Today I set up the new Heat Mat and currently have two trays on it coming up to temperature in readiness to start sowing seeds. I have a few varieties to choose from, but overall plant numbers will be greatly reduced this season.
Here's where I'm at today (28/07) with 4 varieties sown.
I bought myself a new present, well a Heat Mat is what it is, after giving my big mats away after Christmas to my friend at Wonthaggi. This new mat is a two tray Heat'n'Grow Propagation Mat which means it takes two seedling trays, it's thermostatically controlled (a must have) and will be used next week to start my tomato seeds off for the coming season.
More to come on this as I start using it.
We have plenty of greenery among the plants in the garden, but their growth is slow with a cooler Winter this year. Pea, Parsnips and Silverbeet are shown here, with a few peas every few days and parsnips when required, while the silverbeet goes to compost.
I blew a headlight globe this week in my Nissan Patrol, so spent the afternoon yesterday to replace them. It is recommended to remove the grill, indicators and headlights to replace the globes, but I didn't do it that way. There is another way, that is removing the airbox, but you have to remove the nuts in the wheel arch and hope the bolts don't turn on you while doing it.
I took the straight forward approach and work on the rear of the globes, but the left hand indicator is very close to the airbox and if you have big hands, you're in trouble. I did the right hand side first which is relatively easy, then the fun began on the left side. Getting the wire retaining clips off was quite difficult as getting to it with your fingers was difficult. I ended up using some wire to hook on each, making it easier to get the both sides off. All good with the rest apart from getting the retaining wires back in place, the wire used again, making it easier.
We decided that we'd drive to Golden Beach for a walk on the beach, then grab something to eat at the store then head home. The drive from Sale was through thick fog at 11.30 a.m., clearing at the Loch Sport turnoff.
The walk part was fine as we walked about a kilometre up the beach (east), then turned and headed back to the car. Back at the car we headed for the store, with a hamburger in mind for a quick lunch, but the full car park at the store changed our mind, as we pulled back onto the road and headed for Sale. Jan headed one way and I went the other and we both ended up with something different and sat in the car at a shady spot we found, then ate our light lunches before heading home.
A couple of odd jobs completed this week are the new tops on my Saw Stools and a repair to the shed door. The saw stools were bought over 30 years ago from McEwans in Cranbourne when they were there and have been well used over the years. The 90 x 35mm pine tops were lucky to have got through the period of time I've had them, but were used when we built our house on the edge of Wonthaggi in the late 1980's and suffered a few saw cuts along the way, making them fragile.
Then the repair to the shed door, where a hook and eye catch had been riveted to the door to prop it open, but the wind had weakened the iron on the door so much it had cracked the iron. I welded a piece of steel on the inside and riveted a new eye to it, so it should last a fair while now.
Finally got a replacement, this one is working well. I actually bought a Desk Lamp from Buy & Sell to use with this grinder, which lights up the wheel in a dark dingy shed.
On Friday I bought a bench grinder to use in the shed for sharpening drills etc, but after bolting it down, it vibrated badly when I turned it on. The reason was that the stone on the right hand side was running out of balance, causing the unwarranted vibration.
I've taken the machine back to get it rectified, but I now have to wait a week until they can get in a new one, rather than take 5 minutes and swap the stone over. Such a shame as the one I bought will be scrapped rather than looked at.
Here's what the wheel looked like turning it slowly by hand.
With the shed tidy up in full swing, the future of Jan's bike was spoken about and she said to sell it, so rather than do that, I contacted the woman who is the new owner of the Backpackers Hostel here in town and offered it to her for the backpackers to use to get around on. The offer was taken up and we gave her two almost new helmets as well as a pump and tyre repair kit. a win/win for both, a bike for them and some room in the shed for us.
Goodbye to her Malvern Star Capri.
Saturday last week we went and had a look at some old library shelving someone in Maffra was selling, so we paid a deposit until we could come and collect it. Plans were we'd get it yesterday, but the seller forgot all about it and wasn't home all day, so arrangements were made to get it at 8.00 a.m. today (Sunday). By the time I loaded it and then unloaded it at home, I was beginning to think we'd bought more than we could handle, as there seemed hundreds of parts, nuts & bolts, in the end not that many.
I started assembling the singles (2) before the bigger job on the doubles (2) and even if I do say so myself, they didn't look bad once all together. Taking into account we stopped for 15 minutes to eat lunch, I walked out of the shed at 3.30 p.m., as good as finished. We spent some time moving things around to accommodate the new shelving, but I think the money we spent on it was worth it.
Did a couple of final mods to the trolley today while it was raining. I added a handle and a carrier for electrodes, which is enough at this stage.
It looks good though.
The new trolley I bought last week has been given a change, by adding a toolbox to the back section to where a gas bottle would normally go. The toolbox is on, now to put a 100mm pvc tube below it to hold electrodes, then a handle on the front.
The new Mig welder has been placed between small brackets to stop it sliding around on the elevated front on the top tray.
After 125mm of rain in a week, the leaky roof is leaky no more, with not one drop of rain getting into the shed through the roof. Spraying the screw above the tophat certainly worked for us, so a good recommendation here for this product.
With Winter upon us here in Gippsland, I've decided to get a few new toys for my shed to play with when I get bored. First up was to replace my old 40kg AC arc welder with something more manageable, so from the Marketplace, a 140 amp arc to replace it. Then I needed a trolley to move it around, so I bought one, which has an empty shelf on top which will be filled with a 120amp Mig welder next time we get to Traralgon.
Then to make it a bit easier, I bought a 14"Drop Saw from a guy at Coongulla to add to things I need, plus a late inclusion is a 1/3rd horsepower Drill Press, so I have enough now to get started.
I made this video to show my sick sister, who hasn't been to Maffra, where we live. This is an almost 360 degree view. Enjoy.
I got a solution to a problem while at Bunning's yesterday, well I hope I have. There has been a drip from a leaky screw in the roof of our shed and we've tried a few solutions to fix it, so now something that may fix it. From the inside of the shed I have sprayed the screws with an aerosol waterproofing sealant, so now to wait for it to rain again.
It would have been good to see the can have a tube attached like WD40 which would have made the application a lot easier.
A quick trip to Goodman's of Bairnsdale before their midday closing to grab a couple of bundles of Red Gauntlet Strawberry runners, then home to plant them. Probably overkill on what actually went into the ground, but 20X of each Red Gauntlet and Torrey, 5X pink fruited plants from Mary and 4X of the runners I planted from Jan's lot, which were probably Lowanna.
Here are a couple of photos, of the Red Gauntlet and the bed planted out.
We stopped by at Goodman's Nursery while in Bairnsdale today and couldn't decide on what variety of Strawberry Runners we'd get. I thought I had one bundle of Red Gauntlet and one of Torrey, but ended up with two Torrey when I got home, so we'll be planting at least half the new bed with them and half with whatever else I have in the garden here. If I need more, I'll get Red Gauntlet , but until I plant them I won't know.
Here's the two bundles of Torrey I ended up with.
We finished the new garden bed today after the horse lady bought us 8 bags of horse manure. Once the horse manure was down, I added about 10lt of Dynamic Lifter over the horse manure. I took the top 10cm of soil off my big garden bed which had overfilled in the last couple of years, so all the soil on top of this bed has been manured with cow manure and contains a lot of sugarcane mulch we had for the tomato crop, which hadn't all decomposed.
