AdamForster.org

I have just published a couple of little additions to site. Firstly I've added a feed to my Twitter posts using feedparser and Django's fantastic caching mechanism, this means that I'll be able to keep you all up-to-date with my daily shenanigans. Secondly I've added a list of links to all of my social networking profiles, so feel free to check them all out if you have time to.

I've had my bonsai - a Chinese Elm - for about a year now and it seems to have been growing well, however, recently it had started to look a little too cramped in its pot. Slightly concerned I decided earlier last week, that it was about time for the little guy to move into a bigger house and so I ordered a new pot and drip tray on-line.

Yesterday with my new pot and drip tray at the ready, I undertook my first ever bonsai repotting. Here's what I did:

1. First of all I removed the tree from its pot, this was extremely easy to do as the roots had now filled the entire thing.
2. Secondly I removed all of the soil from around the root ball, washing it and combing the roots down with my fingers and a chopstick as I went.
3. Once all of the soil was removed I chopped back some of the thicker and longer roots, whilst still leaving enough young fibrous roots to keep the tree strong and healthy. Chopping back the roots is an essential part of keeping the tree small.
4. Once I was happy with the roots I placed about 1cm of Akadama – a specialist bonsai soil - into the base of the new pot. The pot had been soaking in water for a few days, in order to ensure that it wouldn't draw any water out from the soil.
5. I then placed the tree into the pot and wired the root ball down to keep the tree steady until the roots had chance to grow back.
6. When I was happy that the tree was correctly positioned I filled the rest of the pot with more Akadama, then left it in a shallow bowl of water to soak the soil for 1 hour.

I'm quite pleased with how it went, and hopefully the tree will stay healthy for another 2 or 3 years before it requires another repotting.

Here are couple of pictures of the tree in its new home:

Several people that I know are doing this year's Race for Life for Cancer Research UK. I would like to give a bit shout-out to my Mother and Sister, girlfriend Samantha and one of my best friends Kellie. I'm really proud of them all and hope that everyone who reads this will donate what they can to help them reach their targets.

Thanks guys and good luck for the race.

Welcome to my re-purposed, re-designed, re-built and re-launched web site.

First of all, please let me apologise to those of you who used to come to my site regularly (sorry Kellie), I know that it has been down for over six months and I really am sorry. I finally got around to re-writing it last weekend, thanks largely to my favourite web framework Django. Now that the initial system is finished I will be iteratively integrating other features that I need as I go. I currently intend to post at least once a week, I'm not quite sure what about yet but keep your eyes peeled and we can find out together.

Anyway, that's it for my first post, more to come soon.