The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

How to determine your seed germination rate

15 years ago germination, seed saving, seed storing, seeds 1 Comment

Whether you are trying to determine if those seeds you have been stored for 3-4 years are still good or questioning your ability to harvest seeds on your own testing germination is a great way to take away from of the guesswork and avoid disappointment next spring.

The process is very simple, I believe I did the same thing in second grade during our plant section.  Though that was to observe how a seed sprouts/roots the concept is exactly the same.

Take a wet paper towel and place 10 seeds on it and place the wet paper towel in a Ziploc bag.  After a few days (or weeks depending on the normal germination rate) check back on your seeds and count how many sprouted.

In my case six out of ten of the jalapeno seeds sprouted.  So just do the simple math using the following formula:

Germination rate = (# seeds sprouted/# total seeds sprouted) X 100

So in my case:

(6 seeds sprouted/10 seeds total) X 100 = 60% germination rate

Of course the more seeds you use in your “trial” the more accurate the results will be for my purposes the error rate is good enough for me.

If I was a seed seller this would be disastrous since most distributors have germination limits (90-95%), but given these are for my own use and I have about 300 more seeds that I will use no major loss.  Though I will need to remember when I plant these out I will want to plant 2 seeds per cell to have good odds one of the seeds will germinate.

Another option is to give your 4 year old a handful of seeds and a pot full of dirt and see if most of them sprout.  Much less scientific but my daughter didn’t seem to notice.

Square Foot Gardening Grow More in Less Space: Book Review

13.6 years ago product review, square foot gardening 4 Comments

I can not say enough positive things about this book, it might be because the very first gardening book I ever read was the original Square Foot Gardening book. It provided me with the basic tools to setup my first garden with great success. Provided I can basically credit my success to gardening and the eventual creation of this blog directly to the initial reading of this book, in many ways I look at Mel Bartholomew as the original “cheap vegetable gardener” with the many cost saving tips he mentions in his books. Though the original book written many decades ago can still be applied today, there were a few parts of this book that made following all the techniques difficult, one specific example is his “perfect soil” consisted of 7 different ingredients which many could be purchased at your local nursery but one specific ingredient “wood ashes” are much less common with majority of houses using alternate fuels for heating these days. The good news this problem as well as many others were taken care of in his latest installment of his series All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!

As the title explains the primary premise of square foot gardening is by dividing your garden into one foot by one foot squares. Not only is this beneficial for garden organization but also allows an easy way to implement intensive gardening in your own backyard garden allowing you to grow more vegetables in much less space compared to growing the same plants in rows. Be eliminating the need for rows or more specifically the need for spaces between rows you can plant more vegetables in a smaller space. This is visualized below with the visualization in the left being 144 carrots being grown using the square foot method compared to the visualization in the right using conventional row methods (with minimal gaps between rows) yielding 60 carrots with both being planted in a 9 square foot area.

Now with no rows you might be thinking, “How can I weed, water, or harvest without having access through rows, the solution to this is actually quite simple by creating a series of small beds no more than 4 feet wide. This provides easy access to do your garden maintenance by only requiring a maximum of a 2 foot reach required to access any square from one of the four sides. Below you can see my then two year old daughter demonstrating the ease of this.

Now I have talked a bit about the process lets get back to the book. What is great about this book is it provides chapters on all of the stages of starting your own garden. It goes from picking your best location to start your garden, creating vertical trellises, starting seeds indoors/outdoors, watering and maintaining your plants, and finally harvesting. But wait there’s more…there is also a great section on extending your gardening season with hoop covers and cold frames with detailed directions on all of these.

Though the content of the chapters are great the section I keep coming back to year after year is the appendix in the back that lists the common types if vegetables which provides great visuals to how and when to plant and harvest each of these veggies as well as specific care instructions to deter various disease and pests associated with that particular plant. Unfortunately this section was removed from the new book, but the good news is since the previous version has been in print for over 30 years you can pickup a copy used for almost nothing.

Overall if there is on gardening book I would recommend to someone starting out with gardening All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! would be the first book I would recommend. Not only is the advice very effective it is also economical providing great methods using many materials you may already have in your back yard.

Cheap fogger hydroponics final results

15.5 years ago aeroponics, cheap, hydroponics, peppers, tomato 2 Comments

In case you missed them here is the original post on the creation of this fogger hydroponic system, and the latest update (before this one).

The plants still are still looking pretty healthy with the exception of a little phosphorus deficiency, but the blame goes on me for that one.  Been a little busy at work and have been neglecting the plants.

I decided to end this experiment since their roots were starting to get tangled and I want to use these plants for another project.

These roots are healthier than they look, some soil leached in when I put some of my pepper plants on top of the hydroponic box.

This pepper plant look really good, haven’t decided what to do with it yet.  Maybe the victim volunteer for the next hydroponic experiment.

How to use Vegetronix soil moisture sensor (VG400) on Arduino

15.1 years ago arduino, moisture sensor 36 Comments

With the summer starting to come to a close it has been time for me to start thinking back to the computerized grow box.  I have been doing some considerable work on the electronics and software over the summer.  Better to break stuff while the plants are outside and not while killing them inside.

Though I have been happy with my homemade gypsum soil sensors I decided to try out a commercial option hoping for better accuracy and longer life.  This is important with my current plans to include automatic watering to the latest version of my grow box.  Don’t want to wake up to a flood in the garage due to a broken sensor.  After some looking I came across the Vegetronix VG400 which measures the dielectric constant of the soil using transmission line techniques.  Which I have no idea what that means but sounds impressive.

The hookup couldn’t be simpler, red wire to 3V, bare wire to ground, and black wire to an analog input.  As you can see below in my completely not to scale diagram below.

From here it all comes down to some simple code to write on the Arduino to get some values.

Upload the code to the Arduino and now I can get a moisture value from the analog input between 0 and 614 (0-3 volts) depending on the degree of water saturation.

Though not as hacky as my PS2 controller moisture sensor solution definitely more elegant and reliable.  Stay tuned for more details of other improvements to the computer controlled grow box.

Guest Post – Sustainability Through the Consumption of Things Conserved

14.2 years ago Uncategorized 3 Comments

I do not have too many guest posts but I thought this topic was so interesting I couldn’t refuse.  Though Dan specifically talks about purchasing more exotic foods for consumption but the very same principals can also be used when selecting species of plants to grow in your garden.

“In other environmental issues we tell people to stop something, reduce their impact, reduce their damage,” – US Ecologist Gary Nabham

Since the beginning of the green movement, there has been a rise in the number of organizations and businesses that are doing their part in the promotion of sustainability through conservation. As human beings, we’re told to reduce our carbon footprint, consume less unhealthy foods, and spend less time in the shower! But let’s take a minute to step back and look at this from a different perspective; one that Gary Nabham strongly suggests.

Gary Paul Nabham, phD., is a Arab-American writer/conservationist who’s extensive farming work in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region has made him world renown. Specifically speaking, Nabham is known for his work in biodiversity as an ethnobotanist. His uplifting messages and attitude towards life and culture has granted us access to multiple beneficial theories including his latest of eat what you conserve.

According to The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, about three quarters of the genetic diversity of crops been vanishing over the last century and that a dozen species now gives 90% of the animal protein eaten globally. In accordance, just 4 crop species supply half of plant based calories in the human diet.

Nabham claims that by eating the fruits and vegetables that we are attempting to conserve/save, we’re promoting the granular dissemination of various plant species. But this goes beyond what we typically buy in supermarkets, particularly because of price and abundance. We must remember to try new things and immerse ourselves in the very concept of diversity. Keep in mind; the benefits of splurging for that costly fruit/vegetable supremely outweigh the cons. Not only are you promoting biodiversity and further eliminating the needs of farmers to remove rare, less purchased crops off their agenda, but you’re also effectively encouraging healthier lifestyles.

Agriculturist Marco Contiero mentioned that “biodiversity is an essential characteristic of any sustainable agricultural system, especially in the context of climate change.”[ 1] With sustainable crop efforts being lead by the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) and the IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) the duo plans to provide a more sustainable crop, untouched by natural disasters, much like the ones experience in Haiti and neighboring areas. Contiero goes on to state “We need to ensure this is the basis for the future…” — This is exactly what Doug Band, the CGI, and the IRRI are doing by engaging in sustainability efforts.

So remember, next time you’re in the supermarket picking out navel oranges or strawberries, turn your attention to something that’s a bit more “out of season,” or exotic in nature. The same goes for salads/salad ingredients; shop outside the norm, picking spices and vegetables that you wouldn’t normally incorporate into your everyday diet. During such economic downtime it isn’t always easy to maintain the same level of grocery shopping intrigue, but we must also not forget that in this sundry of foods we can find fun!

Dan Grifen — Supporter of all things green and progressive.

First Tomato 2010

14.1 years ago tomato, upside down planter 10 Comments

This is an unfortunately record, being the latest I have gotten my first ripe tomato.  In case if anyone was wondering, this was on the 1 gallon milk carton upside down garden planter.