• Astronomy
  I'm a member of the William Herschel Society. William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus from a home-made telescope set up in the front of his house at 19 New King Street, Bath, England. If you ever visit Bath I recommend you drop by the house, which is now a museum. Herschel's workshop is particularly inspiring; it shows how much can be done with modest facilities.

• King Alfred the Great
  I am interested in the history of the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great, and have collected together some information about his reign and his works.

• Growing Sunflowers
  Every year I grow about 100 sunflower plants, mostly Russian Mammoth varieties. In 1995 some of these had multiple heads, which I hadn't seen before. In 1996 their seeds were planted back, but the better plants were the result of self-reseeding from 1995. For 1997 I intend to do very little, just till the soil in the spring. It will be interesting to see what comes up. People tell me that the sunflowers should revert to a smaller, multiheaded variety if left to themselves.

  Update for 1997: Multiheaded yes, smaller no. I got beautiful plants, up to 12 feet tall, with multiple blossoms ranging up to 7 inches across. Not as big as the single-blossom heads but much prettier. The bees love them. Did someone mention ... compost?

• Composting
  My father composted for 40 years, and I've composted for over 20 years. My wife and I moved to this sand plain five years ago and we've started a new compost pile to try to build up the soil in our garden. I'm always interested in hearing about new composting ideas.

• Reading
  My reading interests include Rex Stout and Jane Austen, and various works on public affairs - contemporary and historical. I maintain a Great Books Index, an index to online editions of works in the Great Books of the Western World.

Related Pages:

• Ken Roberts Home Page
  
• Puzzle Page
  
• Favourites
  

URL: http://www.mirror.org/ken.roberts/interests.html
Last revised September 2, 1997