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…
If you have visited us before, you may notice some changes to the site design. Felt things were getting cluttered, so did a little spring cleaning. We have a little more tweaking to do but I am getting used to the lighter feel. What do you think?
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…
My daughter and I made our first trip to the NW Home and Garden show yesterday. It was a great experience which if you want to know more you can check out my guest post on Flora’s Blog. Apparently there is a March 31st deadline to find a new owner, so keeping my fingers crossed since I would love to go next year with both my daughters.
“University of Texas, Austin. Davis claims the average vegetable found in today’s supermarket is anywhere from 5% to 40% lower in minerals (including magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc) than those harvested just 50 years ago.” Not only are those vegetables you been eating at the grocery store less tasty, but may be getting marginal nutritional value. They discuss some of the potential factors in this including use for synthetic…
Not sure how effective these would be with so few LEDs but they do look pretty cool. In their defense they do label these as supplemental lights. If you want one, unfortunately you have to make it yourself with full DIY instructions below. via Gizmodo via PopSci via Lifehacker