This is so cool, I've never seen this before. I don't have a garden at the moment unfortunately but I really enjoyed this video and the editing is great. Thank you!
@@Charles00-xj3kz I pretty much never pot up from the 2” soil blocks. I find that anything I start in that size block once its roots are showing it’s strong enough to go straight into the garden. Only exception would be if I’m starting earlier in the season and want to keep them in the greenhouse for another few weeks. Then I’d just put them into a 180mm (7”) plastic pot but transplant them out to the garden before the roots reach the sides of the pot (less than 4 weeks).
Another little tip. You can use a heat mat (which I have for my home brew) to get the soil blocks warmer and trick the seeds (like peppers) to start early.
I use 3 parts Coco coir, 2 parts sifted well rotted compost and 1 part coarse sand for my soil blocks. I agree with the transplant shock comment. With soil blocks you get super healthy transplants.
Nice. Simple recipe. I think sometimes you can overthink these things hey! Find what works for you and stick to it - that's Gardening 101 😁. The extra Coco Coir in your recipe is probably doing the same thing as the Perlite in mine. The only other reason I do like perlite is because it does help with compaction if all your other materials are too fine and so it gives a little bit better airflow.
Every person I have on my work sites I quote this. Trips falls breaks happen less then 3 feet on site by all means look up but dont forget to look down. Now we have OHS out of the way. I'm laughing at your pain mate true. I feel that. Just as bad as my 3m fall on to my knees 7 years ago.
@@dezpez7038 not yet but I’m not sure we have them. Inland Taipans on the other hand 😬. Another reason I wanted to move them away from the trees/bush area and into more of a clearing.
You said: "I want my tools to last a while" You could also consider linseed oiling the handles of all wooden tools to act as a Protestant and preserver to them
I see you have 24v batteries connected in series. Have you any issue with battery balancing and how do you solve it? As far as I know Victron battery balancer works only with 12v batteries bank.
They stay reasonably well balanced, we check them pretty regularly. I was just thinking though that I may design a process for cycling their order on a regular basis to ensure no issues.
I sure did, but the price has just come down so much it’s not really worth it. It might be if you went with the older tech (18650 li-ion cells), but I really wanted the lifespan of LiFePO4. And the warranty 😁
Cost of Sol PV ( vs. Utility power ). Did the math for you🌻 Most utility (grid) payers do this simple Interest calculation..."I will pay 100$/mo. for decades...so 1200$ x 20 years=24,000."...NO you won't!!. Ever hear of Inflation? And it's Compound Interest...Utility rates of Inflation avg.~5.5%* (some have been recently 40+%!!) for US electric Rate increases. So at *traditional avg. U.S. rate increase (prior to 2020), 1200$/ year becomes ~3,500.$ in year 20. Conclusion, if use same amt. of kWh/mo. over next 20 years at *traditional avg. rate increase , then you will avg. ~$1750$/ yr... or cumulative ~35,000.$$ over 20 years!!🧐 (if rates don't increase*...good luck with dreaming🤪. + if you qualify, there are pot. State Incentives for solar+ a Fed. Tax Credit of 30% off cost of PV systems🗽
Haha! Yeah lots of future upgrades planned. Gravel and firebreak probably a bit overkill in our area, but I do want to get the panels and wiring off the ground. Just did a whole long video on the setup a couple of weeks ago if you’re interested.
100% I just mean it’s already pretty clear there so all that’s needed is regular slashing. That being said, on the cards this year is a whole property firebreak. Gonna take a while. Dense ironbark 4km boundary 😬
Nothing annoys me more than paying over $700 a year to the power companies for their supply charge, even if you aren't using any of their power. I live in a residential area and I am grid connected, but looking at getting off the grid. I just need to work out how to survive our winter with low sunshine. I have installed 10kw of solar panels, a 4kw Victron Multiplus II, a Victron 450/100 MPPT charge controller and 32kwh of LifePo4 batteries. For 9 to 10 months of the year I am self sufficient as far as electricity goes. I was getting credits from the power company. The latest price rise for electricity includes a big drop in the price paid to me for the solar feed in tariff. With the price I am now being paid to feed back into the grid it works out I have to supply them with 55kwh's of power per day just to cover my daily supply charge. Lets do the maths on that, a daily supply charge of just under $2 per day costs me 55kwh's feed in/day which even at the lowest rate (off peak) would cost me $12.10 to buy from them, and 55kwh's would power 2 medium size houses for a day. I think the little guy is being taken for a ride again. My dream is to move to a bush block and go completely off grid. Its great to see you are living the dream. Keep up the good work.
Woah, that’s crazy! And I feel like stuff like that is only getting crazier and more and more unrealistic hey. What would it take for you to disconnect? That’s a pretty epic setup. Very similar to us and we’re 100% offgrid. But mind you we’re on a “tiny home” setup and are only using about 18kwh/day.
@@reganperry Hi, thanks for the reply. It sure is crazy and it drives me mad. We hear plenty about going green and saving the environment but there is very little incentive to do so, and as you say its getting crazier. As far as disconnecting, I would love to, but I am still working out if I could. I live in the south of NSW and solar production drops off hugely in winter. Many overcast and rainy days. My system has only been up and running since late November last year and this is my first winter to judge how well the system works. In February I produced 1258kwh's of solar but so far this month I have only produced 344kwh's. I am not even charging my battery at the moment. Most of the year is no problem, the battery is fully charged by lunch time and I export many kwh's back into the grid. I believe for me to disconnect I would need to run a generator in the bad weather of winter. Not sure what the neighbour's would think of that. I generally use about 20 to 22kwh's a day, but its cold now and the wife loves the split system A/C. So that pretty well doubles our usage. I was like you when designing my system. I spent many many hours watching youtube solar and off grid vids. I researched batteries, solar panels, inverters, charge controllers, cables and all associated electrical equipment. I dealt with a company in Victoria who are off grid specialists and Victron suppliers. They were very helpful. I was a little undersized with the 4kw Multiplus II but I have allowed for expansion of the system. I wired the board ready for a second Multiplus to run in parallel when I need to expand. As I said in my message above, I would love to buy some land, build a container house and go completely off grid. ( have watched many youtube vids on building container houses too ) lol. Maybe one day I will but I think I might have left it too late, might be getting a bit old for that now. You seem to have worked your system out well but if you have any questions or anything I can help you with just ask. cheers, Brian
Sounds like PG&E!!! I HATE THAT COMPANY WITH A PASSION! They’re the worst corrupt company that has a complete monopoly where I live. We have no choice and they’re currently charging $0.43 kWh for tier 1 and $0.52 kWh for tier 2. And they’re requesting ANOTHER price increase! It was $0.22/$0.35 cent 18 months ago. $0.12/$0.16 just 2 years ago!
@@Ang.0910Hi. You do seem to be getting a bad deal. Made worse for you because they have the monopoly. I am actually pretty happy with my electricity supplier and after checking what others are charging I think I am getting a pretty good deal except for the Solar feed in tarriff. My prices have just increased and I am much better off than you. Actually my prices decreased. I pay between 22 (off peak) and 27.5 cents (peak) kWh. My feed in tarriff reduced by around 30 to 35% at the same time. There is a real trend in reducing the payment for solar feed in by all companies. It seems that in the future all solar owners will be supplying a large amount of electricity into the grid and not being paid for it, making the big companies even richer. I have even heard there is talk that in the future solar owners will be charged to put their power back into the grid. Thats what I meant above about being taken for a ride. I am not looking at making money from selling solar power but it would be good to make enough to cover the daily supply charge. That was my aim but now that has become impossible. I think that Regan is certainly on the right track. Getting totally off the grid is the way to go.
Mate, they will teach you. And then you'll still need to watch for that secret stash. And I don't get, "wait for spring". 5 months is the magic number. Split your flock and get half when they are due to lay at the start of winter and you'll have eggs all year round. Oh. And they need 14 hours of light. You can manage that. You are on a journey of delight.
@@intothenight756d47 so true hey! I’ve been raising chickens for 10+ years and they still surprise me. I just meant that by spring they’d be 20 weeks old. We hatched this lot late February.
Nice summary! Have you considered better roof insulation for the shed? Alternatively you could install a small portable A/C unit - maybe a 300W heat pump which could give the equivalent of about 1200W of cooling. After all, it would only run on the hottest days when you have plenty of solar power anyway. Then you may get more life out of your LFP batteries which age much faster if charged at over 40C.
I’ve thought about a few ways to better insulate this shed but tbh it’s too small anyway so I think a full upgrade to a bigger shed with properly insulated walls and ceiling will be the project for this spring.
The way I understand the rules regards voltage (in Australia) is we can work with Extra Low Voltage (ELV) without needing an electrician. ELV being up to 120 volts DC ripple free and 50 volts AC RMS. But then again us Aussies have a habit of changing the rules all the time so it's always a big question mark. lol... you solar / power shed is the same shed as mine 😀I also run Victron gear and have found it to be extremely reliable 👍
Oh that’s really good to hear about the shed, I’ve been nervous about how it’s going to cope in summer. It’s out in the full sun so I definitely think I’ll at least want to insulate the north side of it (where the door is). Yeah, so true about electrical rules. Are you running off-grid, or connected to mains? Do you reckon it was worth it in your case?
Definitely. They get great sun where it is, but I think it’ll protect the panels a bit more from wildlife and ground moisture if I can elevate the racks. I’d love to put them on a system that I can adjust the angle for each season too. Putting the solar gear/shed under the panels is actually a great idea! That would just look a whole lot nicer. And, reduce the cable length from panel arrays to MPPT - I like it!
@@reganperry I have tiltable panels (vertical angle) which I adjust every month for best results. I get about 10-15% more power than my fixed angle panels for the garage. What surprised me was that I could get about 20% more power by pointing them straight up on cloudy days in Winter, which has the additional benefit of making them less vulnerable to Winter storm force winds.
That's so cool. I have some designs for a DIY tiltable array so I may just do that for next year. Never thought about straight up on cloudy days, but it kinda makes sense.
@@reganperry yes, the important ones still use it. I can easily visualize a meter it’s like a yard. But millimeters is just a sales ploy to make you think you have more of something. 100 millimeters sounds big but it’s just about 4 inches. Pretty weak, man! Long live the imperial measurements. Make men manly again!
Oh man that sux when that happens. Yep, I’ve had rats get into my chicks while raising them 😡. These days I make the coop mobile enough that we can move it around every few months/weeks so it confuses the predators.
Awesome, what did that set you back? We are hoping to start our homestead journey end of this year, what area are you guys? Looking for recommendations
About 1/3 of what they are now. We bought it 4 years ago. They cost about $18k now 😬 We’re in South-East Darling Downs region. Good for you - we need more Aussie homesteaders showing it can be done 👍
Thanks! Very new to all this. Thought I’d dip my feet in the “shorts” end of the pool while I’m learning. But yeah, I agree, time to put my big boy “long form” pants on 😁
If you know the ideal angles for each season, you can use legs that are on a pivoting point. Then mark the best leg lenght for each season and move them accordingly. Like a adjustable bench at the gym.
I know you did it at the end, but make sure the whole string is facing the same direction. Making an arch with the same string will decrease efficiency, unless they all have their own charge controller.
Yeah it’s actually 4 strings. 2S2P into a double controller unit. The east and west strings were the ones oriented differently. Still don’t think it did what I was hoping though.
