How lucky that you have a greenhouse, greenhouser. I wish I had one. I plan to look into it before long. Even a little one would do wonders. Still, we get so much hail around here that I wonder if it would be worth the effort. It has been very hot, 90's-100's here in Kansas, but suddenly we got hit by the remnants of the TX gulf hurricane and now it is overcast. We got between 4 and NINE inches of rain yesterday in a radius of six miles. So I'm thinking, now what? I've got Romaine lettuce seedlings ready to transplant. Do I dare? I think I'll give it a try and if it gets hot, I will cover them with row cover so they don't get toasted. Gardening is an adventure, isn't it? So glad I don't farm for a living. Whew, that would be scary.

I used a heat cable for years zip tied to hardwire cloth, wooden box with thick styro on the bottom, layer of sand, then the cable/cloth and soiless mix on top of that. Most seeds were up in 2-3 days in the unheated basement. All was fine till last season my new kitties decided this prop box was a great litter box. So now I have switched over to a heavy duty heat mat with wire cage in a wood box for 2 flat starts. I haven't bought the thermostat yet until I do temp trials. So far the lights with mylar and plastic over are keeping the soil temps at 72 but dip to 58 at night, so I will put a timer on the heat mat for when the lights are not running and test those temps. I had the lisianthus start to pop up in 6 days using this box.

"Pumping grease into a spindle cavity with sealed bearings is a waste of time and grease..." Thank you. But I will continue to pump my spindles full of grease and add some as times goes by. It has worked for 20 years on my Gravely 16G Pro which I have yet to replace a deck spindle. Besides. I would rather wear out grease than parts. Where most people make the mistake is when they buy cheap EP or Lithium based grease that breaks down at the first sign of getting warm. Go to NAPA and buy a good grease such as their Red High temp, or Bearing And Chassie grease. It will stay in the parts and you wont need to grease the spindles as often. "How about the steering? I grease mine every ten hours. Puzzled by grease only ever comes out of the top......wierd that" Thank of how the pivot pin and housing is designed. Much like the old king pin front end set-ups on cars and trucks. You must have something to keep the pin from sliding toward the top. The bottom of most tractors have some type of disc, Be it a washer or the way the pin is machined. The downward pressure from the weight of the tractor keeps a tighter seal on the mating parts than it does at the top. Which in turn like all things. The grease will flow in the direction of least resistance. Which happens to be the top. It pays to pull the king pins every couple of years or so and clean the old grease from the parts. It keeps the grease from drying out and causeing problems should you need to do repairs after a few years of service.

@John, I wasn't trying to pass judgment and apologise if it sounded that way. Just discussing. A meandering discussion: I was trying to draw a distinction between air pollution (e.g. particulate matter) which burning wood does cause; and greenhouse gases on the other. (I was mostly making this point in the context of the charcoal-in-soil issue - where making charcoal may not produce much CO2 but sure does produce air pollution) Air pollution: there are contexts in which burning wood makes sense and for those in more rural locations - I understand it; but it does produce air pollutants like particulate matter that have negative health effets - but concentration matters therefore distance etc from others matters. (I still think gas preferable if available from air pollution perspective but I'm not passing judgment - unless you live next door to me and are burning your wet leaves, in which case you'll definitely hear from me). Greenhouse gas discussion a lot more complex - I won't pretend to know how to best calculate GG trade-off between eg wood and gas, and if you need heat, you need to get it from somewhere. (Apart from other issues, methane leakage from pipelines and production probably worse than the CO2 from burning it). Not everyone gets cheap electric heat from hydro (including me). I was only making the point that when trees rot, not all gets converted into CO2, and how long it takes to get turned into CO2 matters from a GG/climate perspective. But that doesn't say much, the choice isn't usually burn it or leave it on the ground, but rather burn it or get the heat from some other source, and that other source matters. (And there are other factors like cost) And I'm just discussing here. I have an occasional wood fire for pleasure, I'm not a fanatic.