A Scorcher

How hot was it? I don't think it was really 108 degrees, but that is what the car said when I got in it. It was sitting in the sun. I think it was more like 99 degrees. I am hoping this will push the tomatoes over the hump into ripe. And maybe some melons , too?

How hot was it? I bought a new seed starting tray and left the clear lid on with no dome in partial shade and it turned into a solar oven and melted the plastic.


And the chickens were hot.

But I was able to cook some potatoes in the old solar oven. I made it a couple of years ago and it gets over 200 degrees easily. Today it was around 250. I would like to build a better one. I know you can get over 350 in a well built solar oven.

Compost Tea

Now that we have a compost system and a new batch of compost, I want to use it, but all the garden is in cultivation, so I don't want to mix it into the soil. Someone suggested I make compost tea, so I looked it up on the google machine.

I had most of what I needed, buckets and compost, but I didn't have an aquarium bubbler or tubing. I took a stroll over to my local stripmall and found a big chain pet store that had what I needed.

I followed the instructions I read at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and I was all set. Here is my first batch of compost tea bubbling away.

I just watered everything with it and the weather's getting hotter so we shall see what happens.