When you start seeds indoors in a vegetable garden, it can be difficult getting your schedule down to ensure that start your vegetable seeds with enough lead time that they are mature enough to venture outside but also not so large they take over your growing area. Personally this has been a difficult part for me where I am really good getting the early vegetables started on time (onions, peppers,…
width=”550″ height=”309″ /> My three year old was really excited to start planting some seeds so we planted some red onions and put them in the grow box. This is a little ahead of my usual planting schedule but only by about a week. Though the grow box does have automated watering my daughter insisted on watering them herself with her favorite yellow elephant watering can. If all goes…
width=”549″ height=”412″ /> Though it is still pretty cold inside right now is the time for me to begin start planting seeds for this spring. These include bok choy which are very cold tolerant, onions which do pretty good in the cold but could use a head start on these to get some good sized bulbs by the end of the season. I also started some daisies which I…
I came across this pretty cool Kickstarter from Vegetronix where they are putting together a neat little kit that includes an adjustable 1 watt that can plug into any USB port on your computer. All you need to supply is an old 2 liter bottle and you have a nicely contained growing environment. Personally, I think this could make an awesome addition to my windowless office and bring a…
width=”550″ height=”367″ /> Nearly August and I decided it is finally time to bring the peppers out from the garage, though in some ways they are doing so well in the heated grow box with a killer 120 watt Extreme Flower LED lighting not sure if I should chance it but looking at the upcoming forecast this might be as good as it gets. So far my peppers in…
width=”550″ height=”367″ /> Well this is the soonest I have gotten peppers growing, but the temperature controlled grow box did help out a lot. I brought this pant indoors last year when it still had a half dozen green peppers on it when the temperatures started to decline. The peppers turned red and a picked and dried them out for cayenne powder and sort of forgot about this plant. …
alt=”2682″ width=”550″ height=”367″ /> Unfortunately we do not have no where near the preferred climate to grow tomatoes. We have extremely mild temperatures with summer maximum average high of 78°F and maximum average lows of 59°F. Take that with our very short window of consistent rain (bringing blight) tomato plants are lucky to even be surviving when planted in our area let alone have a tremendous yield, though with…
Before going into my latest version of the grow box, I think it would be good to go through the brief history of my computerized grow boxes. Version 1: PC Grow Box It all started with my daughter’s question for her science project “Why don’t strawberries grow during the wintertime?” After some discussion she decided because it was too dark and too cold (pretty smart for a kindergartener) To…
I previously reviewed the WetCircuits water resistant power strip and risked death by electrocution to prove the products worth. In acknowledgement of my valiant bravery they have agreed to provide another power strip for me to giveaway to the great readers of CheapVegetableGardener.com If you haven’t heard of the WetCircuits power strip it built to be shock resistant so pouring water on it, pushing tweezers into the outlets will…
I have almost everything planted at least germinating in my grow box. As you may be able to see from the labels I am growing a variety of peppers this year as well as a few different onions and tomatoes. I also have garlic and some onions I overwintered already outside and peas already in the ground. I did successfully grow some peppers in the grow box over the…
Always running out of room in my grow box I needed to expand it some. Though the CFL lights I was using worked great for my 3 square foot space, though by nearly tripling the square footage CFLs wouldn’t scale out anymore. Looking at my other options such as HPS (High Pressure Sodium) or Metal Halide I really didn’t want to deal with ballasts and cooling I decided on…
My youngest daughter has been patiently waiting all winter to plant some seeds (as have I) Finally it was time in my area to start planting the “start 8-10 weeks before first frost” seeds. Which for me included onions and leeks, though as I was picking up the leek seeds my daughter talked me into getting some purple coneflower seeds as well. After carefully mixing my special blend of…