FeedBack Link-uP FeedBack

Dear Grass Roots,

I have been busy in the garden again, trying to keep snails off my new crops without poisons, and I have come up with a new invention that also waters the emerging seeds. It’s a WATER PIPE FRAME about 1m long made from 90mm downpipe.

I pour water and/or worm juice into the T-piece, it holds 19lt of water and takes about four hours to empty through 16 drippers underneath the two white pipes. The water pipe frame sits on a wooden frame covered with plastic gutter guard mesh, so snails, birds and cats can’t get to the newly emerging seedlings. I have sown the soil area underneath to carrots and onions, interesting to see how long it takes for the seeds to break through the soil, with constant moisture. The water frame also shades during the hot summer days.

This is my other fun idea which also stops snails from getting to my plants, it’s made from a fan cover and some mice/snake mesh and 2 x 1 timber. The bottle has five drippers underneath attached to a four way conduit hub, the 2lt of water lasts about 2 hours, but at least it keeps snails, birds and cats away from the seedlings growing inside the net cage. The sheer number of fans thrown out at the local rubbish tip is disappointing but this is a great way to get a second use from a fan cover, should last for years. I have Brussels sprouts seeds sown under this fan cage.

The photos show the fan cover right way up and in operation, and then the underside of the fan cover cage.

I’m hoping readers will be encouraged to try this and my other inventions.

Peter h owarth, G UNNEDA h, NSW. Dear GR Readers,

I have always been an advocate of selling seeds on Loc AL S EEDS , an online marketplace for local seed savers. I wouldn’t anymore. I lost my phone after being completely flooded out last year and months later contacted Local Seeds with my new phone number and email address. A couple of months after this I again contacted Local Seeds to get $70 from my Local Seeds account transferred to my bank account.

I was told it wasn’t possible, I could be a scammer. We continued to go back and forwards, only to revert back to the request for me to retrieve a reset password on my lost phone. I explained I had taken the old phone to the Optus store, but because some time had elapsed, the data was no longer there. This scenario just went backwards and forwards, I was even asked to take the phone to Telstra, the person didn’t appear to listen to what I said as I’d already said I was with Optus.

The interactions got worse, and although Local Seeds happily accepted my new phone number and email they got stuck on the identity issue and who I was or wasn’t. There didn’t seem a will to find a solution and so the $70 stayed with Local Seed at a time when I could have used the money to help get back on my feet again. This is just one person’s experience, but keep it in mind.

Mari, NSW.