What have you done today in the Garden?

Glad to see you back, Riley.

Loggie— cool that you have already begun planting.

 

@Doghouse Riley - that is a lot of pruning. Sounds like a sore neck afair. That's crazy about the computer hack - I'm glad you were able to have it remedied and return to Stew.

 

Tell me about your heated propagator L?

 

It's just a small heated propagator without a thermostat, about 12in by 24in. with a dome lid.

 

Those propagators are so handy, but you know the Dutch— we squeeze the coin until the head yelps. Chuckle.
What I use is a non-heated propagator and place it on a small heating pad for sore backs underneath it. Works a treat,
It would work for you until you can locate and order one like Loggie has. They are easily found here, so perhaps in Canada as well. Good luck, meid.

 

Riley wow very sorry to hear about the computer hack. That is scary. Do you have other programs on you computer to protect from hackers. ‘How odd it start what clues did the hacker present?

your pruning job is amazing.. my shoulders would have killed me the next day. You are definitely a fit and strong young man…I use tele pruners on my wisterias which as you know are in need of several pruning s each season.

 

Thanks for that.
The "young man" made me laugh.

I think I'm reasonably fit for my age, as I play lot of golf. I'll be 83 this year.

I think most attacks get in through e-mails, hackers are getting more sophisticated now. The place where I bought my laptop said that Microsoft's own security is usually sufficient to protect you. They were surprised anything got through.
A couple of e-mails were supposedly from Currys, saying I'd won a small appliance. I was immediately suspicious of those, so they went straight to junk and block sender. So maybe I'd missed something. But now I'm wary of e-mails and unless I actually know who is sending them, they go straight to junk.

 

Wow @Doghouse Riley that's a nicely shaped tree!

I work my sweet cherry trees sort of like that. Otherwise I have no way to pick the cherries.

 

Today I hauled a wheel barrow of horse chestnut logs to the firewood shed, and hauled a wheel barrow of 3-year dry firewood to the house. There are lots more logs to haul, and I will cut more after I retrieve the pole saw tomorrow.

Looking back in my notes, now is usually when I start onions, shallots, etc, and chili pepper seeds. Even if the overwintering chili pepper plants works, I use so many of them for making hot sauces and cooking. They grow so slowly here, and success is not guaranteed.

I got out seeds and planted these.



Most of the old ones should germinate. I planted the old Thai pepper seeds thickly, since they were labeled as 51% germination in 2018. We'll see... Another reason to start early is to give myself time to re-sow, if something doesn't grow.

I have a few more to plant, including a few from seeds I saved last year.

I also planted these onion seeds and Chinese leek (really garlic chive).



These onions are hybrids. I chose them because last year's heirloom onions didn't do well. I am growing out some bulbs of heirloom Red Wethersfield this time, for seeds, to see if I can gain some seed independence.

I used silicone six- and eight- packs because they are highly re-usable and can be washed in the dishwasher to sterilize then after first hand washing them to remove soil and stuff.



They are all on the warming mats now.

 

I must be Dutch.

 

Riley.. your correct in assuming a email claiming winner of anything free is a dead giveaway it’s a trap. Most of my emails like that are either blocked by the Norton program which comes in bundles with all apple/ Microsoft computers. My DH wrote the original program 20 years ago which is still up dated and used . He started the first digital war room at Microsoft.

Daniel same here .. the cherry tree was labeled a ornamental weeper when I purchased it years ago. It turned out to not be a s weeping cherry tree and produced sour cherries . The birds and wildlife have a better chance to retrieve cherries . The tree is over 30’. Last year was the first year it didn’t produce Cherry’s. Thank goodness . The cherry pits are a phenomenal mess to clean off the driveway. I guess you could say it was a giant boo boo… should have cut it down or trimmed it before it grew so big.

 

I used to use a heating pad too. It worked fine, but eventually wore out. The newer heating pad has automatic shut-off so people don't burn themselves, so I bought a seedling warming mat. Some are under $20 on Amazon. Mine are 5 to 10 years old now, still work. Mine doesn't have a cover. I re-purpose used plastic bags for that.

 

Same here heating pad used too in heated greenhouse to keep soil at the right temp. It really helped . They were just regular heat pads. The cats liked them in winters too.

 

That's great news about heating pads working for you all.
I have 2 propagators and a heated tray with a separate lid that hubby bought just in case i wanted a 3rd one.
Here's the small one

The larger one, i use this when i have a lot to do.

And the tray, i transfer the trays to here when they have germinated and only need bottom heat. But i have to remember to turn them off when the conservatory gets too hot.

 

The first I knew of it was when eBay told me that my account had been cloned and someone had scammed a purchaser out of £900. He got his money back.
The problem is that as technology improves, scammers find ways of circumventing some virus protection systems, as in this case Microsoft.
Even this morning I had an e-mail supposedly from McFee. I've never used McFee so that went straight to junk.