Temperature – Peter Donegan Garden Design & Landscaping

With high day time temperatures, the sun factor increasing the warmth in the greenhouse well above the the teens and night time temperatures in the minus…. I could almost do a piece here on autumn colour but… it’s March and there are no leaves on the trees. So instead the resulting problem and piece is one of possible woe rather than beauty and colour.

I know that around 12 – 14 degree celcius is what makes [almost all] plants start to grow and the reason this is so important is that I’ve just started my seed growing for this year.

The temperatures in the greenhouse [as you can see above] are more than enough to make the seeds germinate. The problem is that when the little baby seedlings pop out from their store of food [the seed] the low temperatures at night time can come along and literally whack them.

In theory, the water in the plant cells expand when it freezes and this bursts the cells. Put simply the affected cells are dead. That’s not so bad if the plant is an established hedge but for a weakling and barely days old seedling with a very thin outer skin that is so easily penetrated, there is no way back.

I hear you say, I could have waited. Kept my eye on the calender or clock. Been a little more patient and waited a bit longer before I started my sowing campaign. I could even have bought myself a greenhouse heater…. but where’s the fun in that.

I’ve waited this long, this year, to get outdoors and get grooving in the garden… Similar to the Irish potato farmers and the season they’ve just had, I’ll take my [very well calculated] chances against the elements and hope I’ve simply got a head start. If it doesn’t work out… I’ll scatter my seeds and try again. 😉

Maximum Minimum Thermometer

update: the digital max/ min thermometer broke after about 4 months. It was left outside… well in a glasshouse… where it is supposed to be left.

I have to admit I’m a big fan of the old style paraphernalia when it comes to gardens.

As you may also know I like nothing else than to browse the aisles of the garden centres and hardware stores on my weekends off…. 😉

When I was in B & Q this weekend… yes B & Q I was blown away when I saw they sold digital maximimum minimum thermometers.

For those who do not know what the maximum minimum thermometer does exactly…

It records the lowest temperature and the highest temperature on two seperate guages… [or at least it did]. And as you can see in the picture [left] the temperature scale on one side is inverted. As the temperature rises or falls the mercury pushes the blue bit upwards [or down] recording the lowest and the highest temps. The point of the mercury on both sides always showing equally the current temperature. To reset one simply pushed the button and allowed the blue bit to fall. Simple. But extremely effective.

B & Q however now sell a digital version…..

I can already hear the glasshouses of the ye olde gardene fraternity shudder upon its foundation…

It works. It works quite well to be very honest. It digitally tells me the max and min temperatures overnight… but… where the mercury should rise and fall and manually tell the same…. [the long bit of the object] it doesn’t. It only tells the current temperature. In both lines.

In ye olde terms if I was standing on the pulpit… it’s a fake…. An imposter!

But I’m not on the pulpit… and digitally it’s extremely good. The only thing I would be concerned about is that for the €15.30 I paid for it, will it last as long as my old pal the manual version…. ?

The instructions do tell you you will need the skinnier version of the slim battery – but what it doesn’t tell you is that you will also need a box of micro chip screwdrivers to get the battery in.

*I have not been paid for this review nor did I receive the product free gratis.

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