Thanks Daintiness! I find gardening is really all about planning - at the very least it gives us something interesting to do in the winter or while it's raining!
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
HIYA Bob, nice one ,forward planning as well , hot bed ,propagater and a work bench ,we,ll be seeing you in the Dragons den soon, thanks for the pics and info really good,and soon as i can im wanting one of them for all my planned cuttings, cheers Bob
Hi all, the temperature results are in. I left it a couple of days to make sure things had settled down.
With the probe placed in the sand and showing 25C, the temperature on the surface of a tray of compost placed on top of the sand and covered with a clear lid varied over a night and a day from between 15.5C to 19.5C (measured using a mix-min thermometer placed on top of the compost.) Clearly, the air temperature in the shed has a fair effect on the compost temperature even though the sand is absolutely constant at 25C, so tonight I'm raising the sand temperature to 30C and will report back tomorrow.
Because I have a moveable thermostat probe, in order to keep an exact temperature in the seed trays themselves, I do have the option of putting the probe in the actual seed tray rather than in the sand below and will try that tomorrow night.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
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Thanks Daintiness!
I find gardening is really all about planning - at the very least it gives us something interesting to do in the winter or while it's raining!
and don't forget the wind
Clueless
HIYA Bob, nice one ,forward planning as well , hot bed ,propagater and a work bench ,we,ll be seeing you in the Dragons den soon, thanks for the pics and info really good,and soon as i can im wanting one of them for all my planned cuttings, cheers Bob
waiting for you heating results with bated breath Bob
Clueless
Hi all, the temperature results are in. I left it a couple of days to make sure things had settled down.
With the probe placed in the sand and showing 25C, the temperature on the surface of a tray of compost placed on top of the sand and covered with a clear lid varied over a night and a day from between 15.5C to 19.5C (measured using a mix-min thermometer placed on top of the compost.) Clearly, the air temperature in the shed has a fair effect on the compost temperature even though the sand is absolutely constant at 25C, so tonight I'm raising the sand temperature to 30C and will report back tomorrow.
Because I have a moveable thermostat probe, in order to keep an exact temperature in the seed trays themselves, I do have the option of putting the probe in the actual seed tray rather than in the sand below and will try that tomorrow night.
I made mine with sturdy plastic trays my local butcher kindly gave me he used them for carrying pies etc,, will last forever,,,,
Could you show the propagator with the lid on? Was it easy enough to do?
Hi David, I'll take a photo at the weekend. I found it pretty easy to make - if you're reasonably good at DIY it would be a breeze.
Hi David, as promised, here are photos of the lid.
The underside has a couple of battens to locate it properly and stop it sliding off:
Lid in place:
I also discovered that the cheap (£3.50 from Wilko) windowsill propagators fit perfectly - more by luck than judgement though! :
The small module trays in those are ideal for small batches of seeds, so I'll definitely be using them this way for my toms, peppers etc.
Thanks Bob
Would pespex have been better?
David