Hometown Seeds giveaway, and the winners are…
I believe Plato was credited with the quote, “Necessity, who is the mother of invention.” As the Cheap Vegetable Gardener I prefer, “Laziness, who is the mother of invention.” With laziness and some boredom on the bus while riding to work with my laptop this motivated me to create “CVG’s Contest Winner Pickorama.” Basically I pass in the comment RSS feed and it extracts any duplicates (or my name if it exists) and by using some complex super top secret logic to pick the winner(s).
Now you can see it in action now and see if you were a winner:
For those without Superman vision the winners are: Trailshome, Red Icculus, and David (There were two David’s so be sure to click the link to make sure you were the right one)
If you are a winner please click on the “Contact” link at the top of the page with your name/mailing address and your seeds will be sent out shortly. For those who did not win this time, no worries I have at least one more seed giveaway coming up.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, vegetables
My new blog “ Going Homemade
15 years ago Uncategorized
Along with gardening, I also have a passion for cooking/baking. I have had many adventures I wanted to share but didn’t exactly fit under “The Cheap Vegetable Gardener” so I have started Going Homemade.
Though I have been spending much of my life eating most of my meals from bags and boxes, I am making a commitment to bravely try homemade versions of my personal favorites as well as teach my daughters that not all meals come from Costco/Trader Joe’s. So far, everything tastes much better, healthier, and I am even saving a little money according to my calculations.
Tags: cheap, vegetables
Hometown Seeds – variety pack give away
15 years ago giveaway, seed saving, seeds
Recently I was approached by Hometown seeds if I would be interested in receiving a variety pack of their top selling seeds, my first instinct was “woohoo free stuff.” Though instead I decided it would offer the seeds to my awesome readers. Well that and with all the seed saving I have been doing this year I have more seeds than I know what to do with.
Hometown Seeds loved the idea so much that they have graciously increased the offering to three sets of garden seeds variety pack, so in normal fashion enter a comment and after a week I will somehow randomly pick three winners and the seeds will be sent out to you.
The variety pack includes (1) packet of each of the following:
- Slow Bolt Cilantro
- Alaska Shasta Daisy
- Giant Tetra Snapdragon
- Elite Mix Wildflower
- Marvel of Peru Four O’clock
- Yellow Pear Tomato
- Purple Haze Carrot
- Waltham Broccoli
- Casaba Mellon
- Gourmet Mix Lettuce
The total value of this package is $19.80 so good luck everyone!
Winner will be chosen at Midnight 12/9/2009 (Pacific)
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, tomato plants, vegetables
How to save Bhut Jolokia peppers seeds
15 years ago Bhut Jolokia, ghost pepper, harvest, seed saving
I was lucky enough to win some Bhut Jolokia pepper seeds from Red Icculus. In case you haven’t heard of these they are the hottest peppers on earth having a heat rating of over 1 million scoville units. Just to put that into comparison jalapenos are around 5000 scoville units. One property of this pepper is the way the heat builds after consumption, on first bite it is spicy but takes a few seconds until you really feel the burn which is where it gets the name “ghost pepper.”
Now when dealing with these peppers I recommend using extreme caution I have some pain in my nose hours later just from breathing around these things so vinyl gloves and possibly even a mask would be recommended.
Once you have the safety precautions in place the process is actually very simple. Just break them up and pick the seeds up and store in a homemade seed packet. Now eating the pepper whole is not a challenge I want to take though saving the dried pepper flakes and adding a pinch so some chili might be up my alley. Though if you want to watch some people in pain taking see these videos of people taking the Bhut Jolokia pepper challenge on YouTube. Here is my favorite and my inspiration to not take the challenge.
I am planning on trying to grow one of these using my new hydroponic setup, well at least once I get around to building…so stay tuned.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, pepper plants, vegetables
Teaching children patience with gardening
15 years ago germination, hydroponics, kids, seeds
It shouldn’t be a surprise that kids these days are not as patient as previous generations. Personally I feel this is less on a change of parenting but a result of children’s expectations created because of the advance of technology. For example, When my daughter asks to watch a particular show “On Demand” and then 5 minutes later asks me to “pause it” so she can go potty. This makes me think back to the days of having a single TV station we could pick up with our antenna, which seemed to play reruns of MASH 24/7.
The great thing about gardening is with the exception of seed hybridization, synthetic fertilizers, and maybe techniques like hydroponics the hobby hasn’t changed too much in the past few hundred years. It still takes 1-3 weeks for seeds to germinate not matter what technology you throw at them. This is why I feel gardening is a great activity to share with the young ones in your life to help offset the instant gratification they see on a daily basis.
Here are a couple of ideas how to do this any time of year:
Cup of Dirt: Give your young one a cup of dirt and some seeds. To keep them interested give them a spray bottle to water everyday to keep them coming back every day to check how their plant is doing. The spray bottle will provide just enough water on the surface to allow the seeds to germinate and what kid doesn’t like to play with a spray bottle.
Sprouting in a Jar: I have a complete post on this topic, but the process is pretty simple. Get a mason jar and add some seeds. Rinse, drain and repeat. In just a few weeks you will have tasty and healthy sprouts you can add to your salads, sandwiches, stir-frys, etc.
Growing plants in water: Now this can be as complicated as setting up a hydroponic environment or as simple as taking a spider plant start and placing it in some water and letting your young one watch as the roots develop and transplant and care for it as a new plant.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables
Best DIY cheap soil moisture sensor
15 years ago cheap, electronics, moisture sensor, water
My first version of my cheap soil moisture sensor has worked great for me but it did have a couple flaws. The first issue was construction, though I had great luck on my first attempt though after trying to recreate additional sensors given the small amount of gypsum between the sensor and the probes were so thin it was extremely easy to crack the sensor and I normally have about a 25% success rate on later creations (must have had beginners luck on the first one.
The second issue was durability. Given we are playing with gypsum and as it is suspended in water it will eventually breakdown and there is very little we can do about it. Though with my latest changes to my automated grow box which includes automated watering based on moisture content I want to ensure my measurements stay accurate throughout the season. To help with this I have decided to increase the sensors size and also am using galvanized nails to prevent rusting. After a few attempts I have come up what I feel is a pretty foolproof method of creating a moisture sensor.
How it works:
There were many questions in the comments in the previous post so hopefully I can clear this up a little here.
Technically a gypsum block measures soil water tension. When the gypsum block is dry it is not possible for electricity to pass between the probes, essentially making the probe an insulator with infinite resistance.
As water is added to the problem more electrons can pass between the probes effectively reducing the amount of resistance between the problem to the point when it is fully saturated where the probe has virtually zero resistance. By using this range of values you can determine the amount of water than exists in your soil.
Parts for cheap soil moisture sensor:
- Plaster of Paris
- 2 Galvanized Finish Nails
- 1/2 inch plastic tubing
- utility knife
Construction:
Take your utility knife and cut the tubing slightly longer than your galvanized finishing nails. Try to make the cut as straight as possible though it doesn’t have to be completely perfect.
Use your utility knife to cut the smaller plastic tube lengthwise, this will allow easier removal of your soil sensor after the mold cures.
Optional: Make the cut diagonally to prevent a potential vertical fracture line.
If you were very careful on you vertical cuts you can avoid this step, but to completely avoid spilling plaster onto my workbench I drilled four holes slightly larger than your tubing. I used these holes for support but also to catch any of the plaster in the gaps from you less than accurate vertical cuts.
Being careful that the tubing fits together where you split the tubing vertically, insert the tubes into the holes (or carefully on a flat surface) Mix Plaster of Paris and carefully fill with to the top. The friction between the tubing should keep a water tight seal where you made the cut, though if the plaster is a little thin and it appears to be leaking through wait a couple minute for the plaster to setup some and try again, at that time it should not have the viscosity to seep through the very small gap that may be causing the leak.
Take your two galvanized nails and push them through a small piece of wax paper. You may also allow the plaster to setup for a few minutes and then float the nails in the the plaster. I like the first method since gravity will help ensure they fall straight down and parallel to each other. As for spacing, I have done some experimentation with the gaps between the probes and my conclusion was, it doesn’t make much difference. As long as there is a gap (they are not touching) you should get reliable results.
After allowing the sensor to cure for about and hour remove it from the holes you drilled in the wood.
Gently pull back the plastic tubing and you have a nice clean soil sensor.
Lay them out to dry for 24 hours to cure completely and their construction is complete.
For attaching the wires there are a couple options. The best would be to solder them to the probes though to do this you need to heat up the nail hot enough to enable a strong solder connection. My little 15W soldering iron just can’t produce the heat for this so I am option for the wire wrap method. I take about an inch of wire and strip off about an inch of insulation and tightly wrap around the probe. Given copper will rust and could be a point of failure you will want to insulate this connection and the probes from the moisture. A few dabs of hot glue works pretty well. I am planning on trying liquid plastic, though I am currently out and when I have some on hand I will update with how it went.
How to use your cheap soil moisture sensor
You can simply hook up a multi-meter and check the resistance though if you want to create anything automated you would need to use an integrated circuit (IC) or a electronics prototyping platform such as Arduino. By applying voltage to one side of the sensor and using a voltage splitting circuit connected to ground and an analog input you can then measure the voltage making it through the probe. The higher the voltage, the higher the moisture content of the soil.
Conclusion
The above should give you everything you need to know to create your own cheap soil moisture sensor and how to use it. This can be used as a moisture soil sensor for watering your indoor plants like I am using it. This same moisture sensor could be for monitoring your outside soil moisture content to trigger (or preempt your irrigation system) to save some money on your water bill and/or maintain consistent moisture levels in your plants which could drastically improve water sensitive crops such as tomatoes.
Tags: arduino, cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
