21 Mar

Its nearing the end

Posted by Chris in Hydroponics, The Greenhouse, Veggies, Winter.

Well its been nice living here in the mountains but this week I found I lost my job, so its time to move on. The employment situation here for a pilot is just not happening at all, so we are moving back to Florida at the end of April.

This is the current situation here with our little greenhouse that could, its has survived the winter, only costing us about $20 extra per month to heat it to no lower than 55 F at night, and during the days it was around 65F …even when it was 10 F outside !

We had a nice lot of strawberries all winter, and lettuce and bok choi. Surprisingly the only herb to live the winter was the rosemary! As we are in the last month all thats left now is our peppers that are plants that are nearing a year old, and some really nice tomato plants. These tomatoes are the cold weather type from Canada you buy from Reimers Seeds, which I mentioned in a previous post.

The next version of this blog will be growing plants in the tropics! so check back in May for updates.

So here is the last post of it all, and what it looks like:

The Tomatoes are big
This is the cold weather Celery plants and the Rosemary living happily together
One of the many tomatoes on the plants
They are too big a plants to get a good pic

7 Jan

January and we are a growin…

Posted by Chris in The Greenhouse.

Yes its January, its cold (32F daytime and 10F at night) and the little greenhouse that could is still hard at work. We still have an aphid problem, and insecticide just isnt doing anything, so we have gone natural and this week ordered 1500 ladybugs from California. Honestly I thought we would have rid the greenhouse of aphids when the soil was all removed… but no they are still there, and worse than when it was a soil based garden.

At the moment we have changed both hydroponic systems to Age Old Organics Liquid Soil Part A and Part B mix. Its cheap and seems to be making the plants grow extremely well.

Lettuce happy as larry and not going to see
The toms and the peppers
The peppers are covered in fruit, its totally amazing. And these plants are now 6 mths old!
The top layer of the ebb and flow
The bottom layer of the ebb and flow
Bok choi
Strawberry plants, all are covered in fruit, but they are also all covered in aphids

17 Dec

Been a cold week

Posted by Chris in The Greenhouse.

We have had the coldest week since havng the greenhouse up, with temps dropping to around-5 F / -25 C the greenhouse heater has been able to just keep the inside temp at 55F at night, with daytime temps in the 60-70F range. So not hugely hot, but when you go in there from outside you definitely feel like you are in summer.

With some modifications to the left side ebb and flo system as the roots grew the flow slowed in the upper pipes, so had to change the pipe angle to let more water out of the top pipes, which of course meant a couple of days of drips as I tried to plug them with silicon.  The right side drip system has leak still in one of the buckets in the outlet pipe, still cant get it to seal… one day but its not a big leak.

The tomatoes are growing like mad, and we have already been able to get some nice sized peppers from the plants, and many strawberries… although they get eaten normally before they get to the back door of the house!

The only real problem at the moment is the seedlings, we are having a hard time getting them to grow, so this week I tried to plant some in soil with the intention of washing off the soil once they have grown to transplant size…we will see if it succeeds.

This is a transplanted Utah Celery seedling
the tomatoes and peppers, the toms are cold weather Canadian varieties.
Strawberrys and parsley thrive in the ebb and flow
Strawberries are all covered in fruit

4 Dec

Its cold and the greenhouse is still growing

Posted by Chris in Heating, Hydroponics, Winter.

Well its been a while since I have updated this blog, with recurrent training at work and then vacation it just has been too hard to do the updates, but here it is!

The hydroponics now rule the greenhouse, which is great as there is no way to have a watering system for soil based plants when its below freezing outside.

Today is was 8 F outside, there was snow on the greenhouse roof and it was 55 – 60 F inside (with the help of a fan heater set at 55 F )

These pepper plants came from the soil based garden and hae thrived since been washed and transfered to hydroponics. The tomatoes are grown from seed and are getting there
This is the little greenhouse that could as it sat today in the cold and snow, it was 5 F
Strawberries, who would have thought, these plants too came from the soil garden and started getting fruit on them within 1 week of being soilless
the ebb and flow system in operation, and just 1 month old
the lower level, still waiting for more plants to grow from seed ... which is the slowest stage of the growth
this is a little iceberg lettuce seedling

29 Oct

Building a home made ebb and flow hydroponic system

Posted by Chris in Hydroponics.

The idea is to replicate a expensive ebb and flow hydroponic system.

The ingredients (all bought from Home Depot)

  • 1/2″ irrigation pipe – 50ft roll
  • 1/4″ irrigation tube – 50 ft roll
  • 8 x 1/2″ T fittings
  • Pack of 10 of 1/4″ couplers
  • 8 x 5 gallon buckets
  • 19 gallon dark colored tote with lid
  • 2 x large bags of perlite
  • tube of silicon
  • 170 gph aquarium or fountain pump
  • aquarium air pump
  • aquarium air stone
  • aquarium water heater
  • timer – multiple on off (need to be able to do 4hrs on then 4hrs off)
  • hydroponic chemicals
  • cable ties (25 pack)
This is the system how it will be laid out, 8 buckets filled with perlite and the nutrient tank with water pump, air pump and heater in it at the end.
Inside the nutrient tank, we have the water pump connected to a length of 1/2\" pipe, a air stone to aerate the solution and out of the pic is a water heater.
The cables come out thru under the handle, the air pump can be see cable tied to the side. Remember to put a no drip loop in the power cables or keep the cabled and air pump higher than the water level.
The nutrient tank has he pump pipe coming out the top and the drainage pipe below it.
A closer look at the pipes in and out of the nutrient tank
This is the drainage pipe, put in by using a 1/2\" drill pipe and then silicon to secure it.
Inside the bucket the drain pipe can be seen, this needs to be covered with screen material secured by a twist tie.
Nutrient, air rock, pump and heater
This is some of the containers with the inlet water pipes (found you need 1 pipe per plant). Thats perlite in the containers
You can see the pipes in the middle of the pipes, the inlet or nutrient to the plant main pipe needs to be level and level with the top of the buckets for even flow I found.
I placed some window screen material over the end of the return pipe to stop it getting clogged with perlite.

29 Oct

Its time for a change to hydroponics

Posted by Chris in Hydroponics.

With the hassles of soil based growing, add to it the fact that we have to keep the soil warm and disease free at the same time we thought there has to be a better way….and hydroponics came to mind.

The last time I used hydroponics to grow anything I was 14 years old and had a really simple system in my parents glasshouse, so things have changed since then, mainly in terms of chemicals/mixes used and components in the systems.

One thing I did notice now is the cost of the systems you can buy online, they are really really expensive. So I set out to convert the greenhouse to hydroponic using stuff bought in a local hardware store.

In researching this I found a lot of links and pics, unfortunately most were for growing drugs in your garage or attic!, I also found here in Evergreen we have a store selling hydroponics.

I am going to build 2 systems, a ebb and flow system using buckets for tomatoes and peppers and bigger plants, and a NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) system for lettuce, bok choi, strawberries and herbs.

Here are some links:

Chemicals and supplies

http://www.ageoldorganic.com/

Local evergreen supplier All Season Gardener

http://www.thebigtomato.com/

Building ideas and system info

http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/

http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/homemade-hydroponics.html

http://www.content4reprint.com/home/gardening/understanding-ph-for-hydroponic-growing.htm

http://ezinearticles.com/?Easiest-Homemade-Hydroponics-System&id=109225

13 Oct

Update, prior to going to Australia

Posted by Chris in Fall, Veggies.

Spent the last 10 days in Australia, visiting family, so didnt get to complete the growing update before I left, so here it is.

These updates were taken on Oct 1 208, plantings of lettuce, winter tomatoes and celery, together with the standard toms, herbs and strawberry plants seem to be all ok, we will see how the upcoming colder weather treats them.

The little insulated greenhouse
Lettuce plants
More lettuce
New planter with heating for toms
Strawberry plants
Toms, still growing and going
Giant tree toms

13 Oct

Tomatoes, tomatoes keep on coming

Posted by Chris in Giant Tree Tomato.

Our first giant tree tomatoe plants have finally given birth to fruit, lots of big tomatoes, it only took 3 + months!. Our roma tomatoe plants have been a late suprise of the season, and our first tomatoe plant, a early riser tomatoe plant will be removed this week, as its life is over and its completed its season, here are some toms from it

A small giant tree tomato
Giant tree tomato fruit
Last of the early riser toms
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