Something to save time, money and your back when planting larger seeds!

Simple Device for helping plant larger seeds at regular intervals.

I love this home made device as it really does help when sowing larger seeds in a furrow. It ensures that the seeds are planted at the recommended spacing and doesn't require any bending down.

Here is a picture of me using the sowing tool last year when we were planting corn.

Very very simple. I made this from some pipe that I had left over from a different project (I think that I got the idea from Pinterest). You simply drop the seed in the longer pipe and use the horizontal piece of pipe to determine the spacing of the seeds with the shorter vertical pipe having an end cap which is placed on top of the previous seed.

What I really like is that none of the pipes are glued in place but are simply (and firmly) pushed together. This means that for different seed types the size of the horizontal pipe can be changed which changes the distance between seeds.

I have used this over several years principally for squash and corn seeds, but it could equally be used for other seeds.

Now if you know how to evenly space out much smaller seeds, such as those for carrots, onions etc please let me know as I hate destroying seedlings when I thin out these seedlings.

I have never seen such an event before in my life!

On Boxing Day 2020 (summer in the Southern Hemisphere), at around 3.40 pm, we experience the following hail storm that lasted for around five minutes. 

Initially I was in awe at the event, watching the hail stones bounce off the solar panels, but then I started to worry about the newly constructed (and not 100% completed) greenhouse and whether the roof had withstood the impact of the hundreds of little bullets that must have hit its poly-carbonate glazing! I was confident that the solar panels could withstand the battering but the greenhouse was another question! The hail was the largest that I had ever seen with it being physically painful to stand out in the open and be hit by it.

When the hail stopped and I ventured into the garden to my relief the greenhouse was fine however this was not the case for some of the vegetables! The impact of the hail on the different vegetables varied enormously with the corn having survived relatively unscathed due to its tougher leaves but the lettuce and squash had suffered the worse damage with there leaves looking as through they had passed through a shredder!

                        Lettuce                                                            Squash

The morning had been chilly but nothing exceptional and there was no warning from the meteorological office. Although it is not the first time that this has happened in our area it was the most severe Hail storm that anyone could remember. 

Three weeks Latter.

With the damage being so intensive to the squash and the lettuce it must have drastically set back their development however both had recovered well after three weeks with the squash, in particular, having grown profusely with some good sized fruit having been set.

Lettuce and Squash on the 21st of January (squash showing hail damage center bottom).

Conclusion.

Perhaps surprisingly, the lettuce and the squash (the worst affected plants) were able to weather the damage inflicted by the hail storm. Some of the lettuce have already been harvest and the squash have set some good fruit that will be harvested in a months time. 

So do not lose heart even when faced with unexpected and severe events. Keep gardening and keep learning:>)

What the Heck!

 Pill Bug (aka Woodlice) attack on the strawberries!!! 

At this rate we will have no strawberries to eat this year. Time to send in the "hard working" Biological Control Agents (BCAs)!

Was this such a clever idea? Not so sure as they did a lot of damage trampling the strawberries but they really enjoyed themselves .....

But after 48 hours, and having been returned to their coup, had they do their job of controlling the Pill Bugs???? To get an idea we placed potatoes sliced in half, (with the middle scrapped out) and with their cut side down in contact with the soil. This supposedly attracts Pill Bugs and will give us an idea of their population. After 36 hrs we checked the potatoes. And what did we find ....

Loads of Pill Bugs still!!! so much for the BCAs😋

This potato, plus "guests" was quickly placed in the chicken coup where the chooks took an "interest" in the Pill Bugs but were not voracious about it. I very much suspect that if the chooks have a choice between eating crunchy Pill Bugs or lovely red ripe Strawberries they have a distinct preference😉 Can't blame them and great learning experience for us (and family fun chasing after the chooks to relocate them firstly in the Soft Fruit Cage and them back to their coup).

Update.

The day after posting the above I collected more Pill Bugs from the potatoes and placed the Pill Bug in an old ice-cream container and present this to the Chooks in the chicken house. Once again the Chicken were really not interested in eating the Pill Bugs. So my conclusion has to be that Chooks are not effective Pill Bug control agents!

We have now tried to raise the strawberries off the ground to get them physically away from the Pill Bugs with a thick mulch of hay. I will let you know how we get on with this.