There has been some major changes since I started the plants above in my cheap DIY hydroponic setup about a month ago. Since then I have added a couple of pepper plants I saved from thinning. I must say the plants are doing better than I expected. I am still using the same homemade nutrient solution, 2 pumps of liquid plant fertilizer and half a teaspoon of Epsom Salts. …
I never got a round to making a hydroponic system out of my Cafe Steamer, but I did use part of it to create a supplemental red LED light. The construction of this was very easy and you can do the same thing with an old string of LED Christmas lights and some soft plastic (margarine or frozen dinner container) from your recycling bin. Take the plastic and drill…
If you want to get some free tomato seeds head over to Campbell’s Help Grow Your Soup site. After simply entering some numbers on the bottom of a can of soup they will send you a free packet of tomato seeds. Seems like a pretty good deal to me, as an added bonus they donate 100 seeds to the National FFA Organization just for making your request. Be sure…
Last year over at The Genteel Recessionista their trellis made of twine rotted away. This year they chose to use wire salvaged from some old CAT-5 Ethernet cables to create a new one. They were able to create two trellises for about a dollar each which in my opinion look great.
It has been a blessing that the competition for free coffee grounds at the Starbucks at my work has increased now the weather warmed up and I have freed from the temptation to grab yet another free shiny silver bag of grounds. The reason is, I have put four bags in my compost, worked generous amounts into my vegetable garden and I still have six bags left. Now I…
My wife saw this wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer on clearance at Eddie Bauer and knew this was something I could use. I simply put the wireless sensor in the computerized grow box and instant temperature monitoring where at a quick glance I can be sure my summer vegetables are toasty warm in the garage. Sure, I could connect to the machine remotely, or look at the backup digital thermometer inside…
I haven’t done many posts in a while about regular old gardening in actual dirt so figured a good time to do an update. Though I enjoy indoor seed starting in my LED grow box and computerized grow box, some plants need to be started outdoors. Today my daughters and I planted the last these plants for fall outdoor planting. A few weeks ago, we planted garlic, onions, spinach,…
For using windows they found lying around from homes in the neighborhood getting torn down the end result looks great. Functional and doing some serious reduce/reuse/recycle in the process. Adding windows to the top would be nice, but sure finding the right ones for a weatherproof fit could be difficult. Instructables via Make
Soil sensors can be pretty expensive to purchase but a few minutes and a few cents worth materials around your house you can make your own accurate cheap soil moisture sensor. UPDATE: Though this still a great sensor, check this post for the latest version of a more heavy duty soil moisture sensor. I mentioned in a previous post that my previous soil moisture sensor did not hold up in my…
Occasionally at work I get a craving for some hot chocolate. When I do, I reach for a company provided compostable coffee cup (I know I should bring in my own cup, but I did say “occasionally”). When I am done with my delicious beverage, I simply dispose of them in the proper “compostable” reciprocal. Last week was different, with my recent frustration with the durability of some of…
I came across this interesting concept for an automated grow light. It uses a photoresister to detect when lights get low and proceeds to turns on some red LEDs to provide the plants a few extra hours of light. From my experience if you are growing indoors, your seedlings can use as much supplemental lighting as they can get and would recommend turning them on when there is light…
Haven’t mentioned the computerized grow box for a while, so think it is a good time for an update. The moisture sensor corroded away, but have plans to make a much more beefier one. With the exception of the hard drive failure, the basic functionality of the computerized grow box has been excellent and the plants have been thriving. The only physical improvement I have made is adding some…