Slug deterrent

In the Sunday Express today, there was a Suttons catalogue. Near the back was a thing called a slug collar, basically a ring of copper placed around the base of vulnerable plants. The price was prohibitive though at £24.00 for 6 of the 7" ones, and £19.00 for 6 of the 4" ones.
So I had a brilliant idea. Get some 8mm soft copper tube, cut into lengths of around 21" and find something to fit inside it. Then bend into a circle using the plug to join the ends together. There you have a much cheaper copper collar, of around 7" in diameter. (Sorry Suttons' Seeds)

Labour saving?

Went to Lidl today for the first time, and found an excellent labour saving device, for £2.95.
It is a seed sowing implement, consisting of 2 small bowls/cups, attached to a hand grip. One of the bowls is closed, and the other has a funnel shaped bottom with a long aluminium tube, and it weighs next to nothing in your hand.
What you do, is fill the closed bowl with the seed you want to sow, place the tip of the tube on the gound where you want the seed to go, and then just flick a few seeds into the funnel bowl. Move the tube along and repeat. It's such a simple idea, why haven't I seen anything like it before? Probably will save a lot of bending when sowing, and hopefully a lot of thinning out with things like carrots and lettuce etc..
The tube is even big enough to allow the passage of seeds as big as peas, but not runner beans, although french beans may pass through it. I'll have to let you know on that one.

Old seed experiment update.

As of today, of the 11 seeds which I put in the tray, 5 have the radicals growing, and 1 has gone rotten(all slimy on the outside, and putrid smelling). Still hoping for more, as it's the smaller ones which have germinated first.

Re: Cold Frame

Have today found a local supplier for Gravel boards to make the carcass, at a cost of £1.40 +VAT for each 6ft length.

A quick calculation suggests I'll probaly need 11 boards, 3 for the back, 2 for the front and 3 for each side. So that's gonna be £15.40 +vat + whatever 2"x2" for the corners.

Not bad eh? A six by four coldframe for under 20 quid.

Cold Frame

I have an old secondary double glazing frame, complete with 3 panels of framed glass, and am thinking of using it for the top of a cold frame up at the plot.

As it's about 6ft by 4ft, it should turn out as quite a large one. Plenty of room for early sowing of crops.

Got to get hold of some decent timber for the carcass for it now.

Re: Old Seed

Seed has been in damp tissue now for around 24 hours, and has swollen to twice its size.

Looks promising so far.

Old seed found in the shed

When we took over our plot, we found a lot of seed which had been saved from previous years' crops, by the last tenant. Some of it was marked with the year it was saved, and the type of produce. It was all bean seeds of various type.

Looking at the dates on some of the packages/old envelopes, (one said saved FOR 1999)I decided that they probably would no longer be viable seed, so I threw them all(along with some older seed we still had at home), into one large envelope, with a view to feeding them to the birds or something.

Any way, I asked on Allotments4All if this was possible by maybe chopping them up in the food processor and soaking them. Somebody posted back a suggestion that I should try putting a mixture of them onto wet tissue and cover them similarly, to see what happens. So......that is what I did last night. They are in a meat tray on the kitchen windowsill.

Now awaiting the results..................we shall see?

Advice, Hints and Tips

Nothing to post just yet.