If you plan to start any plants from seed this year, it may be time to start them inside already (depending on what you're planting). Here's a link to the farmer's almanac's suggested starting time for seeds in Lawrenceville.
I started eight plants already (okra, cantaloupe, tomato, chamomile, borage, marigold, cilantro, and basil) and will start more in a week or two. I also have my mint from last year as well as a bunch of strawberries since I let some runners sprout at the end of last season. I'll also be doing lettuce, spinach, radish, and garlic at least. And I want to go pick up some broccoli seeds if I can get a chance... I ordered some last year, but I guess Burpee had run out because that part of my order was cancelled.
Despite being sick the past four days, today I moved my raised bed from where I put it last year to the back yard. Last year I made the mistake of choosing a sunny spot in February and not paying attention to nearby trees that filled out by April. It wasn't horrible, but it ended up not being as sunny as I'd have liked. I staked out the new location while building my fence last summer.
Anyhow, get those seeds started.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Homebrewing
About two months ago I decided I should try my hand at brewing my own beer at home. I started reading about it and borrowed a brew kit from a friend. Well, after weeks of fermenting and bottle conditioning, I cracked open my first bottle this past weekend. It was pretty dang good for my first go!
It's a Belgian Ale from an ingredient kit by True Brew which I'm guessing is about 8% ABV (I didn't use a hydrometer for that batch). I wanted to go with a kit for my first one so I didn't need to know too much about the components. However, since then I spent a lot of time reading about it and found a recipe on homebrewtalk.com for my second batch, which will be an ESB.
I purchased these ingredients from my local homebrew shop in Lilburn today. In case you're wondering, the paper bag has specialty grains in it (which are steeped in the muslin mesh bag in front of it), the large container is liquid malt extract, the vial in the glass is yeast, the gold packages are hops, the white powder is priming sugar (the additional sugar you put into the brew right before bottling for carbonation), and, of course, the bottle caps.
And all this goes well with one of my xmas gifts from my dad: a really good brew kit. If you're thinking about getting your own, this one is a good deal since it comes with a carboy and is still under $100. You do still need a brew pot, though (which I also got for xmas).
If anyone is interested in doing this on your own, it's a good bit of fun. Making a five gallon batch gets you two cases of beer. Doing an extract or partial mash beer will run you $30 - $40 (so about $0.70 per beer) which is ok, but after cost of equipment and bottles (unless you collect your own) it's not really a way to save money on beer. However, you end up making a beer that exists no where else and it's fun to let others taste what you've made.
Here are a few reference links if anyone is interested:
How to Brew: Everything you need to know
Homebrew Talk: Forums and Wiki
Midwest Supplies and Austin Homebrew Supply: Good suppliers, but local suppliers should be supported when possible, especially since they are helpful when you have questions.
I'll be starting my ESB this weekend which will spend a week in the primary fermenter (big plastic bucket), two weeks in the secondary (glass carboy), then three weeks in the bottle. So I guess I'll tell you how it tastes come February :) It should be around a 5% ABV beer based on the recipe's listed OG and FG, and I'm hoping the time it spends in the secondary will clarify it a bit. I guess we'll see.
It's a Belgian Ale from an ingredient kit by True Brew which I'm guessing is about 8% ABV (I didn't use a hydrometer for that batch). I wanted to go with a kit for my first one so I didn't need to know too much about the components. However, since then I spent a lot of time reading about it and found a recipe on homebrewtalk.com for my second batch, which will be an ESB.
I purchased these ingredients from my local homebrew shop in Lilburn today. In case you're wondering, the paper bag has specialty grains in it (which are steeped in the muslin mesh bag in front of it), the large container is liquid malt extract, the vial in the glass is yeast, the gold packages are hops, the white powder is priming sugar (the additional sugar you put into the brew right before bottling for carbonation), and, of course, the bottle caps.
And all this goes well with one of my xmas gifts from my dad: a really good brew kit. If you're thinking about getting your own, this one is a good deal since it comes with a carboy and is still under $100. You do still need a brew pot, though (which I also got for xmas).
If anyone is interested in doing this on your own, it's a good bit of fun. Making a five gallon batch gets you two cases of beer. Doing an extract or partial mash beer will run you $30 - $40 (so about $0.70 per beer) which is ok, but after cost of equipment and bottles (unless you collect your own) it's not really a way to save money on beer. However, you end up making a beer that exists no where else and it's fun to let others taste what you've made.
Here are a few reference links if anyone is interested:
How to Brew: Everything you need to know
Homebrew Talk: Forums and Wiki
Midwest Supplies and Austin Homebrew Supply: Good suppliers, but local suppliers should be supported when possible, especially since they are helpful when you have questions.
I'll be starting my ESB this weekend which will spend a week in the primary fermenter (big plastic bucket), two weeks in the secondary (glass carboy), then three weeks in the bottle. So I guess I'll tell you how it tastes come February :) It should be around a 5% ABV beer based on the recipe's listed OG and FG, and I'm hoping the time it spends in the secondary will clarify it a bit. I guess we'll see.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Zend Application + Navigation
This has been driving me nuts for days. There is so little documentation on this out there I guess because it's a newer feature and Zend's reference manual is lacking.
With Zend Framework 1.9.x, you can instantiate a lot of stuff automagically simply by adding specific commands to the config application.ini. For instance, in order to instantiate a Zend Layout, you simply have to add the line
That is in lieu of a dozen or so lines in the bootstrap file. Then you can create your layout.phtml as you normally would in that layouts directory.
The reference manual for Zend Application says you can do something similar for Zend Navigation (which is how you can generate menus, breadcrumbs, and a sitemap), however try as I might, I couldn't work it out. Finally I got it to work.
So let's say you want to make a menu that looks like this:
And you have two controllers, index and object. Index has a login action, and object has an add action.
Here's how you lay it out in application.ini
I probably tried a dozen different things here before I got the format correct. That "resources.navigation.pages" thing was messing me up the most, and I ended up figuring it out by first implementing it using the old bootstrap and xml config file method, then translating to this method. Also the Zend manual was using the word "page" to represent a page name, which combined with the keyword "pages" to be confusing.
Anyhow, the above code can then be used like this in your view:
or
It's easy in retrospect, but was pissing me off for a while. More examples online would have helped.
With Zend Framework 1.9.x, you can instantiate a lot of stuff automagically simply by adding specific commands to the config application.ini. For instance, in order to instantiate a Zend Layout, you simply have to add the line
resources.layout.layoutPath = APPLICATION_PATH "/views/layouts"That is in lieu of a dozen or so lines in the bootstrap file. Then you can create your layout.phtml as you normally would in that layouts directory.
The reference manual for Zend Application says you can do something similar for Zend Navigation (which is how you can generate menus, breadcrumbs, and a sitemap), however try as I might, I couldn't work it out. Finally I got it to work.
So let's say you want to make a menu that looks like this:
- Home
- Login
- List Objects
- -> Add New Object (subpage of "List Objects")
And you have two controllers, index and object. Index has a login action, and object has an add action.
Here's how you lay it out in application.ini
resources.navigation.pages.home.label = "Home"
resources.navigation.pages.home.controller = "index"
resources.navigation.pages.home.action = "index"
resources.navigation.pages.login.label = "Login"
resources.navigation.pages.login.controller = "index"
resources.navigation.pages.login.action = "login"
resources.navigation.pages.object.label = "List Objects"
resources.navigation.pages.object.controller = "object"
resources.navigation.pages.object.action = "index"
resources.navigation.pages.object.pages.add.label = "Add New Object"
resources.navigation.pages.object.pages.add.controller = "object"
resources.navigation.pages.object.pages.add.action = "add"
I probably tried a dozen different things here before I got the format correct. That "resources.navigation.pages" thing was messing me up the most, and I ended up figuring it out by first implementing it using the old bootstrap and xml config file method, then translating to this method. Also the Zend manual was using the word "page" to represent a page name, which combined with the keyword "pages" to be confusing.
Anyhow, the above code can then be used like this in your view:
< ?= $this->navigation()->menu() ?>or
< ?= $this->navigation()->breadcrumbs() ?>It's easy in retrospect, but was pissing me off for a while. More examples online would have helped.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)