Kids eating vegetables from the garden
One of my many reasons for growing a vegetable garden was to encourage my daughters (four and seven) to eat more vegetables. Currently other than a few raw carrots they do everything they can to avoid them. In the previous years, with the exception of strawberries and potatoes in “Baked French Fry form,” I have been the primary consumer of our garden harvest.
This changed this weekend when my youngest daughter tried and decided she loved peas (pea pods) I even heard the quote, “I like peas more than fries” and if you only knew how much she loved fries you would understand how much of a compliment this is. Not to miss out on the extra attention her younger sister was getting, our older daughter tried the peas with less stellar results though definitely gave her points for trying.
Right now our plants are not keeping up with demand with my daughter eating every pod that comes out. The old primary consumer is patiently waiting for the time when the plants are producing way more than we can keep up with so I can have some extra sweet peas myself. But really who could deny that cute face any delicious peas.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Guest post: Huge strawberry
15.7 years ago guest post, strawberries
I have been pretty busy lately and was happy and honored that Megan from Megan’s Garden would do a guest post about a strawberry she found.
It was a crazy day I found a strawberry, a double strawberry . I am not kidding. A strawberry is not like this. I ate it. It was yummy. Find one in your strawberry box. I want one again.Their hard to find.
Tags: strawberry plants
Cheap DIY fogger aeroponic system
15.9 years ago aeroponics, cheap, hydroponics, indoor growbox, indoor seed starting
In my post about basic the basics of hydroponics I mentioned the potential high cost of entry but with a little creativity this can be avoided. I went through this exercise and here is a pretty inexpensive way to try out hydroponics without having to spend hundreds on a prebuilt system. The solution I came up with cost me $1.00 to setup though I did have many of the items on hand, if I had to purchase everything cost would be in the $10-15 range.
Supplies
- Small shoebox sized plastic tub /w lid — (I purchased a clear generic one from Home Depot for $1.00)
- 2 inch hole saw and drill
- 6 — Empty Trix yogurt cups (can be any brand as long top is approx 2 in diameter)
- Duct tape (no one should be without this)
- Pond fogger – single disc (can be found on eBay for less than $10, I had one from humidifier)
- Perlite
- Water (tap water is fine, fancy bottles work as well)
Assembly
From looking at the supplies this might be able to guess the construction steps, but I will list them out anyway.
- Take lid and add drill six 2-inch holes using hole saw. If the tub is not made of rubbery material be sure to take your time to slowly create the holes to prevent cracking/shattering. You can also do this with a utility knife but for non-rubber lids I highly suggest against it if you like your fingers.
- Test fit your cups and ensure they fit snuggly, if they do not quite fit you can use some sandpaper to expand the holes slightly
- Remove cups and cut (utility knife) or burn (soldering iron) 1/4 in lines in a pattern similar to the
figure to the right to ensure extra support and prevent the medium (perlite) from falling through. WARNING: Burning plastic emits toxic fumes and should be done (if at all in a well ventilated area) Knifes are sharp and can cut fingers so if you not careful. I would recommend buying 2 inch hydroponic net pots which can be purchased for about $0.25 each online, which I would have done if I wasn’t so impatient. - Given that nutrients+water+light=algae, be sure that your box is as light tight as possible. If you container is not clear like mine you should be in good shape, otherwise cover your box with duct tape or spray paint the box using plastic adhering paint. I would recommend keeping a small vertical line exposed so you can get a quick look at water condition and level without having to disturbing the plants.
- Fill cups with perlite 4/5 full (some expansion may occur)
- Pour water into cups until reservoir is full
- Dump water out water
- Repeat steps 4-6 until water appears clear
- Cut small hole in the corner of the lid and feed power line to fogger through
- Put fogger in tub and fill with water until it is about 1/2 inch above fogger
- Replace lid and plug in fogger and enjoy the mysterious fog
What can I grow with this?
The short answer is anything. Self regulation wicking properties of perlite it should keep most plants happy for some time. The major limitation you may see is some types of plants will outgrow this setup and will require transplant outside in soil or in a larger hydroponic setup (coming soon). Though with careful selection of plants and frequent harvesting you can grow many plants to maturity in this small system. It did not occur to me until after I completed the project but the size and spacing is pretty close to that of an AeroGarden so plants like greens, herbs, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, peppers would do well in this system. For starting plants you can simply drop a few seeds, cover with some perlite and a clear plastic container (I used empty applesauce cups, but bottom of water bottles also would work well) You may also add seedlings by carefully placing in them in the damp perlite.
What about nutrients?
Keeping the project cheap I opted to use some balanced liquid plant fertilizer I use for my seedling/indoor plants. I mixed it at the recommendation it stated for indoor watering (2 pumps per gallon) I noticed it did not contain any Magnesium I also added a half a teaspoon of Epsom salt. After a couple weeks empty contents and replace with water let run for about an hour to allow sediments to clear up and then empty contents. This is good for your plants but also can help keep the disc on your fogger clean. Refill with water and nutrient mix and repeat. This will work for most plants in vegetative state of growth though if you want your plants to move to a flowering state (peppers, tomatoes, etc) I would recommend purchasing specific hydroponic solution for flowering plants.
For a very small investment you can have your own hydroponic system and experience the benefits of growing without soil.
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, herb garden, outdoor plants, pepper plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables
Updated time-lapse video of strawberries growing in growbox
15.9 years ago computer, indoor growbox, strawberries
Here is the strawberries growing after 2 weeks in the grow box. Looks like I may need to get some Q-tips out and do some manual pollination if I want to see berries. I feel so dirty…
Tags: growbox, strawberry plants
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
