My Thoughts

The good weather has continued to hold, lots of sun, and hardly a cloud in the sky for most of the week. The wind however has been quite strong at times, on one evening I found one of the plants was leaning over on its side. To prevent any further damage being caused by the wind I have loosely tied each plant to a cane to give them a bit more stability.

As you will see in the photos the plants have grown significantly in the last week, I have already got my first buds/flowers appearing on each plant. It is these flowers which after blooming become the tomatoes, the flowers die and drop away and the tomato begins to form in its place.

The tomato plants had become really bushy as well as taller this week. I have had a good prune to remove all the extra leaves and internodes which were either too close to the base of the plant or just not required. By pinching out the internodes you allow the plant to spend more energy producing tomatoes and not waste time growing leaves.

I had mentioned in week three, that I would experiment with one of the tomato plants and leave the internodes to grow at the base of the plant to see whether I would get tomatoes coming in earlier or remove the internode once it was a few inches long and plant it elsewhere. I have decided against this, it occurred to me the plant which has lots of leaves close to the base of the plant will be too close to the damp soil, if these leaves did start to decay or get disease the disease could spread to the healthy pruned plants. To avoid any disasters I have pruned all the plants.

Posted by Dean at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More so than ever before I find myself regularly using the abbreviation <abbr> and acronym <acronym> tags, and yet I have never really known which tag to use… until today. Hopefully this blog will inform other confused web designers out there the correct time to use each tag.

Since I design websites with accessibility issues in mind, I realise it is always a good idea to include either the abbreviation or acronym tag. These tags ensure people with screen reading software can interpret the web pages content correctly, and provide a useful way for others to find out what the letters actually stand for by hovering the mouse over the letters.

These are examples of abbreviations and accronyms. Hover your mouse over each example to find out what they stand for.

• HTTP


• USB


• UFO


• BBC


• NATO

Now which of the above are abbreviations and which are accronyms. Well they are all abbreviations other than the last example which is an acronym.

The Abbreviation and Acronym Rule

The rule is, if the letters are pronounced as a word it is an acronym, in our example we refer to the letters NATO as "NAYTO". If we pronounce the individual letters like BBC it is an abbreviation.

Posted by Dean at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week we have again been extremely lucky with the weather, it has been glorious, everyday has been sunny and warm for the entire week. As you can see in this week photo the tomato plants are flourishing, I have noticed however a few aphids starting to take up residence on the plants.

Aphids are sucking insects which just love to slurp up the sticky sap from plants, they are particularly fond of new tender shoots on many garden plants, including it would seem tomato plants! Aphids are small, soft-bodied, pearl-shaped insects that have a pair of cornicles (wax-secreting tubes) projecting out from their abdominal segment. The aphids I have on my tomato plants are green, but aphids come in various colours including black, red, yellow, pink, white, brown, grey, or lavender.

Aphids feed in colonies, and if their numbers rise too high the aphid colonies can cause discolouration or mottling of foliage, weaken the plant and effect the size and amount of fruit a plant can produce. Furthermore the aphids excrete honeydew on which mould grows, as I have mentioned in previous posts, anything which encourages mould and disease is a serious threat to your tomato plants welfare.

I have not done anything yet with the aphids on my tomato plants, I had a similar situation last year and I found that natural predators kept the numbers under control. I will be keeping a close eye on the situation, if the numbers begin increasing I will remove the aphids from the plants myself. I do not spray my plants with insecticide simply because any kind of chemical you use on your plants will end up in or on your tomato. A tomato laced with chemicals does not sound very appetising to me. It may be a more time consuming process but physically removing the aphid ensures the best results.

Posted by Dean at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had yet another productive weekend in the house. I have finished off the kitchen diner, and it looks fantastic even if I do say so myself. It has been finished for a while, since New Year in fact, but a leak from the sink in January ruined the new oak floor, and it has taken a few months to rectify this damage. Anyway this weekend I painted the skirting boards which was the only outstanding job I had remaining.

I found this photo on the laptop, which I took before we started on the kitchen diner, I am sure that you will agree the kitchen diner now is a remarkable improvement to what was there before.

I spent the majority of the weekend out in the back garden painting the decking. It amazes me, how just a good coat of timbercare can revitalise even the most tired looking parts of a garden. The decking looks brand new… well for the time being, once the cat's start sharpening their claws on the posts, and people shuffle the deckchairs along it, my hard work will no doubt start to come undone. However I fear I may have made a rod for my own back, having rejuvenated the shed and decking, I now have decided to do the fencing as this looks like it has never been done and looks awful next to the freshly painted shed and decking.

So still on my to do list is wallpapering Dylan's new nursery, and treating the fencing in the back garden. I wonder if I can get it done before the bank holiday weekend is over?

Posted by Dean at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am amazed at how many web design companies there are in Kent, they seem to be popping up all over the place. When I graduated from The Arts Institute in Bournemouth nearly six years ago, and I returned to Kent actively seeking employment within a web design company as a qualified graphic / web designer, I found it extremely difficult to find any position based in Kent. Now the Garden of England is absolutely saturated with web design companies, all you have to do is search for 'Web Design Kent' in a search engine and you can wade your way through over 14 million results.

I am not sure whether this glut in web design companies is a sign that Kent has become a popular area for web designers who have left web design fims in the big smoke and set up business in the Kent countryside, or more to do with locals, who have found that with the increase in web based technology and higher broadband speeds the need to move out of Kent is no longer a requirement. I expect it is a combination of the two factors which has resulted in the overwhelming amount of web design companies now based in Kent.

Whatever the causes, it is pretty evident that a web design company based in Kent, now has a lot of competition. When I started working in the design industry, I was fortunate enough to find employment with Spanner Software who are based in Broadstairs, Kent. As well as web design, Spanner Software offered domain name registration, web hosting and database design. At that time the majority of the companies we were working alongside were based in London, only a hand-full had their offices in Kent.

I remember thinking when I was offered a full time position at Spanner Software it was a miracle to find a web design firm so close to home. I was set on having to move to London or further a field to get a job as a web designer, simply because there were so few Kent based web design companies. If I was to have graduated today and had come back to Kent, I would not have the concerns I did back then, about trying to get my foot in the door of a local web design company, my concerns would be more about 'out of all these web design agencies which will be best to work for?'

My current role as Web Designer at White Gate Design has meant I have been able to further extend my web design skills, work alongside very talented designers and get to work in a picturesque Kent village near Folkestone.

Whether people have decided to move to Kent or have always been based here, one thing is for sure, Kent is a lovely place to be a web designer!

Posted by Dean at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my capacity as web designer at White Gate Design I have recently completed a long term web design project for The King's School, Canterbury. The project involved a complete redesign of the site to bring the project inline with the schools existing corporate identity and print material. The previous website was old, and had become time consuming to maintain. From the outset as well as a redesign of the website, it was decided that the school would benefit from a content management system to help the school manage the website's content.

The King's School project was my first website that used a content management system, although I have been involved in web design projects that use content management systems, this has always been an area others members of the team deal with. Normally my designs are used for the front end and the content management system is integrated into my designed templates. Whereas this project would mean I had a much more involved role in using the content management system after the templates were built.

At the beginning of the project I new there was a serious learning curve ahead of me, but now after completing the project, the knowledge I have gained will be invaluable for future projects. As it is predicted that content management driven websites will increase significantly over the next few years, these new skills will hopefully serve as a good foundation for the future.

The content management system used by the King's School website is provided by Edeptive™. Working alongside Andrew Bailey and Neil Perry from Edeptive to build the website was a real pleasure. The Edpetive™ content management system is so powerful, easy to use and the support throughout the project from Edeptive™ was first rate. As a result the new content management system will enable the schools non-technical staff to easily and efficiently manage their website, keeping content current, and of interest to pupils, teachers, parents and prospective visitors to the school.

The website utillises the Edeptive Gallery system and a sophisticated Calendar which uses the latest web technology to deliver a highly functional event diary. Microsoft Vista users are able to add a Kings Calendar Gadget to their desktop to easily keep up to date with forthcoming events.

For those of you who are not familiar with content management systems, let me enlighten you, a content management system, often abbreviated to (CMS) is a web application or software used for content management.

A content management system facilitates the organisation, control, and publication of a large number of documents and other content, such as images and multimedia resources. Content management systems are ideal when collaborative creation of documents is required. A web content management system is a content management system with additional features to ease the tasks required to publish web content to websites.

Web content management systems are usually used for storing, controlling and publishing specific documentation such as news articles, upcoming events, technical manuals, and marketing brochures.

Web content management systems are more than just a way of managing documents, a web content management system is a computer system used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of web material (HTML documents and their associated images).

A web content management system provides the following key features:

Automated Templates
Standard page design templates that can be automatically applied to new and existing content.

Easily Editable Content
Having content separate from the visual presentation of your website, makes editing much easier and quicker. Most content management software include WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technical individuals to create and edit content.

Scalable Modules
Most content management systems have plug-ins or modules that can be easily installed to extend an existing website's functionality.

Web Standards Upgrades
Content management systems usually receive regular updates that include new features and keep the system up to current web standards.

Workflow Management
Workflow is the process of creating a system of sequential and parallel tasks that must be accomplished in the content management system. For example, a content author submits a news item, but it is not published on the website until the content editor cleans it up, and the editor-in-chief approves it.

Document Management
Content management systems provide a means of managing the life cycle of a piece of content, from initial creation time, through revisions, publication, archive, and document destruction.

Hopefully this explanation has given you a better understanding of what a content management system is, and what it could do for you or your organisation.

Posted by Dean at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week we have continued to have some beautiful weather. The weekend was an absolute scorcher, getting into the mid 20's on both Saturday and Sunday. The tomato plants have enjoyed the sun and have grown considerably. Of course the tomato plants are still susceptible to the cold, if the warm weather is replaced by a cold snap the tomato plants could still die.

I have noticed that the tomato plants are already developing internodes or suckers. Last year I removed the first sets of internodes from the base of my tomato plants. The reason behind this was because I felt that if left, the trusses of tomato which would have grown, would be too close to the damp soil and could start to rot. Any tomato grower knows that tomato plants are prone to different kinds of fungal threats, so to ensure the base had room to breath and did not become damp / humid (the kind of environment which bacteria just loves) I pinched out the first few internodes.

I am not sure if this technique is recommended by other growers, I have certainly not come across any mention of it in books or websites, so it may be me just being over cautious, but it certainly worked and the trusses which did set further up the tomato plant were full of fruit and did not hang too close to the soil.

This year I may experiment with one plant and leave the internodes in place and see what happens. It will mean I will get fruit from that plant earlier, but will the lower branches be more susceptible to rot? Only time will tell.

I have heard it is possible to replant your internodes, I did not try this last year, but apparently if you leave the internodes to grow to about 3-4 inches before pinching them out and plant the internode in another grow bag it is possible to get tomatoes from the internode. I may try planting an internode this year to see whether any fruit is produced.

Of course one way to ensure your lower trusses of tomatoes do not hang down near the soil is to support them by loosely tying the branches to a cane or trellis. I have heard of people creating cages around the plants, made out of chicken wire or similar material, so they can train the branches out through the cages. Once the fruit sets, the cage helps support the branch and prevents it drooping on to the ground. Since I am growing my tomato plants in a grow bag and space is limited between each tomato plant, fashioning some kind of cage was not possible.

Well that is enough this week, let's hope the good weather continues.

Posted by Dean at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well I have been working on a lot of freelance work lately, which has meant my evening and weekends have been mainly spent looking at the screen of my lap top and drinking copious amounts of coffee. One of the freelance jobs I have been working on has been helping my friend to design a new website for his blind company. I started out with just a few ideas, but the project soon became more involved, and I was designing templates and page elements for use throughout the site. It was a good way of getting some new venetian blinds in the lobby and vertical blinds for the patio doors to match the roller blind in the kitchen. The site is now live, www.melloblinds.co.uk and is already taking orders.

Now with the better weather coming, I have been splitting my spare time between Dylan's nursery and the back garden. I have primed and glossed the skirting boards and painted the coving in Dylan's nursery, the walls are all ready for me to begin hanging wallpaper. Guess what I will be doing on the upcoming May bank holiday!

The back garden is going to be a huge project, at the moment there is a lot of slabs covering the majority of the back garden, these will be replaced by grass, so we can play football and watch Dylan playing in his sand pit. At the moment it is not a particularly child friendly area, certainly not for a toddler who is prone to banging his bonce, and falling over. So as a matter of urgency I will be getting the slabs up and having a lawn laid at some time this year, so next year Dylan can enjoy running around outside, this Summer he is unlikely to be wanting to go outside and run around, at the moment he is just crawling and chasing the cats.

I have planted two varieties of Clematis at the bottom of the garden, and put up some trellis for them to climb. In a year or two they should be covering the majority of the garden wall.

This weekend I have taken down a fence which was around the postage stamp of lawn we currently have, and have painted the shed with a coat of protector. Next weekend, weather permitting will be enough time for me to weather proof the decking, and start clearing some of the debris left from the previous owners.

Posted by Dean at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The tomato plants have not wilted, thank goodness! Over the past seven days there does appear to have been a modest amount of growth compared to the photo I took last week you will see that all three plants do appear slightly taller. We have been lucky with the weather, lots of glorious sun shine and quite mild nights have helped to ensure the plants settle into their outside environment and will have no doubt helped with their growing.

Fingers crossed the nice weather will continue. It is the wind and cold which will do the damage at this time of year.

Posted by Dean at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last year I had a go at growing tomatoes in a grow bag. The whole experience was really enjoyable, nurturing the little seedling through out the spring and summer and then harvesting the tomatoes at the end. I thought this year I would choose the Gardeners Delight variety as I have heard good things about this type of tomato both on TV and in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's cook book. I found that 2 of the plants I grew last year were quite tasteless. The one which did taste sweet was one of these dwarf plants called Totem which I left to grow, and did not require any intervention by me whatsoever. This kind of plant is not of use when you wish to indulge your green thumbs.

According to the bumph that came with the plants, Gardeners Delight has a true tangy flavour of tomatoes from a century or more ago. The plant is packed with bite-size fruit, ideal for salads and sandwiches and full of vitamins.

Today I planted up the 3 seedlings into their grow bag and have popped in a cane for each to grow up. If they are anything like last year I will have to add a trellis at some point so they don't start to topple over with all the tomatoes. One of the plants last year grew to over 5 feet and produced huge fruit. However they did lack any kind of taste, which is why I have researched this season to ensure the end result will be more flavoursome.

It is my intention to post an entry every week from now on, with a picture of the plants so we can keep track of how these plants are fairing over the next few months.

Posted by Dean at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)