Day 45: Houston, We Have Arugula

The arugula is peeking up out of the gutter, woo hoo.

Tomatoes looking pretty sad, although some might make it.

Day 42: Going Greens

Ok, just wanted to keep the cost tally up to date. On Day 25 I mentioned I bought 3 cubic feet of peat moss but didn't mention the price - $10. Also had mentioned on Day 37 I bought a temp/humidity sensor for $15, but I figure I won't count that toward the project. I'll use it elsewhere once things get up and running properly. On Day 41  bought a 10' length of vinyl gutter for growing greens in - $5. Not cheap! I've also purchases a pair of Warm White and a pair of Cool White bulbs. Would have preferred to get Plant Bulbs, but couldn't find the ones I was looking for - $16 for four bulbs. That brings total costs to $226. Boy! Getting up there.

To the right see the setup. I cut the gutter in half (at the store actually, couldn't fit 10' of gutter in the car). Then I cut a couple scrap piece of two by four for the end caps. They didn't quite cover the hole, so I stuffed in some leftover peat pots. then mixed up some soil - a bit light on the vermiculite, I ran out.

Next I spaced the seeds 3" apart. Seed the map of the planting here:

The pictures in the top row represent seeds from a packet of salad greens mix - Beet Bull's Blood, Spinach Bloomsdale Long-Standing, Lettuce Red Salad Bowl, Lettuce Black-Seeded Simpson, and Mustard Tendergreen. I don't know which is which, but I have all five types planted. The letters in the bottom row repesent Arugula (Rocket) and Onion (Evergreen Bunching). The picture above represent the left half of the gutter-planter. The right half is the mirror image of the diagram above (so basically, onions in the center, arugula at the ends). To test the affect of fertilizer on the plants, I'm going to fertilizer the left half lightly and the right half heavily. We'll see what effect that has. With any luck, we'll have plenty of salad greens in 35 days (Day 77 - Nov 1).

I also installed the 2 Warm White and 2 Cool White tubes, lets see if that helps the tomatoes. Also raised the lights another 8". No timer yet, I'll get one today or tomorrow.

UPDATE: Bought a swanky timer power strip, the lights are now scheduled to be on 18 hours a day, that should be fine. Also bought a spray bottle. Misted the leaves with a weak solution of the fertilizer I've been using. The fertilizer box recommends that, it's meant to be used that way.

Day 40: Diversification

This weekend I'm going to do a little work. First I'll raise the lights a bit and then see if I can find my timer switches. I'm going to try switching the lights off for 6 hours a night. Then going to hit the hardware store and get three warm white tubes.

 

Thinking about trying some other plants. Going to give lettuce a try first, by all accounts it seems to be the easiest to grow, and grows pretty quickly. May also try carrots, peas and parsnips. The lettuce first. Saw a nice idea for growing salad greens in a piece of gutter. I suspect 4' of gutter could keep us pretty well supplied with greens.

Today's sizes:

1. 39.4 cm
2. 39.4 cm
3. 21.6 cm
4. 33.0 cm
5. 38.1 cm
6. 21.0 cm
7. 36.2 cm
8. 50.8 cm
9. 50.8 cm
10. 30.5 cm

Day 39: Continued

Hmmm, I guess you can't edit posts once they get to be a certain age. Anyway, here are the promised pictures.

First a close up of #7. Looking pretty good. Although the pale splotches and the browned leaf tips aren;t too nice. I think they are more lingering wounds from before rather than continuing problems. The new growth looks good.

I like this picture because you can see how things are going. The two on the far left (#1 and #6) are in bad shape, as is #10 (front, far right). The rest seem to be doing ok, although I think nice dark green growth would be better. I wonder how they would look now if I started them in compost instead of the peat-vermiculite-perlite mix. The dangling cable is the sensor from my temp/humidity device. I wanted it right at bushy-growth level.

I'm really thinking about adding a warm white bulb to the mix to see if they like that. Also giving some thought about what to do with the free space if the three sickly ones truly and finally die. I'm thinking this wasn't a fair test of these different types of seeds, since there were such big issues. If they die I'll probably try them again the next round. Maybe I'll plant some other veggies in their place. Peas, beans, carrots and peppers are all possibilities.

Day 39: I just don't know!

Temp 75 degree, humidity 82%.

I wish I could say with confidence that the tomatoes were flourishing or were dying off. But it's hard to say. Plant #8 is tipping over - I'm guessing the root system is underdeveloped and the above-soil part of the plant is too leggy (although it looks stocky enough). On the other hand, the plants seem to be putting on growth, both outward and upward. Even the dying ones. And #1 seems to be turning from pale white to light green. In other words, even the dying ones are doing a terrible job of dying.

I ended up staking #8 with a dowel I had on hand. It's too expensive of an option to do for all of them. At least, doing it right, the way I'd like to is.

Photos later today.

Day 38: Micro Update

So the temperature was 76 degrees F and the humidity was 76% today.

Day 37: High Tech Monitoring

I went to the local hardware store with a mind toward buying some wood to make some sort of support for the tomatoes. Ended up not buying any wood, but I have some ideas, going to work on some plans. I did buy a digital thermometer / humidity sensor. I won't count that toward the money spent on this project, because I think after monitoring it for a while I won't need it for the basement garden. I did find out that the temperature wasn't as high as I thought, just 74 degrees F with 71% humidity. But after moving the lights up the browning of the leaf tips has stopped, so I do feel like it's a positive move.

My next thought is maybe going with one warm white bulb, one cool white in each shop light. Maybe turn the lights off for 6 hours a day. See if I can find our timers for the lights this week. I watered maybe a liter total over the 10 plants, too.