How to determine your own personalized last frost date from local weather station
16.1 years ago computer, last frost date
There was a discussion in comments on my previous average last frost post on how to determine an accurate last frost. A great point was made by Daphne where every garden can have its own microclimate so the date you find online or in a book could be many weeks off for your microclimate in neighborhood.
To be able to predict your last frost date accurately it takes some history, if you have lived in your current residence and happened been capturing your temperature data accurately by memory or paper you may the information to predict your last frost date.
For people that are relatively new to their residence, like myself, I felt there I had very little information to determine an accurate prediction of my last frost date. This was until I remembered Weather Underground which logs results of schools or private individual that register their weather stations.
After a quick search I was able to find someone who had a weather station in my neighborhood. After doing a custom query of the full range of the of the weather station, which in my case was a little over 4 years, I had all the information I needed. By carefully adding a horizontal line at freezing using a graphics program (Microsoft Paint) I could easily see where the low temperature dipped below the freezing mark.
From a quick glance at the data it appears that the first week of April is a pretty safe date for past few years. But if you look the the irregular low temperatures we have had this month this might be harder than I thought.
Now of course your neighbor may a different microclimate than you, but should get you in a better ballpark than the generic number you find fro your city. You could always spend $500-$1000 on your own weather station to get some better accuracy, but for me seems close enough to me. Though the weather station would be a really cool gadget to have.
Tags: cheap, vegetables
Growing with hydroponics in the grow box
16.1 years ago cheap, hydroponics, indoor growbox, tomato
There has been some major changes since I started the plants above in my cheap DIY hydroponic setup about a month ago. Since then I have added a couple of pepper plants I saved from thinning. I must say the plants are doing better than I expected. I am still using the same homemade nutrient solution, 2 pumps of liquid plant fertilizer and half a teaspoon of Epsom Salts.
The sickly plant on the bottom left is a cloning experiment which is not going great but the plant is growing roots and apparently surviving.
Some views from below:
Tags: cheap, growbox, outdoor plants, pepper plants, vegetables
Make your own supplemental LED grow light
16.1 years ago cheap, indoor growbox, LEDs
I never got a round to making a hydroponic system out of my Cafe Steamer, but I did use part of it to create a supplemental red LED light. The construction of this was very easy and you can do the same thing with an old string of LED Christmas lights and some soft plastic (margarine or frozen dinner container) from your recycling bin.
Take the plastic and drill evenly spaced holes through the plastic. Make sure to do a few test holes with a few different bits to determine which will allow a snug fit but not causing you to force/break the bulbs. Once all the holes are drilled, carefully slide in all the bulbs, plug it in, and your project is done.
I am adding this one to my computerized grow box as a little supplemental light for my peppers plants, which I am planning on growing completely indoors this year.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, vegetables
Free tomato seeds and save a farm
16.1 years ago free, seeds, tomato
If you want to get some free tomato seeds head over to Campbell’s Help Grow Your Soup site. After simply entering some numbers on the bottom of a can of soup they will send you a free packet of tomato seeds. Seems like a pretty good deal to me, as an added bonus they donate 100 seeds to the National FFA Organization just for making your request.
Be sure to check out there site because they have some good basic gardening tips on the site.
If you want more sources of cheap/free vegetable seeds check out my Cheap Vegetable Seeds post.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, tomato plants, vegetables
Finish outdoor seed planting with coffee grounds
16.2 years ago garlic bulbs, onions, outdoor seed starting
It has been a blessing that the competition for free coffee grounds at the Starbucks at my work has increased now the weather warmed up and I have freed from the temptation to grab yet another free shiny silver bag of grounds. The reason is, I have put four bags in my compost, worked generous amounts into my vegetable garden and I still have six bags left. Now I am looking at inventive ways to use the rest up. I tried mixing with perlite to make a cheap potting soil (failed still no room for roots) but I believe I have come across one success I thought I would share.
When you are finished planting seeds outdoors apply a thin layer of coffee grounds. This will deter slugs from going after your new seedlings and keep cats from mistaking your nicely loosened and raked soil for their kitty litter.
I have done this for my larger seed plants (peas, garlic, onions, cilantro) but for the small seed plants (carrots, lettuce, spinach) I used the coffee grounds as a seed covering.
So far the results are great. All of my peas/garlic/onions/spinach have sprouted with no signs of pests (four-legged nor zero-legged).
Tags: cheap, cilantro, coffee grounds, compost, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Remote monitoring of computerized grow box
16.2 years ago computer, indoor growbox
My wife saw this wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer on clearance at Eddie Bauer and knew this was something I could use. I simply put the wireless sensor in the computerized grow box and instant temperature monitoring where at a quick glance I can be sure my summer vegetables are toasty warm in the garage. Sure, I could connect to the machine remotely, or look at the backup digital thermometer inside the box, or check the LCD panel on the box but this definitely gives some piece of mind at a quick glance. This may be a somewhat lower tech solution, but it works. At least until I get around implementing my other ideas and then I can actually know what the temperature is outside.
[As you can see from the indoor temperature we are not just cheap in the garden.]
Tags: cheap, growbox, vegetables
