The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Cheap Light Bar for Seedlings

14.6 years ago cheap, indoor seed starting 6 Comments

A couple months ago we replaced a couple of bathroom light fixtures and it didn’t take too long for me to find the old ones a new home.  An old extension code couple electrical connectors and I have a completely non-code light bar.  I used the smaller fixture and replaced my light bulbs hanging from sockets using zip ties.

When I have some more time I will plan on making a reflector to redirect more light on the plants but for now the little peppers/tomatoes look very happy.

How to repot tomato seedlings

13.4 years ago indoor seed starting, repot, seedling, tomato 6 Comments

When growing tomatoes from seed you are going to have to repot them.  The basic idea is you never want to stress the plant out by restricting the roots from getting wider.  Fortunately the process to do this between the various growth states is pretty simple and does not really change much between repotting. 

The first time you will need to repot them to a 4 inch put when the seedlings you initially planted get about 4 inches tall using the same steps I mention in detail below.

Once the tomato plant begins to grow wider than the pot (I was a couple weeks late below) or about 7-8 inches tall this is a good time to move up to a gallon planting container.

Now you may be asking, “Hey Mr. Cheap Vegetable Gardener, those fancy generic nursery containers are expensive.  I have seen them for almost $2.00 each at my local home improvement store.”  Funny you asked, I picked up a bunch of these while going for a walk with my kids that someone dumped as garbage…so I stocked up.

Step 1: The Soil:  Given I have quite a bit more volume to fill I modify my seedling mixture from 2 parts coconut coir (or peat moss) and 1 part perlite to 1 part coconut coir (or peat moss), 1 part perlite, and 1 part soil from my garden.  This is for no other reason other than I am cheap and bagged soils can be expensive.  I also add a thin layer of bone meal and a little sprinkling of eggshells to provide a boost of calcium and Phosphorous.  I also add a little water to and mix until well incorporated

Step 2: Fill the bottom:  You are only going to want to put about 1.5 inches of soil in the bottom of your 1 gallon nursery planter.  I will explain why we are putting so little shortly.

Tomatoes have a special ability to grow roots out of its stem due to the fact that it has these little white hairs growing out of it (see below)  When these are planted below the surface it will allow you to make a much stronger root system to your plants and a much more vigorous tomato plant.

Step 3: Remove leaves from plant: To take advantage of extra root growth and any leaves that will be buried are not going to help the plant anymore so remove this with knife/pruners or your fingernails in a pinch (pun intended)

Step 4: Remove plant from previous container:  Tomatoes are pretty tough for transplanting but you do want to take some care to not shock the plant during this removal.  It advisable for the roots to be moist but not soaking wet so the root ball comes out easily but not so wet that all the supporting dirt falls away when removed.  If you have some problems removing the plant try gentle inserting a butter knife around the edges to loosen its grip.

Step 5: Fill with soil:  Fill the plant all the way to the top with soil pack down lightly and repeat until you have some firm soil up to the top of your plant.

Step 6: Stake your plant (Optional).  If your plant is looking a bit unstable like the one above I like to take one of the cheapest bamboo stakes I can buy (sticks from the yard would also work) and cut them to 12 inch length and press them about 1 inch away from the plant.  Now simply attach with whatever you can find handy close to you.  Some classics are plant tie tape, twist-ties, reusable Velcro straps, yarn, and twine.  Today I happened to find a piece of yarn on the floor of my garage and a couple zip ties so I put them to good use.  You want these tight enough to support the plant but still loose enough to allow the plant to grow.

No matter how careful you are the plant will go through some shock during this ordeal and probably will look a little sick for a day or two but should bounce back shortly after that and continue expanding with its newly added space.

Opening day at the local farmers market

12.4 years ago farmers market 4 Comments

In my area today was the first day for our local farmers market.  As you can  see from the picture above I picked up some asparagus, spinach, lettuce and a few yams.  Well I also picked up some kettle corn for the kids and some fresh flowers for my wife…I did pass on some leeks, Swiss chard, bak choy (plenty growing in my garden) as well as radishes and rutabaga which I do not personally care for.

Now before you head out to your local farmers market you might find the selection somewhat limited compared to your local grocery store, so don’t expect to see raspberries or tomatoes during these first week (unless you live much more south than me)  What you will find is great local organic produce with the only thing fresher is picking them out of your own garden.

If I have you sold on running down to your local farmers market but no idea where to find it, just go here and enter your zip code to see where your closest farmers market is, you may also notice as I did there are also some pretty close farmers markets open during the weekdays which I may need to visit to get my fix of fresh veggies in the middle of the week.

Gardening Gadget Deal of the Day

15.3 years ago cheap, EasyBloom 1 Comment

Want a EasyBloom but $59.95 is a little out of your price range?  Well good news, right now it is on sale for $20 off so you can have this little gardening gadget for the low price of only $39.95 with free shipping through Amazon.com.  I have no idea how long it will stay at this price so if you were thinking about picking one of these up, now is the time.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out my full review of the EasyBloom Plant Sensor.

Cheap grow box with LED Christmas lights

15.7 years ago indoor growbox, LEDs, seed saving 81 Comments

I have one major problem last year with growing seedlings, running out of space.  I grow many different types of plants with various germination/growth rates and varied start dates.  This forces me to make sacrifices for placement of my movable light and eventually forced to move some plants outside earlier than I should.  The light needs to be close to the newly emerging seedlings, but can’t be burning the more mature plants growing into it.  My solution to this problem is a LED storage container grow box.  With this I will have a portable seeding area and since LEDs practically emit no heat the plants can literally touch the lights without problems.  At that time I move them to a larger grow box where it can continue to grow and start more seedlings.  I thought about creating my own LED matrix and buy individual LEDs and solder them together, but that sounded like a lot of tedious work and soldering, which I most likely would mess up.  Given it was after Christmas and LED lights were really cheap, this seemed like a good possible solution.

Materials cheap grow box with LED lights:

1. 3 gallon Rubbermaid tub
2. 1 string white or blue LED Christmas lights (50% off after Christmas)
3. Drill with (1/4 in drill bit)
4. Hot glue gun (may be optional)

Take a look at the number of lights on your string (mine had 60) then by measuring your tub figure out how you want to create your matrix.  Best to double check your measurements as you can see below I miscounted and only planned out 55 holes which I improvised and added 5 more after the fact.  You can also combine multiple strings if you want, given the low wattage you can string dozens of these together if you really wanted.

Drill holes that will provide tight friction fit to the tub, for my lights this was 1/4 inch drill bit but for yours this may be more or less, I would recommend starting smaller and increase until you find just the right fit.  Once you have all your holes drilled fit each of the LEDs into the holes you drilled some of the connections between the bulbs will have a solid section in between (resistor) so depending on the spacing might be best to make this one diagonal of the previous light to make it not as tight a fit.  If you have some lights that just won’t stay in, apply a small dab of hot glue between the bulb and the lid.  This may diffuse the light a little  but very little intensity at the base so light loss should be minimal.

Last plug it in and check out your cheap LED light.  You may want to shake it upside a couple times and find any loose lights while your glue gun is still hot.

Now some of your might be thinking (including myself) are these lights intense enough to allow adequate vegetative growth?  I did take a look at the LED matrix with my homemade spectrograph and it did show a high intensity of blue wavelength with minimal on red and orange/yellow/green so for this small space it may just work.  I am going to test it out on some guinea pig plants now and if I start seeing tall spindly growth I can easily switch out the current while LEDs with some ultra bright blue LEDs by simply pulling out the socket, swap out old LED (save some other project), replace with new LED, trim excess terminal wire, and push back into the socket.  Below is my proof of concept for this as long as the voltage/amperage is the same the circuit will continue to work, below is my proof of concept.

I also purchased a couple of red LED Christmas lights for plant flowering stage but have a couple months before I need to pull those out.

For build cost, this small storage container costs less then $2.00 and with the 50% off sale on Christmas lights at $3.00 I have a cheap grow box with full LED grow lighting for just $5.00 and about 15 minutes of assembly.

UPDATES:

Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2

Make your own upside down tomato planter

15.4 years ago cheap, peppers, tomato 92 Comments

Every time my daughter sees the upside down tomato planter (Topsy Turvy) commercial on TV she asks when we can grow tomatoes upside down.  I am definitely not one to pay $15 to $20 to buy one of these things in the store when I could have the fun of making my own for much less money.

Though this has been commercialized recently, the concept growing plants upside down is not a new one.  Many people have been growing plants like tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets or hanging baskets for decades.  Not having any spare bucket or hanging basket to sacrifice I went with my daughters suggestion and used a 2 liter bottle.

Materials required for you upside down tomato planter

• Empty 2-liter bottle
• Eye bolt with washer
• Duct tape, contact paper, or spray paint
• Drill or hot nail

Step 1 — Create access hole

Make a hole on the side of bottle, this has two purposes: it allows adding soil much easier and also provides an convenient way to water your plant.  I used a 2-inch hole cutter, though you may also carefully cut a hole with a knife.

Step 2 — Add the hanger

By design 2-liter bottles are extra thick in on the bottom immediate center which will make a perfect place to hang it.  I used a drill of the same diameter as the eye bolt.  This allowed me to thread the bolt right into the bottle, which was pretty strong it itself.  Though expecting a great harvest, I also added a bolt to prevent the discovery of my plant on the ground after having a hard fall.

Step 3 — Covering your planter

Roots can be damaged if exposed to light for long periods of time so you need to cover your planter.  You should consider color depending on where you live.  In colder regions a darker color will help keep the soil warm on cool mornings, though in hotter climates a dark color could fry the plant.  I would recommend a medium to light green color for moderate heat absorption and little more aesthetically pleasing in the garden.  Not having any paint I used good ole duct tape.  Wrapping around the entire bottle (even covering the access hole.

I then cut an X through the access hole and bent the corners in to soften the rough edges caused by cutting the hole.

Step 4 — Decorate (optional unless you have kids)

We used permanent markers to personalize both of my daughters upside down tomato planters.

This completes the construction of your upside down tomato planter.  I will admit the first design flaw of this planter is its size.  It will be fine for root growth but it can dry out very quickly.  In response to this water retention was my primary concern when deciding on medium to fill the planters with.

I chose 2 parts (peat moss or coconut coir okay substitutes) , 1 part perlite, and 1 part Groden granulates.  WonderSoil it contains coconut coir which retains water well but also contains water retaining polymers.  The perlite and Groden granulates both provide water retaining properties an allow for proper aeration for easy unrestricted root growth.

To give the plants a good head start I also mixed in a couple of tablespoons of bone meal and tablespoon of balanced organic fertilizer.  Add some water until the mix has the consistency of a wrung out sponge .

Lastly I used my tomato plants from my hydroponic experiment and carefully fed the roots into the now bottom opening of the bottle.  We then added our soil mix until it reached the bottom of the access hole.  Given the plants had a well established root system just the friction and weight of the soil is enough to keep the plant from falling out

Even though the medium retains water well the plants should be watered every day to the point until some water comes out the bottom.  Within 24 hours we can already see the leaves turning over to face the sun.

You can also try other heat loving plants such as peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini.  So if you every wanted to try growing plants upside down with the directions above you can have your own for less than $0.50.

If you want something a little more aesthetically pleasing there is always the commercial option, this one from Gardener’s Supply seems much more sturdy than the ones I have seen on TV:

 

UPDATE: 05/24/09

It has finally started to get a little warmer at night in my garden so seems like a good time for a little update on the upside down tomato planter.  I wish I could give a direct comparison of the growth of these plants with plants a planted at the same time in the ground though unfortunately we had a light freeze that killed them off.  Interesting enough both plants in the upside down tomato planter survived and even are showing some small blossoms.

Now as part of my pepper planting experiment, I also put a pepper plant in an upside down tomato planter with much less exciting success.  Just to test if my super paranoid water retention worries had any backing I simply filled this one with regular potting mix.  And the plant dried out very quickly which shows in the following results.

Given these results I am going to stick with my 2 parts WonderSoil (peat moss or coconut coir okay substitutes) , 1 part perlite, and 1 part Groden granulates recipe in the future.