LED Christmas light grow box
15.9 years ago cheap, cucumbers, indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, wondersoil
I noticed some of my daisies were getting a little leggy so added 60 more LEDs (red) to my LED grow box. This time I was a little less calculated about positioning but still fee like I got a decent pattern going. I also decreased the drill size and didn’t even need to use the hot glue gun.
As you can see from the pictures below the plants (cucumbers, onions, cilantro, purple coneflowers) have a dark green complexion and are less leggy compared to the results I would get from my window sill. The cucumber plants after two weeks have grown up enough to move into the LEDs grow box’s big brother.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Cheap solar ebb and flow hydroponic system
15.9 years ago cheap, hydroponics
This is a really interesting hydroponic solution using change in temperature caused by the sun to force nutrient solution to the upper chamber. This is done using 1 and 2 liter bottles, superglue, plastic tubing, and some perlite. If you want to see the whole write-up here is a link.
Tags: cheap
Using used coffee grounds in your garden/compost
15.9 years ago cheap, compost, fertilizer
I have wanted to leverage used coffee grounds in my garden/compost but not being a coffee drinker myself I never seemed to be able to have the right timing to find any at local coffee shops. Recently a colleague taunted me with a picture from his cell phone of a few bags in the coffee shop in our cafeteria at work and my quest began.
After just two days I have accumulated 40 lbs of coffee grounds, now how can I use this stuff in my garden?
- Throw it in your compost: Coffee grounds are 1.45% nitrogen and contain calcium and magnesium to add some trace minerals you may not get from your other organic material. Coffee grounds are a green material (I know coffee is brown, but same idea as grass clippings) so you should add with at least equal amounts of brown material (leaves) but if you are like me my browns are way to high already.
- Add it directly to your garden: I have seen some arguments that coffee grounds are acidic, but others claim it loses most (or all) of its acidity during the brewing process. Due to my natural curiosity I need to know the answer. So the answer is, it has an average pH of 6.9 so for all intents and purposes, it is neutral. Though if you are really tired and forget to brew it, it will be somewhat acidic.
- Fertilizer: Sometimes your plants need a little boost in the morning as well. Simply add a couple cups of coffee grounds to a bucket of water and let it seep for 24 hours and apply to plant in the same way you would compost tea. Using gardener terms I can’t think of any better name for this as “coffee tea” If you are busy/lazy you also can use it as a side dressing on top of your soil and let the rain seep it for you.
- Annoy your pests to stay out of your garden: It has been said that coffee grounds can deter cats from using your garden as their own personal commode. There are also reports that it can deter slugs as well. I am not sure if it is the abrasive soil effect on their sensitive underside or just the cruel reality that with their slow pace they can’t do anything with the caffeine rush they get. Coffee grounds may annoy ants to convince them to move their home elsewhere.
- Feed your worms: To worms this stuff is like ice cream, if you listen carefully you may hear them cheer your name when you add a handful to your worm bin when your greens from the kitchen may be a little lacking.
According to Starbucks brochure I picked up on my last visit, you should use the coffee grounds within 3 weeks to get the most nutrient value, though if you are composting I am sure you can start out the process in the bag if you really want to. Given that 16.34 billion pounds of coffee is produced each year there is plenty for you to save from ending up in a landfill. This is a great way to help the environment while also adding value to your garden without affecting your pocketbook.
Tags: cheap, coffee grounds, compost, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, worms
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
15.9 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, wondersoil
I have been pretty impressed with the results of the Christmas lights LED grow box so far. I did have some preconceptions that I may need to double the lights or upgrade the LEDs, but so far the plants look healthy without white leggy stems, though still need to wait until the true leaves come in. As you can see in the picture above I have quite a selection of pots reused from previous years. The one exception are the newspaper pots which I discovered last year and am definitely a fan of. You can also see from the gross white stuff that my grow box probably could use a fan or at least prop a corner open.
Here is a picture of one of the cucumber plants up close.
My experiment is being conducted in the LED grow box so for its update, looks like is in the lead but hard to say with just germination occurring.
UPDATES:
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2
Tags: cheap, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Using WonderSoil for seed starting
15.9 years ago cucumbers, fertilizer, indoor seed starting, vermicomposting, wondersoil
I had great results using coconut coir last growing season it was great to work with, retained water great for young seedlings, and was economically priced. The only challenge was actually finding some to use this year. No luck in local stores, last year I only could find a single block in one hardware store. Online there are plenty of locations that sell them, but unless you have a need for a couple metric tons, the cost of shipping can be more than the the product itself.
Finally, I found a solution to my problem WonderSoil
- Shake, Water, and Plant — 1/2 inch mini wafers that can be added to any of your pots. In my case I underestimated the expansion of these little things and made a little mess and it overflowed on my table (apparently 3 was the magic number not 4)
- The Tube — There are larger wafers made specifically for 4 inch pots, in my case this would be newspaper pots
- Reground Wafers — This is basically a loose version available in 2 or 5 lb bags. This is a more economical option which I will plan on using when doing larger seed trays.
For Christmas I got indoor seed starting kit which came with pots/seeds/peat pellets. I decided this would be a great opportunity to do a little side by side comparison. From the start I was WonderSoil seemed like the obvious winner. After adding a little water, it fully expanded in just a few seconds and was fluffy and ready for me to drop a seed in, the peat was a swampy mess.
Peat pellets Left, WonderSoil Right
After a few minutes and fluffing with a fork the peat was ready to planting. I put cucumber seeds in both peat and WonderSoil pots and I will provide some updates on how things progress on my little experiment.
After the WonderSoil had some time to settle in my cheap LED grow box I did see some strange formations appear in the soil.
I little concerned I went back to their product and I believe this is their “water saving polymers” in action which I would assume is some sort of gel crystal which is supposed to save up to 50% water. They also boast about use of worm castings which I am definitely a fan of as well as addition of a balance of various micronutrients.
I will have to wait and see if the product produces as well as it claims, but I must say I am definitely impressed at this point and have high hopes for WonderSoil for this years seedlings.
UPDATES:
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1 (WonderSoil)
Tags: cheap, compost, garden seeds, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables, worms
Computer controlled grow box – Part 1
15.9 years ago cheap, computer, electronics, indoor growbox, PC thermometer
The Idea and Design
My PC Grow box was very effective though it did have some shortcomings along with my desire for tinkering caused me to create a new version code named “Project Everbearing” after the test subjects for the project, several Everbearing strawberry plants I propagated from my garden last Summer/Fall. The specific shortcomings I wanted to overcome were temperature control and limited size. My grow box has to live in my garage so on cold nights the temperatures can fall low enough to kill my summer seedlings (tomatoes/cucumbers) Size is an easy fix just make it bigger though it is more difficult to keep a larger grow box warm and still well lit.�
My solution to both of these problems was the addition of a computer to the system. First computers generate heat, using this along with computer controlled fans and incandescent lights (heater) allow me to regulate the heat to my desired levels. This is the point a normal person may have just stopped, but I am far from normal and decided a few more features, which I will explain more below.
The Structure and Insulation
First comes the structure, upon inheriting a set of shelves from my sister, we ran out of room for some of our existing storage shelves (see above), though we used the buckets to store loose toys on our new shelves we had the structure of the old one sitting in the garage for some time. After many passes by in the garage not knowing what do do with this shell, it finally came to me that this would be perfect for my new grow box, (Reduce/Reuse/Recycle) in action. The only customization required was the removal of a couple of the wooden dowels and I was ready to add some hardware. Of course you could do the same thing with an old bookshelf, cabinet or just with construct your own frame with a 12”X1”X8’ foot board cut in two along with two 1”X1”X8’ pieces of lumber cut into two. Screw one 1”X1” in each corner and should should have a pretty solid frame. For the top I used pegboard mainly because I bought a 4’ by 8’ sheet when I only needed half of it but worked really good to use zip-ties to secure various components and provides decent airflow between the computer and growing areas.
Second comes insulation, after some not so careful calculations and measurements I determined I could cover the 3 exposed areas with 2 sheets of 2’ by 4’ sheets of insulating Styrofoam. I glued and taped (duct tape of course) the Styrofoam which was cut using a utility knife and straightedge to cut to size making sure I made the top straight and flush. I then created an exactly copy of the other side and one more piece for the top. Using a long strip of duct tape I created a hinge for the top and glued side of the box. The last piece I simply fit into place using a tool box to ensure a tight fit but also allows easy access to plants when needed.
The Lighting
I went cheap on the lighting taking from the success of the PC grow box I decided to go with a similar setup using $2.00 home depot wired sockets hooked up to an couple old computer power cords. I went with two 24 watt CFL bulbs and one incandescent bulb. Though the incandescent is not as efficient and the CLFs it does provide a full spectrum of light and a little extra heat which the box can use in the many times cold garage where it lives. The CFLs and incandescent exist on two separate circuits so they can be controlled independently by the software.
The Software — Grow box brains
Now I know all of this could be done with a Basic Stamp or Arduino pretty easy, but I wanted the ability to track history and have a decent user interface to look at, so I wrote a windows form application using C#. To cover the basic functionality of temperature control I used the parallel port outputs hooked up to the computer’s parallel port to give the software the ability to turn the lights on and off. By configuring a “sunset” and “sunrise” time which I am in complete control over the lights will turn on and off as appropriate. I added some logic to ensure the plants stay at a comfortable temperature (thresholds configurable) by turning on the incandescent bulb when it is too cold and an exhaust fan when it gets too hot. In order to allow the computer to know these temperatures I used a PS2 controller to create two temperature sensors one for the area the plants are growing and another for the top area where the CPU resides (computer was too old to have onboard temperature sensor)
My daughter thought it would be cool if we have some sort of automatic watering system. I agreed, so I added a moisture sensor and created an algorithm to periodically check the moisture level and activate a water pump to add water until it reaches the specified moisture level. I still need to buy and hookup the pump but coding portion is complete and tested.
I live in the Pacific Northwest it rains a lot and can get cold in the evenings and I don’t want to trek out to check on my plants. solved this by adding the computer to my Wi-Fi network now I can take look at them by connecting to the machine wirelessly and see how they are doing through it’s webcam. I also take periodic pictures of the plants so I can create cool time-lapse videos of progress like the one below. I also have the ability to browse through pictures taken at specific time periods.
Finally to store all of this data I installed SQL Server 2005 Express (free) which allows me to track historical data of the conditions and images over time. If you have data, you definitely need some graphs. Being too lazy to do this graphic work I leveraged ZedGraph (free) to allow some visual tracking of temperatures and moisture content.
Features for future versions (Beta 2?)
- Finish automated watering
- Add automated red LED lights for flowering stage
- Install LCD Panel
- Make box look better (real door which does not require tape to open/close)
- Create single USB controller for lights/sensors
- Better/additional camera
Video of grow box “booting” up, personally I like the flashing lights when the computer sends signal through the parrallel port. If you are old enough to ever have a printer that used a parallel port this is when it would make its annoying sound letting you know it was alive.
Updates:
Computerized Grow Box Update #1
Tags: arduino, cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables
