Blustery ,wet and weedy

Well I don't know where the time went!

Today is so windy that I haven't done anything in the garden.

I bought an automatic window opener for the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago.
It was getting hot in there very quickly each morning and sometimes I don't think I was down in time in the morning to cool things down by opening the window.
The opener works on the heat of the sun and so opens and closes as needed.

Its closed right up here as it is blowing a gale outside.


I also made a capillary matting watering system.
I used old cotton shirts for the matting.
Some old plastic wrapping underneath it so my staging doesn't get rusty from being damp
and
3 large containers for the water.

You can just see the water reservoir bottom left. Its an old plastic aquarium that the kids used to have gerbils in.

It is quite useful for a day or two of keeping things moist.

In the very hot weather,the matting was drying out after about 24 hours despite the water containers but in the cooler days, it lasts much longer.

Next month we have a 3 day trip to Scotland to see DD's Graduation so it will be handy then.

The water butt was almost empty last weekend and then we had a night of battering rain which yielded about 8 gallons in my water catching buckets and presumably filled the big water butt back up.
I decanted the 8 gallons into plastic gallon containers and it rained the following night yielding another 6 cans worth.

The runner beans are planted and one has some red flowers already.
Courgettes are all planted and showing their yellow flowers.
The peas are struggling but not dead.
Spinach is looking well for all the rain.
French beans are looking quite strong, I planted some from the greenhouse and sowed another packet straight into the garden.
The  direct sowing was done with the victorian seeder which did quite well where it didnt skip seeds too much.

This is the seeders as I received them from the ebay seller.
They were both rusty and the lower in the picture was absolutely seized.

This is the top seeder now. The gaffer tape is holding some corrugated card in place.
The card helps to keep the seeds towards the front part of the hopper where the chute is.

This one has a new hopper made from an Aluminium Apple mac case,cut to shape with the Dremel and then a lot of folding and gritting of teeth to get it to the right dimensions. I use a plastic bag over it to stop the seeds jumping out. This also has gaffer tape to hold a piece of corrugated card in place.
I made the spring for this one from an old  Bicycle caliper brake spring we had lying around.
The row coverer is a bit of old foot pump with a strip of  the stuff you join flooring together with at a door.
The handle is from a very old knackered Tripod.
This is slightly better for accuracy of rows than the other more original seeder.

Inside each hopper, I have marked off the seed sizes. There is a gnarled knob to change the seed size and you have to look into the hopper to get the hole the right size.
The graduated chart goes from Beans at the top, to carrots at the bottom.
I will get a picture of the actual seed chute etc tomorrow ,my battery gave out just when I was about to photograph it today.


I have sown some brassicas out direct also as the greenhouse plants nearly all died.
I was left with only 3 brussels sprouts and one broccoli of the earlier pot sowings.

I sowed pak choi and radish using a newer seeder (Danish) which was not bad but did seem to be oddly marked for spacing so I managed to sow about 8" of radish then an 8" gap then another 8" which I then had to thin out substantially once they showed.
I think I will write my own instructions for it once I get used to it more.

The direct sowing of brassicas was done with the less original Victorian seeder