Looks like the 20 mph gusts are going to taper off by noon and will reach the mid to high 60s. Looking forward to getting outside and doing things. Cabin fever has been setting in.
Latest idle mind mad mechanic idea is looking at how I can adapt BCS attachments to fit my little sub-sub-compact tractor with Cat 0 PTO. Looks like it would be pretty easy. BCS has a three toothed coupler similar to a lovejoy coupler. The two halves are on the end of the output shaft of tractor and input shaft of attachment. They sell quick-hitch adapters and I think I can covert one into a BCS to PTO driveshaft adapter.
This would be one of those someday projects. Before I'm old and can't do things manually, which includes wrestling the handlebars of a tiller or two wheel tractor.
Brought my two seed trays up to the house before the cold set in. I had about 75% germination rate, probably from letting the mix dry out once or twice. LED lights are basically heaters. Got my new lights higher but still need some sort of fan(s) to pull the heat off. The lights are a couple inches apart so I'm going to look at getting a bunch of 50mm computer fans and put them in a line down between the lights aiming up.
Dollar General quit carrying sticky traps and I have mice in the shed so I lost another 25%. Another reason I brought them up to the house. First it was a little nibbling then it turned to whole cells being dug out. I will say, this is the first year I have nice full, squatty seedlings instead of tall leggy things. Another pair of these LED shop lights and some air circulation to pull off the heat and I should be good. Time to start a couple more trays.
One other loss from the weather, and my wife: When we got the tornado warnings I had my wife put my best (20,000 mAH) "battery bank" in her backpack, which she would take to the basement if it came to that. At some point later, after things calmed down, she put the battery bank back on the dresser, but I'll be damned: She plugged a USB "C" connector from a charger into an "A" output on the battery bank. That shorted the (nominal) 2.5A output, and killed the battery bank. The thing thankfully didn't overheat and catch on fire / explode -- the old wood dresser would have made great kindling, I am sure.
Sweet Jesus...
The charger still works ok -- I checked it directly with the phone. It was the outer metal "racetrack" of the "C" connector that shorted contacts in the female "A" connector. I imagine there is a fusible link or similar @ the output of the battery bank, but, this thing does NOT look like it will come apart easily, and, the link is likely a surface mount connection type difficult to deal with.
Thank God my wife never became an engineer - her initial direction in college.
Blame:
20% me - for not telling my wife to NOT try hooking up anything electrical related.
60% wifey - I've tried explaining and showing her the differing USB connectors multiple times. How can she not know by now -- she is not a dumb woman, but THIS sort of stuff just doesn't seem to penetrate.
20% the connector designers - who sized the USB "C" type male connectors so that they can fit nicely into the "big" side of an "A" female connector?
Fans of course will dry up the soil faster in your trays, but, they will help with the spindly seedlings. For me though, the lights made the biggest difference to get bushier tomato plants.
I have a LOT of saved 2 liter plastic soda bottles. My experiment this year is to skip the seed trays for some plants. In the past, I’d transfer the seedlings from the seed trays to the soda bottle “pots” to get big enough to resist cutworms and snails, then to the garden (in the ground or in big pots). The trick will be managing the warming of the starter soil with the lights. But, then again, I usually get plenty of tomato seedlings of the varieties I kike best, anyway, even when I don’t manage the temps all that well. The “tropical” plants from seed, like Opo, seem to require the most consistent soil temperatures of all, to germinate.
An advantage of the soda bottle “pots” is less frequent waterings needed, and that I have well developed, roughly 7” deep root systems on the plants when they go out to the garden. The bottles’ plastic is surprisingly durable (lasts years), but flexes easily to help get the root “ball” (actually more of a round column) out of the “pot”. A disadvantage is that they do not stack efficiently between uses.