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Start of the Season, Planting Tomatoes

By Dennis Goedegebuure

For the winter long, I’ve been waiting until this moment. The end of February, almost March, when the temperatures are getting higher, and almost no chances of frost in the night, it’s time to start the garden for this season. As you can see in the graph below, for the last couple of weeks, the average temperature has been climbing steadily, and I deem it’s time to put in some tomatoes for a big harvest this year.

Temperature graph for 2016 in Pleasanton in Celsius

Temperature graph in Pleasanton, metrics through Ambient Weather Station

This Sunday morning, there was time for some garden therapy, with lots of preparation before we can plant. For month, we have been recycling coffee filters, egg shells, fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen in the Composting bin.

Composting fruit & vegetable scraps in a composter bin

Last summer I even bought a bunch of worms for better composting. For the last couple of weeks, we have not added any more scraps, since we really needed to get the compost ready for the planting in spring. The worms have been multiplying to a large numbers I even think I can start a worm farm now.

So, the potting mix I’ve used last year, can be re-used in a mix with this years compost and some new potting mix. This way we get a potent mix to grow our veggies in this year, and don’t have to buy that much new potting mix.

Mixing the compost with last years- and some new potting mix

And with some newly bought, fresh cherry tomato pack and a mild chili pepper variety pack at the Home Depot, we have a good start in the garden for an early harvest. Mild Chili pepper variety pack

Cherry tomato pack

And for a later harvest, we have planted seeds in the little mini greenhouses. This was, we will get a wave of fruit & vegetables throughout the summer. In the greenhouses, we have organic heirloom tomatoes, Cherokee Purple to be exact, and organic beefsteak tomatoes. To get enough bees coming to visit the garden, we also started with around 12 sunflower seeds, from two different kinds; the Mammoth Sunflower and the Solar Eclipse.

Mini greenhouses for fast growing seeds to plants

 

Filed Under: Garden

I Got My Home Weather Station Data to Track El Niño

By Dennis Goedegebuure

I’m a bid of a data geek, which has caused me to buy the Ambient Weather Station on Amazon (aff link). This way I can track and measure the different data points it collects about the weather in my back yard.

ambient-weather-ws-1001-wifi

As 2016 is expected to see more rain fall due to the El Niño effect, I started to track the daily rain in my back yard with the weather station. The data is easily displayed at the station’s display, which is connected with the external station through wifi.

In the picture below, you see the rainfall rain rate on December 13 at 41.4 mm per hour. This was quite the waterfall out of the sky. Next to rain, you can track the temperature, wind speed & direction, humidity, air pressure and solar radiation strength.

The solar radiation meter is very helpful for us to explain our kids why they need to put sunscreen on, while it looks like the sun is not that powerful from inside the house.

ambient-weather-station-display

All data can be downloaded in a spreadsheet, which makes for easy tracking of monthly rain fall like the graph below showing daily rain and cumulative rain, or the low-, average- and high temperatures for the month of January 2016.

Rain fall Pleasanton January temperature Pleasanton Januari
As I’m from Europe, all metrics are displayed in metric system units; mm rain fall or temperature in Celsius.

 

 

Filed Under: Gear

Fanatics Super Bowl Party San Francisco

By Dennis Goedegebuure

While working for Fanatics Inc, I get the opportunity to work on events with major sports stars. Apart from having a selfie taken with Shaquille O’Neal, who is just massive, I got the chance to get into the official photo booth with Jonathan Ogden, Melvin Fowler and Vincent Curry, who had just signed a new extension contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Last but certainly not least, the CEO of Fanatics; Doug Mack.

Dennis Goedegebuure Fanatics Super Bowl party San Francisco

Dennis Goedegebuure VP Growth & SEO for Fanatics Inc.

Jonathan Ogden & Dennis Goedegebuure at the Fanatics Super Bowl party San Francisco

Melvin Fowler & Dennis Goedegebuure at the Fanatics Super Bowl party San Francisco

Vincent Curry & Dennis Goedegebuure at the Fanatics Super Bowl party San Francisco

Doug Mack, CEO of Fanatics & Dennis Goedegebuure at the Fanatics Super Bowl party San Francisco

Filed Under: Blog

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