Uncommon adventures in gardening, making things, technology, and everyday life. A personal notebook by James Zapico.https://blog.jameszapico.com/en-ushttps://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-beef-stew/https://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-beef-stew/I didn't realize when I was learning to can to preserve my garden produce, but the benefits of canning extend to my low sodium diet. One of the most…Mon, 07 Jul 2014 12:00:00 GMTCanninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-dry-run/https://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-dry-run/Now that you've spent all your money buying the pressure canning equipment, it's time to practice! I could just say "Read the manual," but then I wouldn't…Sat, 05 Jul 2014 12:00:00 GMTCanninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-equipment/https://blog.jameszapico.com/pressure-canning-equipment/I've recently added another time consumer to the list of things I do: Canning. It started as a way to preserve extra produce from the garden, and has been…Thu, 03 Jul 2014 12:00:00 GMTCanninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/debian-bbb-ros/https://blog.jameszapico.com/debian-bbb-ros/I recently had the challenge of installing ROS on a Beaglebone Black running the latest Debian linux image. I won't go into the details of why I needed to…Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:00:00 GMTdribbleLinuxBeaglebone Blackhttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-dirt/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-dirt/The previous garden construction posts took from September 2011 until January 2012 to complete. With the irrigation, raised beds and pergola complete, the…Sat, 12 May 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-pergola/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-pergola/Muscadines, like grapes, are vines that like to climb on things and really should be given a way to keep off the ground. I did plenty of research into the…Mon, 07 May 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-bed-building/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-bed-building/The process of building the raised beds was quite long. Unfortunately, I tend to remember only after I'm done that I should have taken pictures. If you're…Sat, 05 May 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-bed-timbers/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-bed-timbers/After the month-long frustrating adventure that was irrigation, I moved on to bed construction. That's when I figured out that nothing would be easy or…Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-planning/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-planning/There were a lot of things that went wrong in the garden construction process. That was really surprising and frustrating considering how much planning I…Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-irrigation/https://blog.jameszapico.com/garden-construction-irrigation/It's been half a year since the last time I posted anything. Since then I've made a lot of progress on the garden in my backyard. I'll go back through some…Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/fruits/https://blog.jameszapico.com/fruits/I really enjoy eating fruit. After years of not eating very many, it's been nice to start purchasing more fruit during our grocery runs. Eating fruit and…Sun, 04 Sep 2011 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/seeds-and-lots-of-them/https://blog.jameszapico.com/seeds-and-lots-of-them/I just ordered the majority of the vegetable seeds for my garden. The seed packets individually don't cost that much ($1.50-$4 a packet), but it adds up…Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/workflowy/https://blog.jameszapico.com/workflowy/Thanks to WebBeat.tv, I've begun using a website called workflowy.com. It specializes in lists in outline form. It's a well designed, very easy website to…Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMTReviewhttps://blog.jameszapico.com/backyard-grains/https://blog.jameszapico.com/backyard-grains/I've been doing some research into growing grains and other staples in the backyard. For the most part, they are easy to grow. The main thing to look for is…Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/gardening-phase-one/https://blog.jameszapico.com/gardening-phase-one/It appears that I've caught the gardening bug. It all started this past winter. We had a significant hard freeze here and lost a lot of our plants. That…Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/year-round-gardening-in-houston/https://blog.jameszapico.com/year-round-gardening-in-houston/I've come across the perfect book for gardening in Houston. Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston by Bob Randall, Ph.D, was written,…Sun, 03 Jul 2011 12:00:00 GMTGardeninghttps://blog.jameszapico.com/movie-pairs/https://blog.jameszapico.com/movie-pairs/I've been perplexed recently by the tendency of the movie industry to release movies in pairs. By that I mean frequently there are two movies released…Mon, 14 Feb 2011 12:00:00 GMTObservationshttps://blog.jameszapico.com/fire/https://blog.jameszapico.com/fire/So did anyone know that certain paper plates have aluminum in them? I certainly didn't today when I attempted to microwave my lunch on one. First there was…Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:00:00 GMTdribble