Growing
vegetables in Spring
October 18th, 2011
Early capsicums
Finally got around to checking the temperature under the
newly planted capsicums. We have just had some cold
rain, so I expected the soil temperature to be down:
sure enough, it was 15.5oC (at 50 mm deep). The
temperature under the bottles was 1 degree higher, at
16.5oC. Not much of a difference, but still
useful, especially as this was at 5.30 pm in the late
afternoon on a overcast rainy day.
October 10, 2011
Early capsicums
Bottled water from the supermarket is pretty expensive. And
those plastic bottles are real wasteful. Thats why I decided
to bottle my own tank water into old wine bottles and save,
save save! As it happens ,there are plenty of wine bottles
laying around (!), I have been saving them up, with the idea
of using them to make a low retaining wall for the vege
garden 'one day'.
Nah, just joking - I've never understood the bottled water
thing, when we have perfectly good water straight out of the
tap.
Actually, I had just planted some little capsicum plants
(variety 'target', from the local Mitre10), and was watching
resignedly as the skys clouded over and a cool wind started
whipping then around. Always a good idea to 'plant early and
get a jump on the season'. Yeah, right!
Thats where the bottles of water come in. It occured to me
that the bottles of water might act as a sort of 'solar
collector', storing the suns heat and passing it to the
moist soil below. Capsicums are warmth loving plants, and
even a dgree or two of extra heat in the soil might help
them get their roots down. In addition, the bottles
themselves might act as a physical windbreak while the
plants are tiny. At least to a certain extent, anyway.
If I can find my old soil thermometer, I'll check the soil
temperatures later today.
gehnh