The dreaded bunny mowers broke into the Stalag the last two mornings - little swines - they chomped the violets (just the flowers) and a few other plants I thought were safe. You should have seen them run when I opened the back door - two of them practically flew over the "rabbit-proof fence" like springboks chased by a cheetah - the fence is over 18 inches (45 cms) high at the place they jumped over it - 1 1/2 feet high!!!
So I dismantled the cold frames and used the old windows to reinforce the fence - the backie now looks like a junk pile or at best a run down allotment. I bet the folk up on the hill in the posh houses aren't too happy having to look at the collection of frames that are trying to shore up our crumbling defences.
Also today I had a nother bout of seed sowing. I tried some of the veg outside in the new improved Stalag - we can hope - but miost were in the greenhouse or the 15 to 20C which are going onto the steps outside - 15 to 20 is optimistic as a typical summer for Aberdeen.
to this ends I wanted to sterilise the seed trays. You may remember that I recommended a microwave to sterilize pots - 20 to 30 second blast does a whole batch. Unfortunately our microwave isn't quite big enough for a seed tray so I took the suggestion to try top use the oven - 175C (that's only around 80C so should be okay) for ten minutes.
Not recommended. The rest were done with a boiling water soak - can also cause much bending particularly on the clear lids for some reason. That meant that I had to be quite innovative at time using clear packaging and, as I always recommend, tons and tons of shrink wrap - ythat very cheap 40p a roll own brand stuff. You can get 5 to 10 trays from one roll of cheap wrap.
By the end I was out till 10:45 and could barely see the seeds I was spreading but all done now.
A lot of them say between 1 week and 2 noths at 15- 20 C followed by an equal time in a refrigerator - but that isn't going to happen. I may leave them until after winter if they don't sprout by end of August. Perhaps I need a beer fridge in the greenhouse - that would definitely help heat the place during the winter - I wonder what the cost of running a refrigerator is? 1/2 to 1 Kw per day for a modern Fridge - that's possibly as low as a £1 per week - and only use in the winter... maybe worth thinking about.
http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=4912
