Month: April 2018

I like to save money wherever I can, so when it came to setting up a veggie garden I was happy to buy the seeds and raise them myself rather than buying seedlings. Raising your own seedlings is much more cost effective solution –  so long as the seeds germinate and thrive. We can also enjoy the satisfying achievement of growing them ourselves, and we get to participate in the miracle of life sprouting from lifeless looking seeds.

My experience up until recently had not been terribly successful. Many seeds would not sprout, especially the smaller seeds, despite keeping them moist and warm. A friend then told my wife this may be due to what I was sowing them into.

False economy

In my efforts to further save money, I was sowing seeds into pots filled with soil from my property. This could be a mixture of mulched eucalyptus leaves, sandy topsoil and compost. The compost was generally most successful, however I found this made my peas fail to sprout because they went mouldy:

[photo]

The right mix/True economy

Raising your own seedlings requires further investment in a good seed raising mix. It is false economy to pay for good seeds and sow them into the wrong soil.

I found different options including pine bark mulch, however I came across a post describing how to make your own from coir and vermiculite. While I haven’t tried this combination yet, I found a “Seed Raising Potting Mix Coir Block” at Bunnings which makes up 15L for $4.75. It’s such an easy recipe – you just add water and stir:

After a few minutes you end up with this really swell result:

I found planter tubes from a local recycled goods shop, rinsed them clean and filled them with the coir mix. The planter tubes sit in a re-used bulk meat tray. A pen lid was used to make holes at the correct depth:

Another meat tray was used as the lid to form a mini greenhouse:

This sat in my office near the window for a few days and he results were amazing. Every tube had sprouted seeds and some more than one:

As an experiment I had previously planted Kale seeds into eucalyptus mulch, which still had a smell of eucalyptus oil. This did not absorb the water well so I added water to the bottom tray, then covered each seed with fine sand. As you can see, the germination rate was not very high. The Kale seeds only sprouted in half of the tubes:

The good news/soil

This reminds me of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Although the seed was viable in every scenario, Jesus explained that it must land on rich soil to produce a harvest. When our hearts receive and fully embrace the Good News of salvation, it always bears good fruit!

A few months ago the screen of my work iPad cracked. Although it had a large protective cover around the edges, it appears something hard was pushed directly against the screen itself. The cracks form a lovely 4-pointed star shape:

Things look even worse on this angle:

Resin to the rescue

I happened to have spare resin left over from a Rain-X Windshield Repair Kit that I’d used on our 4WD and car windscreens, which reduces the appearance of cracks and minimises the chance of bull’s eyes from spreading. These repairs went quite well so I thought this might do the trick on the iPad screen too. It was definitely worth a crack!

After cleaning the screen carefully, I pushed the applicator base onto the screen so the centre ring was directly above the central impact point. I then  positioned the applicator and adjusted the suction cup legs to ensure the suction cups were not covering any of the cracks:

The resin chamber was then screwed into the centre ring, so the rubber mouth sat directly on top of the point of impact:

A few drops of resin were then squeezed into the resin chamber and the pressure driver screwed on to apply resin into the cracks. Additional resin was also applied directly from the bottle into sections of the cracks that hadn’t been filled from the resin chamber. I actually ran out of resin in the end, but it was enough to do a decent job.

The applicator was removed as per instructions, and curing strips applied to cover all of the cracks:

The iPad was then placed in the sun, as the resin is cured by Ultra Violet (UV) light. I actually had to take it out of the sun a few times because the black screen overheated in direct sunlight, and iOS showed the high temperature warning until it had cooled down again.

When the resin had hardened, the curing strips were removed and excess resin scraped away using a razor blade.

A cracker solution!

Overall I am quite happy with the result. The cracks have changed from a distinct line to a dotted and dashed line which is much harder to see – and harder to photograph!

My mother in law was using this iPad recently and didn’t even realise the screen was cracked until she went outside! The photo below was taken outside in the sunshine to show how the crack is still visible under very bright light at the correct angle:

Although the cracks are still slightly noticeable, it’s a vast improvement over the original condition. I might not go out and buy a windscreen repair kit just to fix a cracked tablet or phone screen, although it’s definitely a viable option if you don’t have the time to replace the screen yourself or the money to have someone else fix it.