Top gardening posts of 2010
13.9 years ago cheap, garden planter, LEDs, moisture sensor, upside down planter
2010 has been a pretty exciting year for CheapVegetableGardener.com. Bringing on a significant number of more readers and many great mentions by some large publications, I thought I would mention the top 5 posts of 2010 which helped this happen in case you missed them.
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Being kicked off by an awesome mention in a New York Times article and subsequent interview on Science Friday on NPR, this article on making your own tomato planter held the #1 spot. By taking a two liter bottle, a little spray paint, and a chopstick (or small stick) you can make your own upside down tomato planter. |
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This article has received some decent traffic from numerous sites but the mention on lifehacker.com is what put this one on the #2 spot. Now if you are trying to make a little profit from your extra harvest or just trying to save a little extra money at the grocery store this post lists the top vegetables for your gardening square foot. |
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Want to start some seedlings indoors without spending a fortune on lighting? Check out this Christmas light LED grow box post which has held the #3 spot. All it takes is a couple of strings of LEDs (purchased during after Christmas sales of course), a Rubbermaid container, a drill, and a little patience you can have your own indoor growing apparatus. |
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Sometimes I got busy in the early spring and forgot to water my neglected seedlings in the grow box in my garage. To solve this problem I made these great little soil sensors using galvanized nails and Plaster of Paris. Check out this post which help the #4 spot for the full build instructions. |
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Finally after some personal trial and error the #5 post of this year goes into detail on how to create a new garden bed. This covers the basics of picking the proper location and also some cost benefit analysis for using various materials (cinder blocks, wood, chiseled wall blocks, bricks) to build a new bed. |
How to make your own cheap weather station
14.1 years ago cheap, freezing, last frost date, thermometer, weather station
Though the prices for personal weather station
Step 1: Create an account and weather station at Weather Underground. This will allow you a place to view your weather station results as well as a permanent storage location for your data. After you have created your account it is really easy to create a weather station after clicking this link you just need to enter some basic information such as address and time zone click “Submit” and you have yourself a weather station. Now this is not very exciting unless data is being updated so we will look at this next.
Step 2: Get some data. Hear is a point where you can go all out with every weather measurement sensor imaginable, though if this was your intent I would recommend saving some money and getting a personal weather station
SerialPort serialPort = new SerialPort(“COM5”, 9600); serialPort.Open(); serialPort.WriteLine(“2”); double responseValue = Convert.ToDouble(serialPort.ReadLine()); serialPort.Close();
You could also use something similar to my homemade waterproof digital thermometer and an arduino to get your outside temperature.
Step 3: Log your results. WeatherUnderground makes submitting data to them very easy. All that is required is a specially formatted query string request which you could do in any internet browser…though updating this manually every 5 minutes would be very tedious this is how can do this also using C#. All that is required is to replace the “ID” with your weather station created in Step 1 and your password used when you created your account.
string submitUrl = “http://weatherstation.wunderground.com/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php?action=updateraw&ID=KWAREDMO38&PASSWORD=[password]&”; submitUrl += “dateutc=” + DateTime.UtcNow.ToString(“yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss”) + “&”; submitUrl += “tempf=” + GetOutdoorTemp(); // Using code above WebClient webClient = new WebCLient(); webClient.DownloadString(submitUrl);
Now by calling the above code every 5 minutes using an infinite loop with some delay you can now log your temperature results and have current and historical data to have some better info to better guess your first/last frost dates or when it is safe to bring out your tender seedlings you are growing indoors.
Step 4 (optional): Leverage external weather data. As you may have noticed my weather station has more weather data than just temperature. I did this by leveraging (nicer word than stealing) some data from a weather station at a school in my neighborhood. Now this is not quite as accurate as if I was getting this information from my backyard…it is pretty safe to assume that the humidity, rain, and wind velocity and direction should be pretty much in the same ballpark. The process is pretty simple here where I extract this from a request to the external weather station and include these into my submission, which you can see in the code sample below.
1: using System;
2: using System.IO.Ports;
3: using System.Xml;
4: using System.Net;
5:
6: namespace WeatherStation
7: {
8: class Program
9: {
10: private static WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
11:
12: static void Main(string[] args)
13: {
14: while (true)
15: {
16: SubmitWeatherInfo();
17:
18: System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(300000);
19: }
20: }
21:
22: public static void SubmitWeatherInfo()
23: {
24: string submitUrl = "http://weatherstation.wunderground.com/weatherstation/updateweatherstation.php?action=updateraw&ID=KWAREDMO38&PASSWORD=[password]&";
25: submitUrl += "dateutc=" + DateTime.UtcNow.ToString("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss") + "&";
26: submitUrl += "tempf=" + GetOutdoorTemp() + "&";
27: submitUrl += GetExternalWeatherData();
28:
29: webClient.DownloadString(submitUrl);
30: }
31:
32: private static double GetOutdoorTemp()
33: {
34: SerialPort serialPort = new SerialPort("COM5", 9600);
35: serialPort.Open();
36: serialPort.WriteLine("2");
37: double responseValue = Convert.ToDouble(serialPort.ReadLine());
38:
39: serialPort.Close();
40:
41: return CelsiusToFahrenheit(responseValue);
42: }
43:
44: public static double CelsiusToFahrenheit(double temperatureCelsius)
45: {
46: return (temperatureCelsius * 9 / 5) + 32;
47: }
48:
49:
50: private static string GetExternalWeatherData()
51: {
52: string externalWeatherStation = "http://api.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXCurrentObXML.asp?";
53: externalWeatherStation += "ID=[ExternalWeatherStationId]";
54:
55: XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
56: xmlDoc.LoadXml(webClient.DownloadString(externalWeatherStation));
57:
58: string externalData = "&winddir=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//wind_degrees").InnerText;
59: externalData += "&windspeedmph=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//wind_mph").InnerText;
60: externalData += "&windgustmph=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//wind_gust_mph").InnerText;
61: externalData += "&baromin=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//pressure_in").InnerText;
62: externalData += "&humidity=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//relative_humidity").InnerText;
63: externalData += "&dewptf=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//dewpoint_f").InnerText;
64: externalData += "&rainin=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//precip_1hr_in").InnerText;
65: externalData += "&dailyrainin=" + xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//precip_today_in").InnerText;
66:
67: return externalData;
68: }
69: }
70: }
Getting some great deals on gardening supplies
14.2 years ago cheap, jalapeno, peppers, strawberries, upside down planter
With stores making way for Halloween and Christmas decorations, now is the perfect time to find some great closeout deals at your local grocery store or garden center. I had meant to imitate the Topsy Turvy planters above, but at 60-70% off I was not even cheap enough to pass up on these deals for the Topsy Turvy Strawberry Planter
Given my desire to grow even more peppers next year the pepper planter will work great to try out a few new plants.
And no, there was nothing wrong with camera on the picture above that’s what the boxes actually look like. I combination of too much sun and then getting heavily rained on over the past couple weeks led to an even bigger discount. Hoping to fill these with the strawberry runners that are trying to escape their garden bed.
So head down to your local garden center and check out those items you have thought about but never pulled the trigger, you just might find a deal you are glad you did not miss out one.
If you found any good deals, I would love to hear about it in the comments…
Building a BBQ Smoker
14.2 years ago cheap, jalapeno, smoker
After many suggestions that I should smoke my jalapeno peppers in comments of my making jalapeno pepper powder post, I decided to give it a try. After doing a little looking most recommendations say to use a new or very clean smoker so this eliminates using my propane grill as smoker and an excuse opportunity to make myself a smoker.
After a little research on the internet I determined my two potential proposed homemade smoker solutions.
First is Anton Brown’s flower pot smoker, which takes a couple of terra cotta pots and a 16 inch grill. This is electric powered using a hot plate topped with a pie pan full of wet wood chunks/chips.
The second design I liked was the aluminum trash can smoker design, which is basically the same idea as the flower pot design except (obviously) you use a garbage can instead of the flower pots. You use the hot plate and pie tin in the same manner.
Armed with my design ideas in my head I was off to my local home improvement store to pick up some materials. I first started with the flower pot design but I couldn’t find the azalea pot bug enough to cover the bottom terra cotta pot, nor a grill to fit. That along with the estimated prices being $60-70 dollars not even including the electric heater.
Optimistic I checked out the aluminum garbage cans, though there was a similar problem of not being able to find a grill to fit right. I thought about creating a couple supports using metal rods or attaching with a few pieces of wire. In the end the cost of the can/grill minus the electric heater was about $50-60 and I get the great aesthetics of a garbage can smoker in my back yard.
This led to my eventual purchase of the Brinkmann Smoke’N Grill Charcoal Smoker and Grill
Though the hacker in me could not resist making a couple of minor modifications. First I added a real thermometer given the Warm/Ideal/Hot was a little lacking in specific information.
Second I used some of my leftover wire from the construction of my soil sieve cut to size with the corners bent to elevate the charcoal about an inch from the bottom to allow the ashes to not smother the lit coals.
I completed the 2 hour curing process using charcoal and will be smoking some peppers this labor day weekend, so stay tuned.
Organizing seeds using bead containers
14.3 years ago cheap, seed saving, seed storing
I first saw this idea on a garden mailing list at work but given most of you are not on that, I figured I should share with the rest of you. My problem was I had a big bag of seeds and it was always a pain to dif through and find the right seeds for the time of year I was planting.
My solution was to use Darice Bead Container
One printed I added the seeds and labels and grouped by planting time. After I was done I did have some thoughts about getting even more organized with a little color coding of specific dates…but guess I should take small steps
As you can see from a glance you can find your seeds and do a quick inventory of your available seeds. With this you can make easy incites like, “I really shouldn’t plant on collecting onion seeds this year” or “I almost forgot to plant fall spinach/lettuce”
Well off knock off a onion flower and plant some spinach and lettuce for this fall/winter.
Tags: seed
Making your own garlic powder
14.3 years ago cheap, dehydrator, garlic bulbs
I like to use garlic powder for making my own BBQ rubs and in cooking where I am too lazy to cut up some fresh garlic. Whenever I go to buy garlic powder at the grocery store I normally end up convincing myself to get 11 ounces of garlic salt at $3.99 versus the $7.49 for a 9 ounce container of garlic powder. Though this not what I really wanted, the cheapness in me always wins. Given I picked up a fancy food dehydrator recently, this year I have opted to make my own.
When creating my garlic braid I found many imperfect bulbs as well as some small bulbs which I set aside to be the victims into making garlic powder.
Step #1: Peel the and clean the cloves
The title pretty much sums it up but you need to get the cloves and peel off the outer layer of all the cloves. I normally following this up with a quick rinse to help get rid of the various loose pieces and make them a little less sticky (and smelly)
Step #2 Slice the garlic
The size is not that important, though the general idea is all of the slices should be about the same general size. This way they all should complete drying at the same time. Obviously the smaller you slice the quicker they will dry which may not be a good thing which I will explain later.
Step #3 Dry the garlic
Place the garlic in your food dehydrator with no pieces touching at 125-130F (or as close as yours can get) and if you sliced thin they could be ready in about 12 hours or if they were huge hunks like mine more like 3-4 days. The easy way to tell if they are done is by picking the largest clove chunk you can find and break it in half with your fingers. If it brittle and breaks cleanly they are ready, if it is soft and bends some check again in about 8-12 hours.
Step #4 Grind the garlic
Here is where you have a couple options, you can grind all of the cloves using a spice/coffee grinder and store in an airtight container or simply store the chunks in an airtight container and grind into powder as needed.
If you smell the chunks you may be surprised that there is not a strong garlic smell, that is because the outside has become oxidized. Though if you break one in half and take a smell or pop it in your mouth (if you are daring) you will see there is plenty of flavor inside. If you grind the garlic chunks they will start to oxidize reducing their effectiveness and given the new much larger surface area of the small particles it will not take long for your garlic to lose the great aroma it previous had.
You can preserve this potency longer by keeping the garlic as chunks and grinding it into powder right before using. Though bringing out and cleaning a spice grinder each time you cook with garlic can be a pain, so I would recommend grinding as much as you expect to use for a couple months and save the garlic chunks in an air tight contain and grind when needed so you always have fresh garlic powder ready to use.
As with any spices once opened they are good for about 6 months ground or 12 month whole when stored in an airtight container and twice those numbers if vacuum packed. So the garlic chunks are useable for one year with about half that for ground variety. You can also store garlic powder or garlic chunks in an airtight container in your freezer to gain a few extra months.
Tags: garlic
