to.

Last night I watched John Carpenter's 'The Thing' and not only was I reminded what an excellent film it is but I was hit by a revelation, an epiphany of sorts: I hate CG gore. Now this might not seem like such a life changing realisation, and I'll admit it isn't really, I always knew that I preferred physical special effects no matter how badly they were done, but I never actually realised how much I truly hated CG gore until I was reminded how much I loved the 'real' thing.

Before you get the idea that I'm some sort of technology hating freak let me say that obviously CG and other computer based trickery is far superior in some cases, the lush world of Pandora in Avatar was far better than anything that could have been recreated in a studio, but when you need that really visceral shock to the system you really can't beat traditional special effects.  Compare the part in The Thing where the Husky's head rips open to reveal the alien for the first time to a scene from Blood: The last Vampire:

In the first clip we have a genuine example of horror in a horror/sci-fi film, the tension builds to just pas the point where you'd expect something to happen and then *BAM* the dog's head explodes, peeling back like a ripe banana, then it starts to transform into some sort of spider and tries to eat the other dogs.  Ace.  In the next clip we see some smoothly choreographed vampire slaying which is easy on the eye but feels to me like there's no emotional involvement, the CG blood looks nothing like actual blood and quite frankly the vampires look like they're enjoying dying (quite possibly to get away from the awful Mortal Kombat music someone's dubbed over the top of the scene).  Done correctly there should be nothing better (for men) than a super hot Japanese school girl leaping around acrobatically cutting vampires in half with a sword but thanks to the 'wonders' of CG, in the words of Peter Griffin "All right I am totally flaccid but thank you anyway mam I appreciate the effort".

The new 'Bloodsport'?

When I say the new bloodsport I don't mean a bunch of pseudo-toffs hunting a new type of animal I mean the totally frickin' awesome film with Jean-Claude Van Damme.  Death Warrior looks like it's cut from a similar mould and is based around mixed marshal arts fighting.  Check the trailer:

On second thoughts it looks like it'll probably be a pile of crap, best stick to watching UFC.

DJ Cheeba's Beck's Vier advert - is it real?

Recently I came across this video of DJ Cheeba who's done some great solid steel mixes.

Ok so the music sounds sweet, the lighting and visuals look awesome and it's a nice concept for an ad but is there anything going on except for a guy flicking a few beer pumps on and off?  The cynic in me doubts that Beck's have turned a row of beer pumps into a sophisticated midi controller just to shoot a 2 minute viral, though it would make the trip to your local Weatherspoons a lot more bearable, but if they haven't done this then as I said before it's just a guy turning taps on and off in time to the beat which they hardly needed to get someone of the calibre of DJ Cheeba to do.

The whole thing is an example of non-advertising that's going on everywhere, the product itself is no longer advertised some kind of ethereal concept attached to it is, or sometimes nothing at all.  The suggestion of the Beck's advert is that beer inspire's music and art, which I guess it can.  So it's got 100% more going for it than this advert:

There's be nothing wrong with this advert if it were advertising bowling balls or a book on creative ways to smash things or maybe even an Autoglass advert.  But it's not it's a car advert, that's right a video of cars getting easily smashed is meant to suggest to us that the Nissan Quashcow or whatever it's actually called, which miraculously emerges from this scene of carnage unscathed, is the car for us because it's 'Urbanproof'.  I'd like to see a video of the Quashqai getting pelted with bowling balls and see how it comes off, my bet is that it won't do any better that the other cars in the video.  Also in what urban situation are you likely to encounter an onslaught of brightly coloured bowling balls?  Is this the new sport of the kids "Fuck happy slapping, lets go smash some cars with bowling balls, how much do they cost? £40 quid?!!  Well fuck that then, it's a shit idea, do you know how much weed we could buy with £40?".

I'm not saying the videos themselves aren't good, I'm just saying that if advertisers want me to part with my hard(ish) earned money then they're going to have to start actually showing me the product working rather than a DJ not actually DJing or a car not getting smashed by animated bowling balls, that or just use a naked woman.

If you want to hear some DJ Cheeba, you can do it here:

Has Eminem had Botox?

I've seen a few pics/videos of Eminem recently promoting his new album Recovery and I'm sad to say that it looks like he's riding the express train to Botoxville. Here's a picture of the recent cover of XXL magazine:

1. Check out the perfectly wrinkle free forehead, it's so smooth it could give Isaac Hayes' voice a run for it's money.

2. What the fuck's up with his whole face in general?!

A quick peak at his new video tells the same story, there's barely even a muscle twitch on his face in the whole thing, compare this to the video for 'My Name Is' which is all eyebrow raises and emotion and I don't think there's even a debate here. The question is why? The guy's only 37, surely there's no need to resort to cosmetic surgery, if that's what's going on, if he's having Botox at 37 by 50 he's going to make Mickey Rouke look normal.

Eminem - chill out, the last thing the world needs is another hideous Frankenstein's Monster looking freak popstar/actor.

Iran bans the Mullet

This won't be much of a surprise to you as this story has been spreading the internet like wildfire, but Iran, in a stunning example of how to get oppression right, has banned the Mullet. This is no joke, Iran's Culture Ministry has moved to rid the country of 'Decadent western cuts' by banning hairstyles such as the Mullet, Ponytails and spikes. OK, so we've all had a good laugh at someone making a haircut that most people would consider a crime against fashion into an actual crime but lets look into this a bit further. Ponytails? They may not be everybody's cup of tea but they're hardly 'decadent' and most certainly not limited to western culture, the same with spikes, also according to this story in the English Telegraph Quiffs and 'cultivating a 1980's floppy fringe' is perfectly acceptable! So let me get this straight Iran, you've made Mullets illegal but failed to act on the 'Emo' fringe? Decandent western Ponytails are out but a 1950's rock and roll Elvis Quiff is fine? I'm sensing that the whole thing is at odds with itself here, is there anything more decadent and western than Rock and Roll?

My second problem with the whole affair is this: How will the offending cuts be punished? Certainly the main outcome is that the offending 'doo' will be cut into a neatly coiffured government approved style such as a Crew Cut (which is obviously far better), but how is this punishing someone who is walking around wearing a Mullet? Surely the best punishment for the bemulleted is to allow them to continue with their Mullet wearing ways, possibly with the additional punishment of being made to live in a trailer park. Although the last thing oppressive governments needs is advice on how to segregate demographics into parks/camps/ghettos etc.

All in all although on the surface this is quite an amusing story I'm sure most of us would be less than impressed if David Cameron or Barrak Obama asked us to change our preferred hairstyle. Just because one of the haircuts banned is one that's routinely mocked doesn't make this story any less sinister.

Yaya Toure worth £220,000 a week?

This week Manchester City Football Club (MCFC) announced that they'd signed Yaya Toure from Barcelona FC for a reported £24 million on a contract which will earn him more in a week that most towns in his native Ivory Coast will earn in a lifetime. My question is this: Have the Man City board been smoking crack? I mean WTF, they've just made this guy the highest paid player in the Premier League ever and he can't even hold down a place at his last club. I know there's nothing new about footballers being overpaid but this really takes things to a whole new level, MCFC must have a weekly wage bill of over £2 million - that's over £100 million a year! How can they even pretend they're running the club as a business, they way they're going it'll take 10 years of winning trophies before they even turn a profit let alone start paying back the debt.

Ok back to the story, is Yaya worth the money? The argument for is that he's a former Barcelona player who's won La Liga and the Champion's League and is a full international with the Ivory Coast. The argument against is that although he's a very solid player he's not the best player in the world and as such how can he justify earning the biggest wage in the Premier League? Also as I said before he wasn't holding down a first team place at his last club Barcelona. I'm sure that Yaya Toure will be a great asset to the City midfield and who knows maybe he is the price of the puzzle that can take them to the next level but I'm just left wondering that maybe the City fans would have prefered 2 £100k player or maybe even 4 £50 who could have really developed the team.

I guess time will tell and one thing's for certain Yaya Toure will definitely improve the City team but has he improved it to the tune of £220k a week?

Salutations

Ok, first things first with a new Blog - introductions, who am I and what is this site? I'm the Madferret and in case you've come across one of the many imposers out there I'm The Real Madferrret. So why have I started a blog? Well I guess like many people I feel the urge to let people know about the things I'm passionate about and as much as I love my friends sometimes they're just not into all the same things as me, so I've decided to reach out to a wider audience. I'll be posting about the things that interest me: music, films, technology, alternative research and I guess maybe politics, although I'm not going to claim to be an expert in any of these fields. Hopefully I'll be able to give you guys some info that's useful to you, some points of view that make you think (I'm not going to get upset if you disagree so feel free to comment) and who knows maybe even make you laugh.

Anyway that's enough of that, let's get on with it.

Peace,

Madferret