Store your airtight seed box in a pantry or somewhere dark and cool with minimum temp and humidity fluctuations.
The hardest thing I've found with growing food from seed is keeping up with the succession planting/sowing needed to achieve a continuous harvest.
We tend to put stems into soups...
That's nuts, I'm in Brisbane and so far not even all of my plants have popped their heads up, seems very late and I think I may have let them get too dry over winter.
Yeah after doing a bit more reading on pellicle formation I came to the same conclusion.
I can't remember for certain if it was gulped but I don't think so. I remember thinking that it had to have been either in the air or in the apple juice since all I'd done was open the bottle and pour some...
OK so a fair while back I had half a bottle of aldi apple juice left in the fridge and realised it had started fermenting by itself so I left it to ferment and was surprised by the fact it didn't taste too bad at all. I forgot about it in the back of my fridge but recently decided to rack off...
I made the mistake of trying to backsweeten a keg of overcarbonated (kept fermenting in keg) ginger beer with some sugar syrup and ended up losing at least 5 litres in a volcanic eruption. A sad day indeed although at the time I wasn't sure if it was the carbonation difference or temperature, so...
I still haven't either. I'm waiting to find out if the one I got for my bro is also affected before I commit to sending any back. Hope there is no issue with being a bit slow on returns.
If you want to bring the temp down you could always wrap a wet towel around the fermenter and point a fan at it which will cool through evaporation. Adding ice bricks around it might also help.
Is the heat pad set up with a thermostat?
I've grown basil in a deep water culture aquaponics setup with great results through summer so as long as there is enough oxygen and warmth they don't seem to mind wet feet. Not sure what is causing yours to be growing so poorly though.
Nice setup by the way.
Yeah you're right, water temperature being the most obvious one but I wouldn't be surprised if there are other variables.
Guess I'd be better off using a buffering solution after all, mind you I'm only using a cheap pH meter.