The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Fuji Heavy Industries autonomous farming robot

15.1 years ago garden maintenance, robot

We have seen MIT students making robots to tend on their plants.  Now Fuji Heavy Industries has created a robot that can completely take care of your fruits and vegetables in your fields (or greenhouse) for a modest fee of only $100,000.  You can pick up your own by the next fiscal year.

It uses lasers with reflective panels to orient itself and is 6.5 feet long, unfortunately there are not too many additional geeky details which probably would be helpful before putting down the $100K for this bad boy.

Given this is the cheap vegetable gardener, I will be sticking with my hands and trowel next fiscal year though can’t wait to see a video if this in action.

Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables

Growing blueberries

15.1 years ago blueberry, cheap

If it were up to me every part of my landscaping would be edible.  Though my homeowners association may disagree with me but blueberry bushes looks just as nice as any ornamental plant/bush when you visit the nursery with the obvious bonus of free food.

When selecting a blueberry bush, unless you are very patient spend about $10 a plant and get some more established ones (about 1/2 inch stem) You can get the two for $10 plants from your local Home Depot but you won’t be eating blueberries for a couple years.  With the larger plants you should pinch off the blossoms to get better growth for the first couple years but I opt to getting my reward now instead of later and enjoy the handful of berries the young plants can produce.

When it comes to plant selection there are a large number of species to choose from with varying fruit size and harvest timing.  I would recommend getting varieties that have varying maturity dates so you can enjoy those blueberries for a longer period of time.  When I got my first two plants I went with Toro and Berkeley.  The Berkeley is a very popular bush given it produces average size berries great for muffins/pancakes/cereal or the occasional snack with a mid-late harvest.  The Toro on the other hand produces large (almost grape size) berries which are great for jams and snacks though bit of a mouthful for muffins.  If you are curious of other varieties here is a great resource.

I have heard differing opinions on whether you need to have different species to successfully produce fruit after a little research I found this article which explains that blueberries are capable of pollinating with a single species, though studies have shown that having more varieties can produce larger and earlier fruits.  So if you have a favorite variety you can go crazy with the single plant though a little diversity seems to always be a good thing.

When it comes to pest control the biggest pest is birds.  You can control them by laying some netting on the plants, though in my personal opinion that just gets in the way of me getting my snacks so I opt for the lazy approach and just plant more plants and share with “neighbors”.  Worse case I end up with a backyard with some bushes that look much nicer than my current evergreens, and I always can take up bird watching.

One of the most important parts to being successful with your little blueberry plants is soil preparation.  The plants need to have an acidic soil and their roots like to remain moist, but not drowning in water.  Given my area has an abundance of clay in my backyard, I naturally do not have either of these requirements.  To give the plants a head start I dug a 1 foot wide/deep hole and filled it with peat moss and mixed with a few handfuls of compost.  Not only will this retain water well, but the peat moss is also naturally acidic and will be a nice haven for a large family of worms in the next few years to add some awesome natural fertilizer (worm castings)  Last I purchased I box of organic blueberry fertilizer which provides the primary and trace minerals as well as help keep the acidity of the soil up.  I simply followed the directions on the box and watered the plants when there was a couple of days without rain.

Now some of you might be thinking, “hey it is fall why are you talking about growing blueberries”  Well this is the “Cheap Vegetable Gardener, right now is a great time to visit your local nursery to pick up some of their “old overgrown” blueberry plants at bargain prices which you can plant now and enjoy some delicious berries next spring/summer.

Tags: birds, cheap, compost, led, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, vegetables, worms

Computer controlled grow box – Part 2

15.2 years ago indoor growbox, water

Though I have made some significant changes to the grow box controller, the actual grow box has undergone some minor but important changes over the past few months.

Automated watering

Now I must say this one is pretty darn simple.  Though I will be planning on a slightly more complicated hydroponic setup later I decided to start with a very easy bottom watering technique.  Just take a regular old fountain pump (I went with the cheapest I could find) drop it in a 5 gallon bucket of water and attach a hose long enough to reach your planting tray and plug in the power to the pump to your grow box controller and that’s about it.

To prevent evaporation and algae and little bugs making a home in my nice bucket of water, I added a lid with two holes for the water output and power input.  The power input required me to make a straight cut with a utility knife to ensure a snug fit while not requiring me to cur the AC line to feed the wire through.

I also cut a hole of the same size as the water output on the bucket lid to the grow box to allow the line to enter while still keeping the box closed.

Exhaust fan control

Air circulation is important for plants to be healthy but when the box gets warmer than expected I installed two controlled CPU fans to help regulate temperate as well as one static fan that constantly pushes air from the top to bottom.

I added a 12 volt exhaust fan to the top of the box (pictured above) to help push hot air out of the grow box with another (pictured below) at the lower part of the grow box to push in cold air as needed.  Both of these fans are powered by a 12 volt power wall adapter plugged into the grow box controller.

Heating

Though the computer and lights allow the box to create a comfortable internal temperature, sometimes it needs a little help.  For this I installed a regular old seedling heater to hopefully take a little sting out of the cold floor the seed tray is sitting one.  Like other components this was simply plugged into the grow box controller.

Putting it all together

My previous version was a little sloppily put together with duct/packing tape (lets just call it prototyping).  Though this added some hackiness appear it wasn’t too functional so I added a little strip of wood to support a couple hinges which I created a top which holds the LCD panel.

Upon opening the top you can see the grow box controller and the state of the art 600 MHz PC in all their glory.

As you can see I have still have some cleaning up to do with compress air and maybe a few more zip ties but all in all everything seems to have come together nicely.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables

Alternative seed saving containers

15.2 years ago cheap, seed saving, seed storing

When I am storing seeds for months at a time my homemade paper seed packets work great, but for seeds I seem to use many times throughout the year I was looking for a new option.

My solution was small plastic/metal resealable containers.  They are small and do not take up too much extra space and securely close so now worries of reaching into my pocket do find it full of seeds (had this happen more than once)  They are also water resistant (if not waterproof) so now worries about setting these down on some moist soil soaking the seeds.

You probably have many of these containers lying around your house from other products (prescription, OTC drugs, food containers, etc)

Unfortunately (I guess fortunately) I do not need prescription drugs too often and wasn’t smart enough to save any of my past containers so I opted to get some from an online supplier.  This particular one many options for specifically for seed saving containers at very reasonable prices.  I am also considering using these when I share seeds with others as gifts.

What sort of creative options have you used to store your saved seeds?

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables

Make your own seed packets (packet templates)

15.2 years ago seed saving, seed storing

Last year I did origami seed packets last year which worked out pretty good though I only got two per sheet of paper and didn’t hold too many seeds (especially large seeds like peas) with the many types of seeds I am collecting this year I decided to try another option.

I looked online and found many templates, though I couldn’t find any with standard seed package sizes.  Eventually I gave up and created my own and thought I would share.

Basic idea is pretty simple, just print them out and glue the flaps on the inside.  I used a plain old grade school glue stick which worked out great.  Not only does this work great for new seeds collected, but I also used them to reduce much of the space my large seed packets were taking for a small number of very small seeds.

Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables

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

15.3 years ago arduino, moisture sensor

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.

Tags: arduino, cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables