Seeds from WinterSown
14.8 years ago cheap, seed exchange, seed saving, seeds
I know many of your probably already know about WinterSown but for those of you that have not you must check them out. This is the first year I have requested seeds from them and I they completely blew away my expectations. By simply sending them an self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) and an optional donation they will send back some seeds of your choosing. I have gotten tired of my boring tomatoes I have been growing from the limited selections at local nursery and garden center so I chose the following: Husky Red Cherry, Persey Tomato, Red Brandywine, New Yorker, Mini Gold, Green Zebra, Tommy Toes, and they also sent me some Parsley which was not on my list though I was planning on growing this year.
They also included a pamphlet (mirrored) providing a long but not very labor intensive method of how to save your own tomato seeds which was yet another added bonus. I will be sure to save some seeds and send many of my extras back their way at the end of the season.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, tomato plants, vegetables
Cost of Hydroponic Nutrients
14.9 years ago cheap, hydroponics, nutrients
The first time you walk into a hydroponic store there can be a little sticker shock. At first it doesn’t look too bad, $14 for this bottle…oh wait I have to buy these three as well and you leave the store paying $80 to grow some basil and lettuce. Being cheap I like to know how much I will be spending on a hobby before I start out so I did a little exercise.
I took a look at the major nutrient manufacturers and determined using their recommended feeding schedule what it would cost per gallon to complete a 4 week vegetation cycle and a 8 week vegetable and bloom cycle.
To be fair I only included products that provided the primary/secondary macronutrients and micronutrients. Though I am not discounting the effectiveness of various supplements that these companies provide and I wanted to stick with the basics and have a close to an apples to apples comparison as possible.
| Avg, Price | Size | Nutrients Used over 4 weeks (Veg Only) |
Cost per Gallon of mixed nutrients | Nutrients Used over 8 weeks (Veg/Bloom) |
Cost per Gallon of mixed nutrients | |
General Hydroponics |
$ 1.08 | $ 2.80 | ||||
| FloraGrow | $ 12.50 | qt | 8.08 tsp | $ 0.53 | 12.12 tsp | $ 0.79 |
| FloraBloom | $ 12.50 | qt | 2.02 tsp | $ 0.13 | 14.14 tsp | $ 0.92 |
| FloraMicro | $ 15.95 | qt | 5.05 tsp | $ 0.42 | 13.13 tsp | $ 1.09 |
Dutch Nutrient Formula |
$ 0.82 | $ 2.30 | ||||
Advance Grow A |
$ 7.50 | L | 11 tsp | $ 0.41 | 11 tsp | $ 0.41 |
| Advance Grow B |
$ 7.50 | L | 11 tsp | $ 0.41 | 11 tsp | $ 0.41 |
Advance Flower A |
$ 7.50 | L | 0 tsp | $ – | 20 tsp | $ 0.74 |
| Advance Flower B |
$ 7.50 | L | 0 tsp | $ – | 20 tsp | $ 0.74 |
Dyna-Gro |
$ 0.66 | $ 2.03 | ||||
Liquid Grow |
$ 15.00 | qt | 3.5 tsp | $ 0.27 | 3.5 tsp | $ 0.27 |
Liquid Bloom |
$ 18.95 | qt | 0 tsp | $ – | 7 tsp | $ 0.69 |
Mag-Pro |
$ 17.95 | qt | 0.875 tsp | $ 0.08 | 3.875 tsp | $ 0.36 |
Pro-TeKt  |
$ 13.90 | qt | 4.25 tsp | $ 0.31 | 9.75 tsp | $ 0.71 |
At first glance these numbers look pretty promising, until you remember the fact that this is the cost per gallon. So if you had a 40 gallon reservoir this can make your cost obvious jump up significantly. Fortunately in my case I only fill my tank up to 9 gallons so a 4 week cycle would cost me on average $7.68 for a 4 week vegetative cycle or $21.39 for a 8 week vegetative and bloom cycle.
Now given I am planning on growing some legal herbs in my hydroponic system (basil/oregano/cilantro) and maybe a little lettuce. This would result in some pretty expensive produce. For this reason and that fact I love chemistry and don’t get to play with it much these days I am planning on going for the less expensive homemade nutrient route, which I will provide more details once I get some more conclusive results of success or failure…
Tags: cheap, cilantro, herb garden, vegetables
Cheap Hydroponic Bean sprouter
14.9 years ago cheap, ebb and flow, hydroponics
Maybe not the most hygienic solution but definitely cheap, innovative, and low maintenance. I’ll stick to my ebb and flow design, but thought I would share for those feeling adventurous.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
Simple and cheap homemade ebb and flow hydroponics system
14.9 years ago cheap, ebb and flow, hydroponics
Though not my first hydroponic system this is is definitely a little more complicated than my last attempt of an fogger system created last year. This time I decided to go with an Ebb and Flow system, where the concept it pretty simple, flood the planting area with water nutrients and let it drain, wait a defined amount of time and then repeat. For this build I had a few requirements:
- Must be inexpensive: Hey this is the cheap vegetable gardener site
- Must be small: I have a limited space to grow and nutrients can be expensive and given what I am growing is legal don’t really need $20 basil
- Must be safe from flooding: Though this is running in my garage, I really don’t want to come in with 10/20 gallons of water/nutrients on my floor.
- Could be adapted for alternate hydroponic system.
Given these requirements, this is what I came up with and how I built it:
Materials
- 18 gallon opaque Rubbermaid container (happened to have one of these around
- 5 gallon basin — SLUGIS box from Ikea ($5.99)
- vinyl tape (plumbers tape)
- 1 inch hole saw
- 1 inch threaded (diameter) to 3/4 PVC adapter
- 3/4 inch threaded (diameter) to 1/2 in hose adapter
- 2 3/4 inch PVC caps
- Cheap pond/fountain pump (100 GPH)
- 1 foot of 1/2 inch plastic tubing
- 2 foot 3/4 inch PVC pipe (only need couple inches but smallest length I could buy)
- aquarium/food grade silicon (optional I used this to ensure very watertight seal but found not necessary)
Construction
Take the 5 gallon basin and drill two 1 inch holes in the middle of each side. One whole should be drilled from the top and the other should be drilled from the bottom.�
Take both threaded adapters and apply liberal amount of vinyl tape.
Screw in the 1/2 inch hose adapter from the bottom with just barely enough clearance to pop through. When the pump stops the water will drain through this same hole.
For the overflow pipe, screw in the 3/4 inch PVC adapter in from the top until hand tight.
Take both caps and drill in a bunch of holes slightly smaller than your media. The basic idea is you don’t want some Hydroton clay balls falling into your pump or reservoir.
Cut about 2 inches of 3/4 PVC pipe and attach to overflow and top with PVC cap with dozen or so holes in it.
Lastly attach the 1/2 plastic tube to your pump and place everything on top of your 18 gallon Rubbermaid tub (which fits perfectly and is very sturdy) Fill with water nutrients and hook up your water pump to a 24 hour timer (or grow box controller)
Here is the Ebb & Flow system in action, as you can see very simple but very cheap and versatile.
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
LED/Christmas light projects
Just a friendly reminder to pick up some discounted LED or non-LED Christmas lights for some of my previous projects
Christmas LED Grow Box
Basically take a old Rubbermaid container and drill some holes and insert lights and you have your own Christmas light LED grow box. This worked great last year to hold my seedlings until they were ready to move into the bigger grow box in the garage. Here are some posts on construction and updates:
Cheap LED Light and Grow Box
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2
Supplemental Christmas LED Light
Similar idea to the LED grow box, though used in addition to your normal grow lights for a little additional red wavelength light, see posts below for complete construction directions:
Make your own supplemental LED grow light
Heating row tunnels (or grow box) with non-LED lights
Replacing your old Christmas lights with LEDs to save on your electricity bill? You can use your old regular old Christmas lights to heat your row tunnels to increase the temperature by about 10 degrees to help get your plants out a ahead of schedule. I have been using some of mine in my grow box to help during some of our colder nights this winter.
Heating row tunnels and grow box with Christmas lights
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Heating row tunnels and grow box with Christmas lights
15 years ago cheap, indoor growbox
Currently it is 16 degrees outside and given my grow box containing jalapeno peppers is in my unheated detached garage, which can bring some challenges. Like most plants, peppers will continue to grow in the range of 60 to 90 degrees, but thrive in 70 to 90 degrees. With the lights on the grow box gets to about 60 degrees but drips to the 50’s at night. This will result in plants having stunted growth and begin dropping blossoms before they can start bearing fruit.
My solution, a string of green mini Christmas lights. Just to clarify these are your typical small bulb Christmas lights not LEDs, given the efficiency of LEDs they do not product much extra heat which is what I am going for here. I also chose green Christmas lights because plants do not absorb this wavelength very well so they can be left on at night to keep heating while still letting the plants “sleep”.
Of course results will vary depending on the size of your grow box or outside row tunnel, insulation, and exterior temperature, but I am seeing 8-10 degree increase in temperature with a single string (50 bulbs)
I am always open to new ideas to safely, cheaply and efficiently heat my grow box or row tunnel so if anyone has any other suggestions please add a comment.
Tags: cheap, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants
