The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Mulch your garden with human hair

15.4 years ago Uncategorized 13 Comments

Need a renewable mulching source that is completely renewable?  Check your shower drain.

After spending 18 years as a hair stylist, Phil McCrory got an idea. He developed “SmartGrow” – mats woven from human hair. The product is becoming a popular organic alternative to chemical herbicides

If you don’t have the time to collect and weave your own human hair mats you can always purchase one from SmartGrow from under $4.00 to over $15.00 depending on the size you need.

Using alfalfa pellets as cheap organic fertilizer for your lawn and garden

16.6 years ago alfalfa pellets, cheap, fertilizer, organic 21 Comments

We all know if you walk into a grocery store the organic produce is always more expensive than produce grown using non-organic methods. Using deductive reasoning it seems easy to determine that this would mean growing vegetables organically will cost me more than if I used non-organic methods. What is a cheap vegetable gardener to do?

One disadvantage (and advantage) to organic fertilizer is that it is not as potent as chemical fertilizers. So my 2 lbs of organic will not nearly go as far (at least short term) as the same amount of chemical fertilizer. One trick to being cheap is to purchase products that are not being marketed for your planned purpose. So to solve my expensive fertilizer issue I used this same logic to solve the problem of finding a location to buy organic fertilizer that was not marketed as “fertilizer.” After some research I determined a source from my local feed store. For $10 I was able to get 25 lbs of alfalfa pellets compared to 2 lbs of alfalfa meal at my local nursery for around the same price.

One great thing about using organic fertilizer is my kids can help spread it around, unlike chemical fertilizers. It also contains triacontanol which is a root growth stimulant along with plenty of organic matter to help boost some extra microbial activity. This not only helps the grass but also improves your soil at the same time. By taking a few cups of alfalfa pellets and mixing with water you can also make alfalfa tea, which I am planning on doing later but will sure to let you know how it works out. One more tip, make sure you distribute the alfalfa pellets before a big rain or watering, currently my lawn looks like some geese are using it as their bathroom.

Why you should check on your grow box (especially if it is computerized)

15.7 years ago blueberry, computer, cucumbers, indoor growbox, strawberries 4 Comments

My day job is in software development, so of course it came to mind that software/hardware can fail while I was making my computerized grow box.  During its inception, I would check on it daily physically or remotely to make sure all was well.  After a couple weeks of this it was so stable that I started to not check quite as often.  Though in my mind there was never any question of if it would crash, it was when. Well that answer came tonight when I decided to check on my strawberries, cucumbers, and blueberry plant (trying to propagate a blueberry plant damaged in recent snow storm)

I noticed the lights were out and turned on the LCD display to see “Unable to find operating system.”  Before anyone screams “you should have used Linux”, the problem was completely hardware related caused by a failed hard drive (not even the one with the operating system).  Unfortunately this was the drive that had the SQL database, so hopefully I will be able to savage some of the data.  Once I got the machine to boot up I saw the temperature was down to 38 degrees (poor little cucumber plants) but fortunately in the time it took to write this post it warmed up to 47.3F 57.7F, so hopefully the cucumbers will feel better in the morning.

Tonight I am adding one more item to my software to do list, a Vista Gadget to monitor the health of the grow box to ensure it is up and running.  This was also a good time to ask the mental question, “When was the last time I backed up my code?”  Code now backed up and am wondering why I am breaking my cardinal rule of always having source control even with a single developer.

Computerized grow box update

15.6 years ago cilantro, computer, computer power control, cucumbers, electronics, indoor growbox, tomato 6 Comments

Haven’t mentioned the computerized grow box for a while, so think it is a good time for an update.  The moisture sensor corroded away, but have plans to make a much more beefier one.  With the exception of the hard drive failure, the basic functionality of the computerized grow box has been excellent and the plants have been thriving.  The only physical improvement I have made is adding some particle board to the top and side (salvaged from packaging material from some furniture we ordered) of the grow box.  This helps retain heat and allows the access panel to stay put without requiring tape and/or bags of coffee grounds propped against it.  I also mounted the LCD panel securely to the top of the box.

They say as your paycheck increases, somehow your expenses follow suit.  I have a feeling same concept applies for grow boxes.  As the computerized grow box is about four times bigger than my PC grow box it has quickly getting pretty crowded waiting for the time I can move my summer vegetables outside.  I am planning on doing some reorganization this weekend to clean things up a little bit but still going to be pretty tight quarters. 

The current inventory in the grow box are 12 tomato plants (was 18 but gave six away at a recent gardening talk), 2 cucumber plants (had one fatality from Peat/WonderSoil experiment, looks like Peat lost), 6 pepper plants (need transplanting), and a cilantro plant which was the source of my first harvest of the year.

Now just hoping Punxsutawney Phil is wrong and we really don’t have six more weeks of winter, though with the snow we got two days ago and the current temperature outside, I think he might be right.

Control two 120v electrical outlets with your computer

15.8 years ago computer power control, electronics, solid state relay 6 Comments

Here is one more component for "Project Everbearing" which requires the ability to toggle a 120V power source using my PC. Now there are a few interesting applications for this, home automation, music synced Christmas display, or just the nerd factor of being able to say I can turn on my coffee maker from your web enabled phone. Whatever your need, hopefully with these instructions you can do this yourself.

If we had lawyers, they probably would want us to say this:
WARNING: I am not an electrician and do not pretend to be one.  I do not know the specific building electrical codes of your area, so please be sure your wiring is completed under the proper safety code for your area. As always, using high voltage electricity can result in self-electrocution or burn down your house if not done safely so if you are not comfortable doing this wiring please contact a qualified professional.

Materials:

• 2 – 20 amp solid state relays (got off eBay for $4.00 each)
• 1 – Outlet box (Home Depot for $2.00)
• 2 – 20 amp outlets (Home Depot for $1.25 each)
• 1 – 2 outlet switch plate (Home Depot for $0.50 each)
• 1 – PC power cable
• 2 – LEDs (optional)

The outlet I am plugging this into is 15 amps, though my use for this project will be considerable under this but best to place for worst case scenario and I would rather trip a circuit breaker than who knows what happens when solid state relays or outlet exceeds their limits. I could have saved a couple dollars and gone with cheaper mechanical relays but solid state will last much longer even with frequent toggling on/off.

Now for the build, this was actually surprisingly easy and took less than an hour from start to finish. I first fed the power cable through and three stands of low voltage wire through access in back. I cut about 6 inches of wire off the end of the power cable. Using the continuity feature of my voltmeter I verified the hot, neutral, and ground, then checked one more time. I attached the neutral and ground in parallel to both outlets. I then connected the hot from the power cord to left side of both SSRs. I then used the 6 inches of wire I cut off to connect from left side of SSR on both and connected a wire from the left side to the corresponding outlet.

Now to add the ability to turn the things off/on using low voltage. I hooked up the wires fed through the back (which will later be hooked up to computer’s parallel port) green to positive SSR #1, red to SSR #2, and black to both grounds. Now with 3-12 volts of power to these connections will activate the SSR and provide power to the outlet. For a little added effect and easy confirmation everything is working (even with the unit unplugged) I also attached corresponding red/green LEDs that match the wires (I am getting old color coding helps) I was doing this hack indoors though first thought was to use my soldering iron to burn a nice little hole into the outlet plate but didn’t want to stink up the house, so risked using a drill instead. As you can see from the pictures I should have gone outside. With a little solder and hot glue everything seemed to be staying together.

With all the wiring completed, I carefully packed everything into the outlet box. The SSR were already pretty snug but I added little but of hot glue in case they feel like shifting around after everything was put back together. Being careful that wires are staying secure and no shorts are being created carefully screw the outlets to the outlet box. Finish it up with a (cracked) outlet plate and the assembly is complete.

Now the scariest part still remains, which is testing, first part is plugging this monster in. If you plug it into the wall and no sparks occur you are in pretty good shape but not in the clear yet. Plug something like a nightlight into your switchable outlet box, should be off now. Using a 9-volt battery connect black to (-) and red to (+) if you didn’t cross your wires anywhere the red LED should come on and appliance plugged in should get power. Now switching to the other side do the same with the green wire and appliance comes on with sparks or fires looks like a successful build.

How to make your own upside Down Planter In your Garden

14.4 years ago garden planter, planter, upside down planter 35 Comments

Over the past year I have created a few different versions of garden planters for growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers inspired from my daughter watching a Topsy Turvy tomato planter commercial.  Here is a quick summary of the different options which you can click the link for full instructions how to build on yourself.

	2 Liter – The Original — This is the one that started it all.  Very simple design using a 2 liter bottle covered with duct tape with a hole cut in the side to add soil and water as needed.Pros: Simple to create, dark color helped keep soil warm during the early part of the year, unlike the sibling seedling which I planted in the ground as a control which did not make it.Cons:  Really had to keep up on watering, given it had a 2 inch hole in the side water was able to easily evaporate and it did not get the advantage of being watered automatically on raining days/weeks and given I wasn’t watering any other plants forgot about this poor one which led to reduced yields.
	2 liter — Version 2.0 — This year I wanted something that did not appear as hideous hanging and also took care of the watering issue from the previous version.  With this I created a slow drip watering reservoir and used spray paint and skipped the duct tape.Pros: Easy to water through manual or automatic (rain), evaporation is minimized due to small drainage holesCons: At the moment, there are none known.  I am happy with this design.
	1 gallon milk jug (with auto-watering) — I was curious about if the extra 1.799 liters with a larger contain would significantly help yields so I went with this version.  Also decided to add an experimental external watering source.Pros: Larger volume of soil, extra watering capacityCons: Keeping the whole thing balanced was a pain, currently have it under control with a couple rubber band but will probably have to be replaced with something more permanent later.

So there you have the short evolution of my homemade upside down tomato planters all created from materials from my recycling bin.  Though if you do not want to make one yourself here are a just a few of the commercial upside down planter versions on the market right now.