Incentives!

Four in a row. I might be able to do this. What has tripped me up in the past has been actually remembering to do the blog and that it is a 'have to do" thing with a high priory rating.
How to remember both of those things at a conscious level and both at the same time? Well, some idiot - Ooops sorry, it would have been either Sarah or Janice. Sarah can take the blame because she would have introduced Janice who introduced me and no way do I want to call Janice an idiot!!!! Hang on, that applies to you too Sarah, stop digging Terry....some fantastic family member introduced me..

Where was I? Yes, Sarah introduced me to Farmville. This is an insidious time wasting addictive Facebook application/game that's all the rage right now and making someone zillions. Basically it's legal pyramid selling using your friends on Facebook. Strong minded, or mean folk can avoid shelling out any cash. Our family must be strong minded. And the game really is great fun and grabs your attention. I love it! So....I now have this contract with myself. Once all the real work is done I can sit in front of the screen and play Farmville, but only after completing my blog for the day. As you can see, so far, it works! My farm below:


Today is going to be wet again and our staff are having a day off as they aren't too keen to work in the wet when they can come in on another day and remain dry. Makes sense to me, so I'll just go up to the nursery and nose around in the quiet and attend to one or two of those jobs that are not entirely necessary in the normal course of events but make a huge difference in the long run.....like noticing that there is a water leak and fixing it or rescuing my pet plant from the factory production section and petting it a little. It's amazing what you can find wandering around the nursery in quiet contemplation. Profit lies lurking for someone with an eye to look for it...he hopes!

So, thanks Sarah for giving me the incentive to keep a blog.

Cheers

Terry

Carrying on carrying on

Right now I'm busy writing more web pages to tell gardeners what is different about our delphiniums, why they should be growing them and what special cultural requirements are needed in their particular place in the world. This will take more than 5 minutes! But it will be done.

It is also going to take more than 5 minutes to finish the bush planting project I started last spring. There is grass to spray off in the paddock before I can do much more and this wee spell of wet, cold, winter like weather will have to stop before I can do that.

Today is the third day in a row that I've managed to blog. It is not as easy as the first two and as I'm involved in a job promoting our delphiniums and it's hard to avoid keeping that out of the blog, but I will. You don't want to hear me blowing my own trumpet. Actually I don't have a trumpet, just a guitar. Well two actually. It is my dream that one day I'll be able to play - one of them at least!.

Ok, enough of a break from the web page writing. Just a wee blog today. Back to work ok?

Mmmm. Something wrong with the formatting

Cheers

Terry

Understanding (not) how web searches work

In trying to make our website more visible one of the things to consider is how well we appear on organic, or non-paid searches on engines such as google. You'd think this was easy but hey, to a non techo, it is not. Nor is it easy to understand some of the answers you get from people who you would think should know - like the help desk of your web host.
Just take the question of an ordinary search for delphiniums as an example:
If you are in New Zealand and search for delphiniums you get Dowdeswell's Delphiniums at numbers 1 and 2. If however you are in the USA and do the same search, where are we? Not so easy to answer. A few months ago there was a google tool to allow you to search as if you were in the USA and we came up....nowhere in the first 10. I can't find that tool now and wouldn't you know it, didn't do a search while I was in the USA. Google searches do seem to be more regional though and this is something we have to find more about.
I'm just about to email some friends in the USA and England and getting them to do searches for us. I'll let you know the results.

Of course, if there's anyone out there can help, please drop me a line.

Cheers

Terry

The Days Fly By

The delphiniums are really starting to take off this spring now. We have started pollinating already - about 6 weeks early! The images throughout this blog are of that spring growth.


Reading my notes from a web seminar I attended in Portland Oregon at the FarWest Show in August I have a note that suggests I should update my blog every day. I actually wrote that. Can you believe it? I wonder if I could, well substantially anyway.

Thinking about it, if I have time to harvest a crop on Farmville then I certainly have time to do a blog.

Below are spring cuttings already rooted.

The thing is, we have decided to expand our delphinium seed hybridising business and are working on ways to increase our visibility on the ether. We breed and sell the best delphiniums in the world - the world needs to know how to find us. They need to know that they need to find us. When Janice first built our web-site in 1996 we would always come up #1 on a search for delphiniums, just about anywhere in the world. Now we are lucky if we are on the first page if searching from the USA and UK. As a business that depends very heavily on customers finding and contacting us via the Internet, that is not good enough!

So, we are going through the execrcise of finding out what we need to do to regain that #1 slot from seaarches instigated from outside New Zealand. Blogging regularly is one of the things that, so it is said, works.

Below right is an early flowering, extremely short delphinium just about to break bloom. The bed is a trial bed, poorly weeded and neglected. The interesting delph is centre stage:


One thing's for sure; if I am going to do this every day then no-way am I writing an epistle. An epistle you will not get.

So there, I did it today. What about tomorrow?

What about Farmville?

On being absent

Much has happened in family and business since I last wrote including wonderful times with grandchildren, a business trip to western and mid USA and Canada, Europe and Germany and a sweet homecoming to my lovely Janice who kept the business running beautifully on her own - I should go away more often. Ouch Janice,don't throw things!!!


Also at home was a weedy spring garden.

Having a laptop and Skype made being away far more bearable and it was a treat to be able to speak to, and see, Janice, Aimee (6) Jessica (4) Sarah and Chris (our daughter and son in law) and anyone else who has entered the modern communications world.

Visiting our major business clients was a great experience which was undertaken to check out how they were being affected by the "D" word - Shhhh! New Zealand is regarded by North Americans and Europeans as being a long way(s) away and they were all grateful that someone had made the effort to travel so far to see them. This surprised me as I had only traveled for a day or so (including airport down-time) and that is no more than a long car drive. I guess we New Zealanders see travel as something we just do, regardless of distance as all destinations, except for Australia (and who wants to go there?) are "a long way away". It was also timely, as I arrived when I could check out propagation methods and offer a few pointers to enhance production. Well worth while. Please remember to cover delphinium seeds as this prevents drying out of the young root as it emerges!

Time out at the Children's Garden, Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The most important thing to come out of the overseas excursion was undoubtedly the fact that our communications with clients, prospective clients and the gardening public generally needs to be improved considerably in just about every area I can think of be it via web site, magazine, personal visits, demonstrations, radio talks, displays of plants...whatever! It was therefore great to be able begin work with the VanDusen Botanical Garden (Vancouver) to organize a future display of New Millennium Delphiniums within their bounds. Fantastic.

Another highlight was to see our plants growing in The Butchart Gardens and doing so well that they are removing all their old varieties and replacing them with ours. They are absolutely delighted with the way they perform and who wouldn't be after seeing this photograph of the comparative trial they conducted in their nursery area this year.

New Millenniums are staked and in the background left while the Pacific Giants are in foreground right.

On the home front plant sales this season are going extremely well and seed production stock is so well advanced that we may start almost a month early. Our staff managed excellently in my absence; another reason for me to disappear more often.

Other family matters have been to the fore in recent times too. Janice's mother died a few months ago and we have also needed to organize rest home care in Wanganui for my mother and transfer my father, in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease from Auckland to Wanganui too. Such is life. I need a rest!

More at last

About time we had some more I think.

This is for Anne.

On Jan 12 I bought some real cheap roses from the bargain bin of my local garden centre. They looked like this:





























Three weeks later they now look like this:












Since the last post, August wasn't it? lots has happened. So much that I wont even start to tell you.

Ah well, ok. Just some.

We had a great black current crop from our three bushes.

We've almost completed extending the house (well, the builders have). Just paint and tiles to go. See Janice's blog for details.

The delphinium crop has flowered well and been pollinated successfully.

Father Christmas came.

The new dog ate Janice's shoes.

The new plastic house finally got completed.

Anne Cooke from Dawson Creek visited.

We arranged to have a French Horticulture student come next June to August.

The grandkids had chicken pox.

The garden grew and expanded.

The orchard produced plums and nectarines.

The weather has become warm.

It rained some.

I may even post more stuff on the blog soon.

Creme Brulee

Janice wants to get me back into blogging again so she has posted details of a dinner we had tonight with our friends and said that I cooked desert and would tell you about it.
Well, Janice's dinner was delicious and you will have to see her blog for the details.

For my bit I had great fun making my first creme brulee. The fun actually began yesterday when I bought a chef's torch. There's nothing like a blow torch for adding fun to cooking!

The recipe was simple and started with separating the yolks from eight eggs. The first one was tentative but by the time I'd done four or so it was fun and fast. Nothing beats blow-torching your desert in front of guests though.
The practice run yesterday went like clockwork but I decided I wanted a thicker brulee so added more castor sugar - not a good move as the top burned before the sugar caramalised right through. Undetered I simply tipped off the excess sugar on the others and all was well - there was a beautiful, real custard (no custard powder, just eggs, sugar and cream) capped with crispy caramelised sugar, plus plenty of drama!

The recipe can be found here: