The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

pH needs of plants in soil or hydroponics

15.2 years ago hydroponics, pH, water

With the exception of some of my acid loving plants and flowers I normally do not have to worry much about the pH of my soil.  This is because I have amended my gardens with nutrient rich soils in raised beds over my alkaline clay I get naturally in my area.  This and the fact that due to natural and manmade causes the rainfall is slightly acidic and given the average range for the sweet spot of most edible vegetables (see table below) is 5.8 to 6.0 having your soil slightly acidic this is perfect.

Now when it comes to hydroponics this is entirely different.  My tap water has a pH of around 7.5 and the fluctuation of plant using nutrients and transpiration can cause great havoc on the pH on your hydroponic system.  Now this creates a challenge but also an opportunity to have control with great precision your pH and keep your plants growing in the sweet spot for the healthiest plants and the greatest yields.

So whether you are growing hydroponically, or simply trying to figure out why your Fennel didn’t do so well last year take a look at the table below, hopefully for some hints of what happened.

Recommended pH Ranges of Vegetables/Herbs

Tags: garlic bulbs, herb garden, outdoor plants, pepper plants, peppermint plant, tomato plants, vegetables

Cheap Hydroponic Bean sprouter

15.2 years ago cheap, ebb and flow, hydroponics

Maybe not the most hygienic solution but definitely cheap, innovative, and low maintenance.  I’ll stick to my ebb and flow design, but thought I would share for those feeling adventurous.

Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables

Simple and cheap homemade ebb and flow hydroponics system

15.3 years ago cheap, ebb and flow, hydroponics

Though not my first hydroponic system this is is definitely a little more complicated than my last attempt of an fogger system created last year.  This time I decided to go with an Ebb and Flow system, where the concept it pretty simple, flood the planting area with water nutrients and let it drain, wait a defined amount of time and then repeat.  For this build I had a few requirements:

• Must be inexpensive: Hey this is the cheap vegetable gardener site
• Must be small: I have a limited space to grow and nutrients can be expensive and given what I am growing is legal don’t really need $20 basil
• Must be safe from flooding: Though this is running in my garage, I really don’t want to come in with 10/20 gallons of water/nutrients on my floor.
• Could be adapted for alternate hydroponic system.

Given these requirements, this is what I came up with and how I built it:

Materials

• 18 gallon opaque Rubbermaid container (happened to have one of these around
• 5 gallon basin — SLUGIS box from Ikea ($5.99)
• vinyl tape (plumbers tape)
• 1 inch hole saw
• 1 inch threaded (diameter) to 3/4 PVC adapter
• 3/4 inch threaded (diameter) to 1/2 in hose adapter
• 2 3/4 inch PVC caps
• Cheap pond/fountain pump (100 GPH)
• 1 foot of 1/2 inch plastic tubing
• 2 foot 3/4 inch PVC pipe (only need couple inches but smallest length I could buy)
• aquarium/food grade silicon (optional I used this to ensure very watertight seal but found not necessary)

Construction

Take the 5 gallon basin and drill two 1 inch holes in the middle of each side.  One whole should be drilled from the top and the other should be drilled from the bottom.�

Take both threaded adapters and apply liberal amount of vinyl tape.

Screw in the 1/2 inch hose adapter from the bottom with just barely enough clearance to pop through.  When the pump stops the water will drain through this same hole.

For the overflow pipe, screw in the 3/4 inch PVC adapter in from the top until hand tight.

Take both caps and drill in a bunch of holes slightly smaller than your media.  The basic idea is you don’t want some Hydroton clay balls falling into your pump or reservoir.

Cut about 2 inches of 3/4 PVC pipe and attach to overflow and top with PVC cap with dozen or so holes in it.

Lastly attach the 1/2 plastic tube to your pump and place everything on top of your 18 gallon Rubbermaid tub (which fits perfectly and is very sturdy)  Fill with water nutrients and hook up your water pump to a 24 hour timer (or grow box controller)

Here is the Ebb & Flow system in action, as you can see very simple but very cheap and versatile.

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

LED/Christmas light projects

15.3 years ago cheap, LEDs

Just a friendly reminder to pick up some discounted LED or non-LED Christmas lights for some of my previous projects

Christmas LED Grow Box

Basically take a old Rubbermaid container and drill some holes and insert lights and you have your own Christmas light LED grow box.  This worked great last year to hold my seedlings until they were ready to move into the bigger grow box in the garage.  Here are some posts on construction and updates:

Cheap LED Light and Grow Box
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #1
Christmas light LED grow box – Update #2

Supplemental Christmas LED Light

Similar idea to the LED grow box, though used in addition to your normal grow lights for a little additional red wavelength light, see posts below for complete construction directions:

Make your own supplemental LED grow light

Heating row tunnels (or grow box) with non-LED lights

Replacing your old Christmas lights with LEDs to save on your electricity bill?  You can use your old regular old Christmas lights to heat your row tunnels to increase the temperature by about 10 degrees to help get your plants out a ahead of schedule.  I have been using some of mine in my grow box to help during some of our colder nights this winter.

Heating row tunnels and grow box with Christmas lights

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

How to save coriander/cilantro seeds from your garden

15.3 years ago cilantro, coriander, harvest, seed saving, seeds

Cilantro (at least that is what we call the plant in the United States) and the seed coriander as it is know to the rest of the world is the first plant I ever collected seeds from.

What I like about cilantro/coriander is that its flowers actually grow great and the bees seem to like them.  As an added bonus the collection of seeds really couldn’t be easier.  Like other plants I collect seeds on I let them mature as much as possible outdoors on their own and bring them indoors when the heavy rains come.

I give them a little extra time to dry by hanging the bunches upside down in my garage until I get around to the harvest.

To harvest simply find these flower shaped clusters of seeds and pull down to release the seeds and add to your awaiting container.  If you don’t care as much how clean your seed collection is you can also run run hands down the whole plant from bottom to top.  While this will drop many leaves in your collection, this is definitely the way to quickly harvest a large number of seeds.

Tags: cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants

How to save radish seeds

15.3 years ago harvest, radish, seed saving, seeds

Harvesting radish seeds is a little more labor intensive than some other seeds but still pretty easy to accumulate a decent number of seeds in a short period of time.

If you let your radishes be they will grow little flowers and pods like you see below.  I like to let mother nature take care of this process as long as possible pulling them only after temperatures start to dip and heavy rains start coming.  At that time I will pick the plants and hang them in the garage to dry a little longer.

Once the pods are dry, they should resemble those of the ones below.

All that is left to do is use your finger nail to split the pod open and with a quick swipe of your finger pop the seeds out into an awaiting container.  One other option is to simply leave them in the pod and open them up during planting.  Now they will take a significantly more space though if you only need a few seeds, definitely a viable option.

Tags: garden seeds, outdoor plants