Garden

Some photos from the UAB Community garden.

New Growth

I found a local community garden to participate in with several friends.  So far we have just cleaned up the plot.  Our first planting session is planned for this upcoming saturday, so I will try to keep up with it and provide updates here.  I'm really looking forward to seeing this develop and grow.  it has a lot of potential.

I'm starting a bit late (due in part to the weather) but I think I can get in some Tomatoes, Peppers, Sweet Potatoes, various herbs, Strawberries.  I also want to try some stuff from seed: mainly corn, butternut squash and beans.

I love summer squash and zucchini but they tend to spread out and squash vine borers can be a real pain to deal with.

In mid summer (July) I will try and incorporate some broccoli, cabbage, and collard greens into the garden as well.

In the late fall and early winter I want to try asparagus, kale, mustard greens, and lettuces.

I might experiment with growing flowers and helpful companion plants to help ward off pests or attract bees/ladybugs.  I plan on visiting the site every day (it's about 2 blocks from where I work).

Above: Pre-cleanup on April 11th

Below: Post-cleanup, April 19th

There were a few pansies, a small rosemary plant, and some kind of herb (we put them in pots to save them) The difference isn't staggering, but it does look a lot nicer.  I plan on adding soil/compost, having it tilled, and (possibly) building a wooden frame around the plot this Saturday.

Microgreens Finale

Well the ones that seemed to be doing best all died overnight.

The soil was completely dry.  I am guessing their usage of water increased exponentially as they grew.  I did not water them the last day because the soil seemed damp the day before.

The other batch did fine, and we ate them served over tilapia.

I'm guessing the plastic lid helped keep a lot of moisture locked in.  I will incorporate that into future microgreen growing operations (maybe coupled with some sort of automatic watering system).

The ones that we ate were delicious.

Microgreens update 4

Here are 3 pictures from Sept 26-28th.

These greens are looking really good. If I could separate them without killing most of them I would just plant them somewhere and let them grow into full sized lettuce.

My other set:

They look good, not quite as tall and full as the ones in the clear plastic tray but still these look healthy.

The only major difference in the two were was a plastic cover over the larger tray.  They used the same soil mixture (3/4ths potting soil mixed with 1/4 peat).  They received the exact same amount of light (24 hours the first 3 days, then 12/12 from then on).

We are planning on serving them with some fish on Thursday night.  I have sampled them and they taste delicious already.

Microgreens update 3 + hydroponics

My microgreens are looking amazing under the lights.  The last 2 days I have been running the lights for roughly 14-18 on, and the rest of the time off, depending on what time I remember to shut them off (must get timer soon).

Here they are on Sept 24th:

And here they are today (25th):

They still aren't getting tall.  There must be some kind of perfect stress level where they get enough light not to fall over and die but not enough to stretch up and grow tall, unless there's going to be a growth spurt later on.

I bought a Fig tree clone at Pepper Place market yesterday from a very nice old Japanese man whom, despite being his first year selling bonsai fruit trees, knew a lot about what to do and he explained it to me in great detail.  I think I remember most of what he told me.  As a bonus he gave me some peat pellets and let me keep the plastic root ball container that you put around the branch.  By applying rooting hormone I can use this plastic ball around a new cutting and make a brand new tree from a healthy branch.

Pictures:

Looks like a pretty healthy plant.  I put it in the shade near the north side of my house so that it can acclimate to the pot first, then i'm going to move it out into the sun.  I will probably keep it in the pot through the winter (I can bring it inside during really cold nights) and let it's root system build up then transplant into my yard sometime early next spring.  It's probably a few years away from producing edible fruit but it will be interesting to observe.

Lastly, here is a 'dry' run of my hydroponics system    *video removed, sorry* :( .  I probably spent about $40 on this.  I actually have 2 rails with 3 holes each for a total of 6 plants.  I am going to try one of each:  Kale, Arugula, Buttercrunch Lettuce, Collards, Mustard Greens, and Spinach and will document the results.  As long as I can figure out the proper nutrient amounts I am thinking this will be a big success.

Still need:

Rockwool/Rapid Rooter/Oasis cubes for holding the seed.  (Jiffy Pellets are apparently great for soil but terrible for hydroponics).

1/2" drill bit so I can drop that tubing down into the end of the pipe.

A pH meter.

Hoping to have this all set up by next weekend.

Microgreen update

2nd round of microgreens are still growing.  Not getting taller, but they look extremely healthy.

The 24 hour light experiment has been interesting.  I'm starting to think they need that darkness to grow upwards, and that when the plant stops photosynthesis it begins stretching to find the light again.  This could be a natural reaction to growing into a shaded area, the plant would grow taller to try and reach the light again.

I will get a timer this weekend and set up my next batch to run off of it.

So far I am extremely pleased with my t8 fluorescent lights, I am thinking they will be perfect for the full fledged lettuce hydroponics system.  Already considering buying a few more narrower units (2 bulb instead of 4 bulb) which will fit on the lower shelves (this unit is too wide) so that I can have multiple germination trays running at once.  I will try and take a picture of my whole setup in a few days.

Microgreens attempt #2

First off here's a picture of the wheatgrass smoothie I made from that wheatgrass I grew last week:

I finally received a shipment of Hydroton so my first hydroponics setup should be happening very soon.  The only big thing I really need now is a pH tester, which is fairly important for the whole setup.

Typically when planting into hydroton you will use some sort of pellet or cube of material to hold your seedling.  Most people use Jiffy Pellets or rockwool or some established type of growing medium.  I've been debating using Sure To Grow which is a pH inert plastic fiber cube.  My only hangup is that they are not reusable.  Granted rockwool isn't either, but at least for rockwool or some type of peat pellets I can buy them nearby.  Sure To Grow I would have to reorder every time I ran out.

Hydroton is the same, but you are able to wash the clay balls and reuse them a few times.  Supposedly roots will eventually pierce the hardened clay and can mess up plants after several reuses, but at least I can get a few good grows out of them.

I have a huge variety of lettuce and other greens ready to go.  With only 6 'holes' in my first system (a custom built NFT), it's going to be hard figuring out what to grow.  I went ahead and planted about half a packet's worth of various lettuce seeds in my garden, spacing them out into several rows.  I will go back and pick the weaker ones out when they begin to sprout to give the best looking ones a good chance.  The weather is damp and mild (mid 70's most of the day), which lettuce enjoys.  Hopefully another heat wave won't come by and spoil the crop.

Pictures of my latest microgreen experiement.

This time I am using the light I plan on using for my lettuce hydroponics experiment and leaving it on 24 hours a day.  I am going to get a timer for the light when I switch over to hydroponics and run that light 18 on, 6 off, even though that's a bit longer than the natural day, plants seem to thrive off the extra light per day.  The light isn't anything special, it is a 48" 4 slot t8 fluorescent workshop light i bought at Lowes for about $40, and I am using GE 'Solar' t8 bulbs which put out 2900 lumens each of a color temperature around 5000k (those were only about $6 for a pack of 2).  Not great for flowering but from what i've read, should be perfect for growing lettuce.

I've been reading up on the work done by Travis Hughey who has been experimenting and designing aquaponics systems for many years.  If you are interested in aquaponics I highly encourage you to check out his Barrel-ponics manual that he provides for free on his website here:

http://www.fastonline.org/content/view/15/29/

A great design with a lot of useable ideas.  I just need to figure out how to get ahold of some blue plastic 55 gallon barrels...