1st Blog-Iversary
15.9 years ago Uncategorized
Exactly one year ago I wrote the first post for The Cheap Vegetable Gardener. Over this short time I have had a tremendous response, more than I ever had ever imagined. I wish the January spike (below) would continue into 2009 but much of this was traffic was significantly elevated my the following honorable mentions:
- Hack-a-day (PS2 controller thermometer)
- Hack-a-day (Automated plant growing)
- Top listing on reddit.com/frugal for a few days
- MAKE: Blog: LED light grow box
Thank you to everyone who has read the blog this past year and actively participated with your kind comments. Without your feedback I probably would have gotten bored and stopped writing many months ago.
Thanks,
The Cheap Vegetable Gardener
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Why you should check on your grow box (especially if it is computerized)
15.9 years ago blueberry, computer, cucumbers, indoor growbox, strawberries
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.
Tags: cheap, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Why should you have a grow box?
15.9 years ago indoor growbox, indoor seed starting, LEDs, seeds
Other than the “Do you really just grow ‘strawberries’ in your grow box?” question. The most common question I have gotten is why exactly do I have a grow box. Hopefully I will be able to answer this question below, as for the first question the answer is yes (without the fingerquotes)
Necessity: I am cheap and don’t want to buy all my plants from local nursery or garden center, but do not have a good location inside my house to grow seedlings with a normal table/shelf light setup. I definitely do not have the space to setup a greenhouse in the backyard. This unfortunately forces me to do my growing in my cold windowless garage. Using a grow box allows me to maintain a safe temperature for my plants no matter what the conditions are outside.
Control: I have nearly complete control of the conditions inside the grow box. I can provide my plants with the perfect temperature, humidity, lights (intensity and wavelength as well as day/night simulation) and even can simulate a slight breeze using a small fan if desired. This gives me many advantages which I would not have even if I could grow indoors. One example of this is growing peppers, which can be fairly difficult in our climate but with some modifications settings in the grow box can create the perfect conditions for it.
Saving Money: Given my options such as the $20 PC Grow Box and my $6 Christmas Light LED Grow Box the cost of entry is pretty low. You do have the expense of lighting the thing but given the 48 watts required for the PC Grow Box and 10 watts of the Christmas Light LED Grow Box even those maintenance costs are reasonable.
Portability: All three of my grow boxes (PC Grow Box, LED Grow Box, Computerized Grow Box) all have a single plug that goes into the outlet and can literally be picked up and moved to another location if needed (try doing that with your greenhouse)
Scalability: Need more space in your grow box? As little as $6 can get you a new one, or $10 worth of lumber can double the size of your existing one (assuming your old lighting can support the space) You are limited to what your creativity can imagine.
Fun: Call me crazy, but I like the idea of tricking my strawberries that it is a nice spring day and get them to start blooming and producing fruit. If all goes well I can move the plants outside during the real spring and get even more harvest while freeing up some space for more plants.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Cheap Vegetable Seeds
15.9 years ago cheap, coupon codes, free, seed saving, seeds
Looking at my web logs I have seen the query for “cheap vegetable seeds” a few times so figured would be good to help people find what they are looking for. Being The Cheap Vegetable Gardener, I can do better than “Cheap vegetable seeds” how about some “free vegetable seeds” as well.
Cheap Vegetable Seeds
- Buy online — You can find a much greater selection and some great prices compared to your local home and garden center. For example right now:
- One of my favorites is Burpee Seeds, they have been around since 1876 and definitely know their stuff. The actually have a seed sale going on now where you get $15 off on order of $75 (just use code AFFB4A35) expires on 1/15
.
- The name is not too exciting but Generic Seeds
offers no thrills packaging with quality seeds and very reasonable prices and if you spend $20 or more shipping is on them.
- One of my favorites is Burpee Seeds, they have been around since 1876 and definitely know their stuff. The actually have a seed sale going on now where you get $15 off on order of $75 (just use code AFFB4A35) expires on 1/15
Free Vegetable Seeds (pretty much)
- Ask your neighbors — Notice your neighbor is a gardener, check if they want to go in on a seed order and share unless you really need 200 carrots this year.
- Harvest your own seeds — If your plants bolt to seed early this year, don’t pull them out let them create some seeds for next season. Notice your neighbor has some seeding plants, ask if you can get some (important part is to ask though)
- Get seeds from the grocery store — Before putting those vegetables in the compost bin, set the seeds aside to let them dry and you got some free seeds. Though a word of warning many vegetables are hybrids and may be infertile or not produce the same quality of product but hey its free.
- Check your spice rack — Many cases you can plant seeds from your spice rack. Some ideas, mustard seed, dill seed, coriander, poppy seed, celery seed. If your spice rack is lacking you can pay a few cents buy a teaspoon of organic spices in bulk, last time I bought dill seeds got about 100 seeds for $0.05.
- Seed swap web sites — Below I have listed a few links where you can share seeds with others. This is a great way to find some heirloom seeds you might not be able to find in stores/seed catalogs. In many cases people will offer seeds for free by just sending a SASE (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) Just remember to pay it forward when you come into a plethora of seeds yourself.
Tags: cheap, compost, garden seeds, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, vegetables
A little help in the computerized grow box
15.9 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
My wife was the first to identify the little helper and today I was able to capture him on camera. Looks like it is more than just the breeze helping pollinate those strawberries in the automated computerized grow box. Yet another benefit of having my grow box in my garage.
Tags: cheap, growbox, strawberry plants, vegetables
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
