The new seedling bed is working, after a bit of a false start. My experiments have shown that you don’t need soil on top of the mat for the cardboard pots to wick up moisture but there’s no chance of water rising through a seed tray or plastic pot. The beds Tony helped me populate have been winners from the start and the other one in the alley now has seed blocks on schlooping
mats™ in the same way. I still need another bed to allow promotion into bigger blocks but mowing is my priority now. The little blocks should air prune until I get to them.
Cleared out Ralph’s tiny work area on Wednesday. It was sad how little he had been able to keep. His son, Ashley, now wants the collection of old instruments in cases, such as brass pressure gauges, Lightometer, rev counter etc. and I was glad to hear that. There were surprisingly few decent tools: Ralph was your man for chewing up a screwdriver tip. So far, it’s all piled on a bench here but, after mowing each day, I’ll slowly work through and triage the hundreds of items. I have already assigned his old compressor to the Joinery, to drive a finish nail gun that will make beehive assembly quicker.
The Hebe is covered in snowy blossom and insects. The lane looks splendid with its cottagey, summer tumult of wild and garden flowers. The balsam is ready to flower so my next job, today, is to mow it wherever I can get to it. Just hope the bees can still make honey.