Notes From Zone 4

It all started two weeks ago today. We had a bad power hit, and it killed Bunter’s hard drive. (An IBM DeskStar. I’ve heard from other sources as well that these are not what you expect from IBM. We have a Maxtor now.) Of course it took me a while to decide that the drive itself was bad. On the second attempt at reinstalling Linux I finally told the installer to check for bad sectors, and was told I had a good paperweight.

So off to Staples for another. (The price was not half bad given that I was down.)

So I get (almost) everything back up quickly. Unfortunately I didn’t have a backup of the MySQL db for Moveable Type. Yup, dumb. Now I know. Just didn’t occure to me that the MySQL data was elsewhere

Fortunately I do have all the entries. Unfortunately, MT needs a funky import format. Even more unfortunately, Saxon absotively posiliutely refuses to read MT’s files. They’re not well formed for one thing, but even after I fix that, only the root template will fire. I have no clue why after many hours of chasing it. I can either try to get Xalan running or try on Windows, or just use some perl regexes. Anyway, I’m not a real happy camper just right now.

I had every intention of starting some herbs from seed in boxes for the upper balcony deck this year. I even bought the seed. I bought some sand to mix with the potting soil. I researched what temps they want to germinate. I kept a shelf clear in the basement for them.

Somehow I never got around to actually doing it, though. So instead, I stopped by the nursery in Alstead and bought some baby plants instead. I got basil, both green and purple, parsley, thyme, and um, something else. Oh, right, garlic chives.

At least I got these right into the boxes and under the lights.

Frank pulled out one of the regular chive clumps from the garden and I potted that up as well. I tried to break it into smaller divisions, but it just didn’t want to go. So oh well, it’s there in one giant clump.

Then I put all the boxes under the lights, and the chives are so huge that they were touching the bulbs. I was thinking I would cut them back and it should be fine, when I had a sudden rush of brains to the head and realized if it’s growing like this out in the garden, I can just put the chives out on the balcony already. No need for them to stay in the basement under lights. Duh!

At least I got them started. I was going to have a sad culinary window box collection if I waited any longer. I think it’ll be nice to have them so near the kitchen, to go along with the lettuce, peas and onions I already have growing up there.

I think the herbs will need to stay under the lights in the basement until the temps at night are above 50. I wonder if I can keep them under lights after the season is over? They don’t need a lot of water, so neglect should be right up my alley.