DeepBass9

Au contraire, they are already in the ground. I had a worm farm going for some time in an old bath. I then I took handfuls of worms and put them under the mulch in various places, and now they are everywhere. When I plant the seedlings through the mulch, there are always a few worms in the hole.

Update now that it has rained. It got really hot before the rain came with 35 degree days, and these seedlings would have all expired if it wasn't for the mulching. The bare ground in other places was too hot to walk on, so the plants would have shrivelled. We are getting a few weeds coming up now, so I just go around with a weedeater every now and then, and put some more straw close to plants. Or just stomp on the weeds and put straw down. Easy! Tomatoes being staked up with first fruit: Squash, pattipans, beans etc: Pumpkins, hubbards etc:

I also have two of those that have been working fine for a few years now. The only funny thing with those is I notice if I am running a generator a lot then they start to gain time, although I keep the genny at 50Hz.

Is this grid tie system? What are the loads? Once the batteries are charged, and there is no load, there is no current drawn from the panels. If you want to get the theoretical maximum out of the panels, switch on a kettle at midday on the 21st of December.

That's a good price for a battery bank that size. What's the life expectancy on the 2V cells?

Thinking further about your situation with alkaline soil. Ca and Mg are good for plants, but in an alkaline environment they are insoluble and are not taken up by the plant, or in too high a concentration. Using the deep mulching puts a lot more organic matter in the soil which neutralises the pH and makes more nutrients available to the plants, as well as conserving moisture. The thing to do is to try a large variety of different vegetables, and different varieties of those vegetables until you find something that works well in your circumstances. There are some things, like peppers, I

Im sure that will work. Just googling a typical compostion of chicken manure gives a NPK composition of 1:3:2, so that should be good for fruiting vegetables.

Basically this idea arose from seeing what could be done with leftover feed bales, which then lead to an epiphany about nutrient cycles and a better understanding of soil characteristics. Google and read about permaculture principles as that informs a lot of what I am doing. I do use wood ash as a fertilisers, particularly putting it around fruit trees as it has lots of K and other alkaline oxides. We try and incorporate anything organic into the whole system so for any 'waste' the logic goes like this: 1. Will the dog eat it? Yes/ No go to next option: 2. Will the poultry

Next up squash: And tomatoes:

LOL. I was about to make a chirp about doing what you want WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING!. But I see others beat me to it.

OK, so quite a substantial generator. 7.5 kVA or bigger. Thanks.

No one has tried welding with a generator? Is this just a software forum now?

I need to do some welding jobs around the farm. I have a small DC inverter welder that will do the job. I generally weld at 80-100A. I need to rent or buy a portable generator for this. How big a generator do you need to drive a welder? Or is is better to use a generator/welder unit that is designed for the job?

Switch on a few big loads t midday and see what solar production you get, it can be you have few loads and your batteries are charged, so as pointed out above, there is nothing for the power to do.

That ray from the Death Star can cause that effect.