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Author: John Winkelman

This Is My Radish

2009-05-27 John Winkelman

My first harvest

There are many like it, but this one is mine. I pulled it out of a small garden I am growing in an under-used flower bed in front of my house. It was one of sixteen growing in an area a foot on a side. This area is part of a larger grid, four feet on a side, which I put together back in the early part of April. The grid is in a box made of cheap pine boards, eight inches in height, and filled with good potting soil. It is one of two such boxes in the old flower bed.

I have been growing food here in downtown-ish Grand Rapids since the summer of 2006. That year it was hot peppers in pots. The next year was peppers and tomatoes in pots. Last summer I ripped up all of the plants I had put in previously – including prickly-pear cactus and indestructible yucca – and planted hot peppers and tomatoes in the flower bed. The peppers loved it, but the tomatoes did poorly. Grand Rapids soil tends toward sand and clay, especially in the proximity of old houses.

This year I tore out everything except two burning bushes and put in two square-foot garden boxes, each of them four feet on a side. Three days ago I filled in the last square in the grid with a small strawberry plant I purchased at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market the day before.

For peppers and tomatoes, I purchased some specialty seeds from Amazon.com: thai birds-eyes, tabasco, and bishop’s crown. All of the tabasco sprouted, four of the thai, and none of the Bishop’s crown. I also have some Japanese Black Tomatoes, which are doing nicely.

So here is what I have growing in the boxes.

East box:

Garden Box East, 2009.05.23

  • butternut squash – 1
  • black tomatoes – 2
  • green onions – 25
  • Lilac bell pepper – 1
  • Tabasco pepper – 2
  • Beets – 9
  • Radishes – 16
  • Carrots – 16
  • Spinach – 9
  • Broccoli – 4

West box:

Garden Box West, 2009.05.23

  • Beefsteak tomatoes – 2
  • Zucchini – 1
  • Tabasco pepper – 1
  • Jalapeno pepper – 1
  • Strawberry – 1
  • Green onion – 25
  • Buttercrunch lettuce – 4
  • Pak Choi – 1
  • Swiss chard – 4
  • India mustard – 4
  • Beets – 9
  • Radishes – 16
  • Spinach – 9
  • Carrots – 16

Containers:

  • Cilantro – 4
  • Dill – 4
  • Parsley – 4
  • Okra – 2
  • Basil – 2
  • Thai peppers – 3
  • Kale – 4
  • Tabasco peppers – 4

I also have a few more peppers and tomatoes sprouting, as well as around a dozen Goji plants, for which I have high – if perhaps unrealistic – hopes.

My goal, other than to have a steady supply of fresh produce for the next several months, is to break even. That is, I want the retail value of the food I pull out of my garden to equal the money I put into the supplies and infrastructure.The potting soil was the most expensive part of the project, but also the most important. Using the square-foot gardening techniques has made this whole endeavor quite manageable for one person and, so far, the maintenance take about fifteen minutes a day.

Yesterday I harvested the rest of my radishes, a total of 32, at around an ounce each. So: two pounds of radishes. The greens are quite good sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with Chipolte seasoning, The bulbs, of course, are excellent raw.

I will check out prices the next time I hit the Farmer’s Market, and see what it would have cost to buy two pounds of radishes. Not much, I expect, but I have already re-planted, and should be able to get three or four more harvests this year.

I will post updates as more plants mature. You can see the rest of my garden photos here on Flickr.

Posted in LifeTagged gardening comment on This Is My Radish

Primordial Gumbo

2009-04-20 John Winkelman

Primordial Gumbo

Click the photo to see the larger versions. I recommend the full-sized one so you can see all the critters in all their glory.

I snapped this photo while Cynthia and I were walking through Roselle Park, near Ada. This at at the edge of a small pipe which channels water under the bicycle path. I guess it means the ecosystem is healthy. And delicious.

Posted in Photography comment on Primordial Gumbo

Did You See That?!?

2009-04-16 John Winkelman

Inquisitive Grackle

Posted in Photography comment on Did You See That?!?

I’m Glad Spring is Finally Here

2009-04-10 John Winkelman

Red-winged blackbird at Huff Park

Posted in Photography comment on I’m Glad Spring is Finally Here

Crime Map 2.0

2009-04-05 John Winkelman

I just finished up the last hour of polishing on the new version of the Grand Rapids Crime Map. Here is a list of the changes:

-all incidents are up to date
-new filters are in place: date, weekday, and street name
-more organized, usable layout
-content managed to allow for easier and more frequent updates

I built the new version – interface and content management system – in PHP. The data for the crimes is loaded using a Python script. Eventually this whole site may well be ported over to Python. It’s a neat language.

Here are some interesting tidbits which came to light using the new filters:

-Monday and Wednesday are the crimiest days of the week
-Division Ave, Plainfield Ave, Leonard Street and 28th Street have the most incidents
-49507 is the busiest zip code
-the SouthEast quadrant is by far the most exciting area of town.
-March, May and August are the angriest months

I am sure there is still a little clean-up left to do in the data, so expect things to shift around a bit over the next week or so.

Enjoy!

Posted in ProgrammingTagged crime map, Grand Rapids comment on Crime Map 2.0

O Hai!

2009-03-09 John Winkelman

O HAI!!!

FEED ME!

Posted in Photography comment on O Hai!

Photos from Christmas 2008

2009-02-27 John Winkelman

The Farm, Christmas 2008

After the dinner and presents and a healthy dose of family, I went out for a walk around the property. These photos are the result.

Posted in Photography comment on Photos from Christmas 2008

Procedurally Generated Flower Pattern, Part 1

2009-02-19 John Winkelman

Procedurally generated flower pattern

Click here to launch the generator. Once it opens, click the flower to generate a new one.

The petals are arranged using the Fibonacci sequence to generate a Phyllotaxis pattern. The colors in each petal are created using Perlin Noise, and that pattern is re-drawn using a custom color map. Result: Billions of possible variations in about a hundred lines of code.

Posted in ProgrammingTagged Flash, procedural art comment on Procedurally Generated Flower Pattern, Part 1

The Condition My Condition Is In

2009-02-18 John Winkelman

Well, howdy, y’all!

The past several weeks have been more chaotic than usual, which, considering the past year, is saying something. Ergo my reduced presence on the www.

After the car accident I made several immediate changes in my day-to-day life, cutting out a lot of frivolous expenses, opening up some free time, and taking stock of Where I Am In My Life. It seemed the appropriate time to do so, as so many things in the world have recently entered a state of transition: Western new year, Eastern new year, new president, new car, additional debt, changing global economy, my impending 40th birthday…the whole bit. I decided it was time to concentrate on more tangible things.

Oh: And I had problems with my home internet connection for about three weeks, and only just got back online a few days ago. I will probably post something about that here for any other Comcast subscribers who have problems setting up a wireless connection.

In my enforced down time I have buried myself under a pile of books, including, but not limited to, the following:

The Chronicles of the Black Company (ten books!) by Glen Cook.
Drood, by Dan Simmons
The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan is one which I find particularly interesting, because it points out the futility of basing a complex system on predictable events, when it is the *un*predictable events which drive the system. We only need look at the current state of the economy to see where this would be useful information to have.

After the average temperature around here moved back above ZERO, my girlfriend and I ventured outside to explore some more of the open spaces in West Michigan. Two weeks ago we drove to Duck Lake State Park and wandered around on the Lake Michigan beach for a couple of hours.

P1010542

Click here to see the rest of the photos in this set.

More focused updates on my life will appear anon.

Posted in Life comment on The Condition My Condition Is In

Announcing TriGaVoid

2009-01-13 John Winkelman

TriGaVoid

Announcing the launch of my newest Flash game, TriGaVoid, posted over at Kongregate. You can play TriGaVoid here.

Posted in ProgrammingTagged Flash, game development, Kongregate comment on Announcing TriGaVoid

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