New Project: Lettuce under red/blue LED panels @ 5 days

For the second part of the LED grow light experiment, I have placed an identical collection of lettuce seeds into an improvised system identical to the one used in the blue-only LED lettuce experiment.

The seeds have germinated and sprouted with no trouble, and since I kept good records of the lettuce under blue LEDs, we'll be able to compare this setup to the blue setup at the same intervals. As I said before, I would have preferred to do these experiments side-by-side but I had to wait longer for delivery of my red/blue mixed panels.

Photo Update: LED Lettuce @ 20 days

Here is the lettuce specimens that have been growing under blue-only LED's for 20 days now. At this point I think it's safe to conclusively say that these plants are by no means thriving. Under normal light, the plants have a very normal and uniform green appearance (no necrosis or browning/yellowing of leaves), but they have very slender, weak stems which are unable to support the weight of their tiny leaves.

Root development is also severely stunted (not shown in this photo). Each of these plants has 2 to 4 thin, wispy roots and do not appear to be developing further root structure.

For those wondering, the wavelength of these blue LED's is in the 460 to 470 nanometer range.

Photo Update: LED Lettuce @ 15 days

Shown here is the Tom Thumb and Bullet lettuce growing under blue LEDs. At 15 days I'd expect these plants to be a lot heartier under conventional lighting solutions.

There's a major problem here- the plants are 'reaching' which is a sure indication that they are not receiving the light that they need. The leaves are pointing upwards instead of outwards, which is bad. During the 'day' cycle, the leaves should be organized outwards and collecting light. In the 'night' cycle it is normal for the leaves to put upwards until the next day cycle begins.

Hopefully the problem is that the pure blue light is not providing everything that the plants need. If the problem is the quantity of light, changing the color will not help.

The good news is, my red & blue mixed LED panels have arrived so now I can start an identical crop under red and blue light for comparison. I wanted to run the tests side-by-side but a shortage of supply meant I had to wait an extra 2 weeks for my red and blue panels to arrive.

Today I'll get the red/blue setup built so that we can see if we can grow healthy lettuce under LEDs.

Photo Update: Cheapskate Lettuce @ 27 days

Here's my crop of Bullet romaine lettuce growing in a cheapskate deep-water culture system under a hydrofarm 125 watt compact fluorescent light. As you can see, things are going wonderfully for these guys.

The only problem is that I waited a bit too long to raise the light and the tips of some of the plants got burned slightly. When you grow under fluorescent lighting you have to keep the light as close to the plants as possible and raise the light as the plants grow.

These guys are ready for eating in about 10 more days. They normally grow for 50 days but we're going to take what's available around 40 days. I planted these guys too close to one another (I didn't realize how large they get!) and they won't be able to grow to full potential anyway.

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

Here's a photo of my poor burdened Butternut Squash. This guy has been through a lot as I've learned a bit more about how to take care of this type of plant. I had to do three major things to improve his quality of life:

-Drop the HID lighting from 600 watts to 400 watts

-Reduce the nitrogen level in the nutrient solution

-Run very frequent watering cycles (15 minutes on/15 minutes off)

All of these changes have this guy on the road to recovery but right now he has a lot of crispy leaves that need to be removed as soon as some healthy new growth appears. You can see several squashes on the plant but this is the second time it has tried to set fruit. The entire first round of fruits died on the vine. Hopefully we have better luck with this next round.

Photo Update: LED Lettuce @ 4 days

Here's a photo of the LEDduce that I'm growing. Get it? Lettuce under LED lighting. Ho ho!

Most all of the seeds have sprouted. It's interesting to note that the plants appear black under this blue light. That's because all of the blue light is being absorbed by the plant. Only green/yellow colored light would reflect off, giving the plants their green appearance, but I'm not providing any light of that color.

Just because the blue light is being absorbed doesn't necessarily mean that it is penetrating or that the plant is getting any photosynthetic benefit from the light. It's difficult to tell with seedlings because these are still operating on energy stored in the seed itself. Once more leaves appear we'll be able to make a better judgement about health and growth rates.

New Project: LED Lighting Experiment

I've finally gotten tired of trying to find good information online about growing under LED lights. Forums are noisy with people who just aren't very helpful- skeptics and underinformed growers, along with various vendors trying to skew the data. Vendors who sell LED's claim that they're the next great thing and vendors who sell conventional HID lighting dismiss LED lighting altogether.

Also, there are paralyzing choices of LED grow lighting devices on the market. The "UFO" type seems to be really popular, but expensive. There are other high-end choices costing $1,000 or more. At the lower end of the market are cheap imported devices, some of which are well-built, others whose LEDs are so overdriven (to achieve greater brightness) that one of the LED's most favorable features- their long life, is greatly reduced.

I finally decided that the best way to figure out how LED's might affect my growing would be to try a couple of small experiments. I located some mid-range, mid-priced LED panels and set up a simple experiment with lettuce plants:

Here I have a 15 watt panel with 225 blue LED's suspended over a small growing container. My growing container is a small 3-quart Gladware container with five 2-inch holes cut in the lid. In each hole I have a 2-inch net pot, and in each net pot I have a Rapid Rooter plug with three lettuce seeds.

In the center pot I have planted Bullet romaine lettuce. In each of the four outside pots I have planted Tom Thumb butter leaf lettuce. I selected lettuce plants for this experiment because lettuce isn't very picky. It grows quickly, uses a very simple nutrient solution and doesn't require any support for fruiting or flowering, only vegetative growth.

Light in the blue spectrum is largely used by plants for vegetative growth. I am concerned with the total lack of red light in this setup, but I intentionally designed this first experiment to test blue-light only on vegetative growth in lettuce.

Based on the results of this experiment, I will probably try growing lettuce side-by-side under blue-only, red-only, and red-blue LED panels to determine which is the best mix of LED color to grow lettuce under. Conventional wisdom supports that the red-blue mix will be best, but I will be thorough.

Once I identify the most effective LED grow lighting setup and have a chance to assess the results, I'll arrange an LED-Compact Fluorescent growdown(tm) to see if low-power, low-cost LEDs can meet or exceed my proven results under 125 watt CF lighting.

Photo Update: Cheapskate Lettuce @ 16 days

You may or may not have seen the previous article on building a cheapskate DWC system, but here is my system growing lettuce, which is now 16 days from seed and growing very nicely!

The tall, darker greens belong to Bullet Romaine Lettuce. The lighter green plants (which are less tall) belong to Tom Thumb Butter lettuce. (all lettuce seeds from Territorial Seed Co)

If you look at the enlarged photo, you'll notice that the strawberry seeds (under the cherry drinking glass) have finally sprouted, about 7 days ahead of schedule.

There is also a single lonely pear tomato plant in the back row.

How To: Build a supported grow bucket

After losing several nice pepper plants to broken stems, I borrowed the "tomato cage" concept from traditional soil gardening to design a bucket lid which is easy to move from bucket to bucket for reservoir changes and also provides plenty of built-in support for the plant. Here I'll demonstrate how I build mine with parts and tools from Home Depot.

Parts list:

• 1 five-gallon 'Homer' bucket from Home Depot
• 1 'Homer' bucket lid
• 1 roll PVC-coated wire fencing (like this)
• 1 bag 8-inch plastic cable ties (I use these for everything)

Tools list:

• Power drill
• 3-inch hole-saw
• 7/32" drill bit
  
• Bolt cutters or wire snippers

Step 1: Cut the main hole

First we cut the hole that our plant's net pot will rest in.

Attach the hole saw to your drill and flip the bucket lid upside down (it's easier to cut the hole from the underside than from the top, since the lid is slightly recessed). Secure the lid with one hand or a clamp and then cut the hole. The plastic cuts easily so feel free to make the cut slowly and carefully if you have a multi-speed drill.

Step 2: Drill holes for the cable ties

Next we drill the holes that we'll use to tie the cage to the bucket lid. Change the hole saw out for the 7/32" drill bit. Leaving the lid upside down, drill two holes side by side in the inside rim, ensuring that both holes are between (NOT STRADDLING) the little plastic walls that serve as structural supports. Drill three more pairs of holes in the lid so that you end up with one pair of holes each at the north, south, east and west points of the lid.

Step 3: Thread the cable ties

Flip the bucket lid right-side up and pick a pair of holes to start with. Thread the narrow end of a cable-tie into the hole on the right side of the pair. Push the cable tie about halfway through, then flip the lid over. Bend the narrow end of the tie and pass it through the remaining hole in the pair, like so:

Flip the lid back over and pull the narrow end of the tie and adjust it so that the tie is centered through the pair of holes, as such:

Step 5: Cut out the cage

Sorry, I don't have a photo for this step. What you need to do is figure out how much wire fencing you need to cut off of the roll in order to create a cylinder that fits the top of your bucket lid. Unroll a length of fencing and bend it to the shape of your bucket lid until you have figured out how much fencing it takes to make a cylinder. Keep in mind- your cylinder is being secured to the inside rim of the bucket, not the outside. Using your wire cutters, clip this amount of fencing off of the roll. This will be your support cage.

 

Step 6: Secure the cage

Wear eye protection for this step in case you lose your grip on the wire fencing. Bring the two ends of your fencing segment together, causing the cage to take its cylindrical form, and fit it to the topside of your lid. Use one of the threaded cable ties to draw the two loose ends of the cage together and bind them to the bucket lid. You may find this easier if you reach in through the hole we cut in step one.

Work your way around the other three cable ties, tightly securing the base of the cage to the top of the lid. When you are finished, use your clippers to cut off the long portions of the cable ties leaving only the lugs that are holding the cage to the lid:

At this point the cage is secured nicely to the lid and the whole assembly becomes a lot more manageable.

Step 7: Stich the cage shut

 Working your way from the bottom up, use cable ties to stitch the cage closed. Clip off the long ends of all the cable ties, and you are done!

In the next update I'll explain how I use this special bucket to grow plants.

How To: Germinating seeds

Before plants can be grown in the Bucket Farm, they must first be germinated (or started). I'll explain here how I do it. I germinate my seeds in the cheapskate DWC system, which you can read about here.

 Now, let's get started with my overproduced explanation of my germinating process!

Step One: Materials

1) Seeds. In this photo, the incredibly tiny specs at the left side of all items are my Alpine Strawberry seeds.
2) A rooting plug. In this photo I show a Rapid Rooter plug, which are my favorites. [Rapid Rooter]
3) A two-inch net pot.
4) A small drinking glass or clear plastic cup that is at least 2 inches in diameter at the rim.
5) Tweezers or forceps (if you are dealing with small seeds).

Step 2: 'sow' the seeds

Using the forceps or just your fingers, place 2 to 3 seeds into the tiny hole at the top of the rooting plug. You can only keep one plant per plug, but we plant additional seeds to ensure we get at least one plant. If multiple seeds germinate, we'll have to select the strongest-looking seedling and snip the others off.

If you are using large seeds like cucumber or squash seeds, put only one seed into each plug and use multiple plugs to ensure you get more than 1 viable plant.

Step 3: Pot the plug

Plop the rooting plug into the net pot. That's pretty much it. Now take the potted plug and your drinking glass to your cheapskate DWC system.

Step 4: Installation

Insert the net pot with plug into a vacant site in your cheapskate DWC system. Very Important: Ensure that the water level inside the reservoir is high enough that water makes contact with the bottom of the rooting plug. If it doesn't, then add water to bring the level up high enough to touch the bottom of the plug by 1/2 inch or less.

The plug will draw water through its body and to the seeds so you don't need to submerge the plug. Note that in this photo you can see that the water is indeed coming into the net pot and touching the plug.

Step 5: Dome

Place the overturned glass or clear plastic cup over the net pot. This creates a tiny little environment that will get warmer and more humid than the open air, creating better conditions for germination for most plants. This 'dome' should be removed once the plant(s) sprout and have any sort of visible leaf structures.

Perhaps the best improvised dome is the small containers that you get at the nicer taco restaurants to hold salsa for to-go orders. However, I didn't have any of these on-hand so I went with the drinking glass.

Now you just have to wait a week or so (some seeds take even longer!) for your plant to germinate!

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

The squash plant continues to grow ferociously. I had to give it a bit of assistance finding the trellis (a couple of loose loops of cotton string). Flower buds are starting to appear all over, too! From what I understand the first set of flowers will be male (won't produce fruit) and are edible on their own. I don't think I want to eat them, though.

How To: Building a cheapskate DWC system

Here's a super-cheap hydroponic DWC (Deep Water Culture) system that I use to grow lettuce and start seedlings of all kinds. Some people call this a 'bubbler' system. In this type of system the plants live in little net pots that are inserted into the top of the system and the roots hang down into nutrient solution. It's a very simple type of arrangement, but very effective.

This system is excellent for germinating seeds and starting new plants, but it's also great for growing simple crops like herbs and smaller varieties of lettuce from start to finish. Another nice thing about this system is that doesn't take up much space- I keep mine on the floor in a closet.

Since it is so cheap and easy to build, I'll briefly describe how to build your own.

First, we'll talk about the materials you'll need:

(Item prices are in U.S. dollars.)

1) One 10 gallon opaque plastic storage tub (Rubbermaid or similar). Ensure that the container is wider than it is tall or you won't get as many plants into the system as you want. This should cost about $7 at a department or discount store. Note that in this photo I have already cut the holes that I need for the 2 inch net pots to rest in.

2) One large airstone. As you can see in the photo I like the flat, round type because they produc a very fine stream of bubbles and tend to stay in one place inside the reservoir. A round one like this costs $8, but you could easily use a 12 inch 'bar' type airstone which you can get at an aquarium or hydroponics store for around $3.

3) One 800-1000 aquarium air pump. This should cost around $7 at a pet/aquarium store.

4) Silicone airline tubing. I prefer silicone type to the regular plastic airline because silicone airline tubing is much more flexible and tends to go where you want it, not where it wants to go. $3 at a pet/aquarium store.

You will also need several 2-inch net pots [shown right] to hold your plants. You can get these online or at a local hydroponics shop and they usually cost less than 25 cents each. All told, you'll probably spend less than $30 on parts.

Now, to assemble the cheapskate DWC system:

1) Place your 10 gallon container into a bathtub, add a very small amount of dish detergent (not soap - use detergent). Fill the container with warm water and leave it to soak. Don't skip this step. You want the container clean of any residues from manufacturing that would otherwise get into your plants' water.

2) Using whichever method you prefer, mark spots on the lid of the container where you will be making the 2 inch holes to hold the net pots. I get 15 well-spaced sites onto the lid of a Rubbermaid 10 gallon container.

3) Using a drill and 2-inch hole saw (or a hobby knife and a lot of patience), cut out 2 inch diameter holes on all spots that you have marked.

4) Dump the soapy water from your 10 gallon container and rinse it VERY well. Leftover detergent would be very bad for your plants.

5) Bring the container and place it where you want the system to live. These containers become very flexible when filled with water and I don't advise trying to move them after they are filled.

6) Cut a length of airline tubing that is long enough to reach from the airstone (which will be resting in the bottom of your container) to the air pump. Connect the airpump and airstone to the airline and plop the airstone down in the bottom-center of your container. Don't start the air pump yet.

7) Add water to the container. The idea here is not to fill the container, but to add enough water that the bottoms of the net pots reach just barely below the surface of the water when the lid is in place. If you prefer, you could put the lid on the container now, place a couple of net pots in some of the holes and add water through one of the empty holes and simply stop adding water when the level of water comes over the inside of the bottoms of the net pots. (NOTE: For the 10 gallon rubbermaid container shown in these photos, this amount works out to be seven gallons of water).

8) Fire up the pump! Your contraption should look something like this:

If you look carefully (or look at the larger version of this photo) you'll see the bubbles bubbling away down in the reservoir. All that's left now is to add your favorite nutrient to the water, pH balance the nutrient solution and add your net pots and plants! I personally use Rapid Rooter plugs to hold my seeds and seedlings in the net pots.

If you have space near a nice sunny window, you could place your DWC system there and not have to worry about providing additional light. I don't have such a window so I provide artificial light using a 125 watt Hydrofarm brand compact fluorescent grow light.

Photo Update: Butternut squash recovering

Over the weekend I prepared a new setup for the Butternut Squash that was recovering from nitrogen burn. I intend to train the squash to climb a trellis inside the grow area, which presents an interesting problem. As it happens, squash plants have rather brittle stems which means that I would be risking snapping the stem each time I changed out the plant's reservoir. To address this problem, I decided to build an Ebb-and-Flood system for the squash plant.

  The first thing you might notice that the leaves have taken on a more healthy dark green color after being flushed. There is some permanent discoloration at the outside edges of the affected leaves, but the plant is much happier now. The small leaf at the center of the base of the plant is still in terrible condition and has stopped growing and gone necrotic, so I removed it after I took this photo. You can see the newest leaf (at the top of the plant) is reaching for the trellis that I made by tying jute twine between the supports of my growing area.

Now, the nice thing about an Ebb-and-Flood system is that the plant's container never has to be moved. Instead the plant lives in a bucket of growing medium [the white bucket in this photo] and a separate bucket is used to contain the nutrient solution [the orange bucket in this photo]. Several times a day, nutrient solution is pumped from the reservoir into the plant's container, filling the container from the bottom. This is called the 'flood' cycle. After about 15 minutes, the pump stops and the nutrient solution drains from the plant's container back to the nutrient reservoir. This, of course, is called the 'ebb' cycle. These alternating cycles supply the plants roots with exposure to nutrient solution and then to plenty of oxygen.

I apologize that this update was a bit rushed, but time was short today. Later I'll post an update with the details of how I built this very basic (and cheap!) ebb-and-flood contraption.

Problem: Nitrogen Burn

Shown here is the Butternut Squash, which has been growing at a ferocious pace. However, you can see that the leaves do not look healthy. The curling under and yellowish spots and tips on the leaves indicate overfertilization.

Specifically, this is Nitrogen burn caused by nitrogen levels being too high in the nutrient solution. Normally I start all plants on a solution of Maxi-Grow and then switch them to Maxi-Bloom when it's time to encourage/support fruiting and flowering.

A bit of research indicates that Butternut Squash plants desire a level of Phosphorous that is higher than the level of Nitrogen in their fertilizer, and this holds true for the plant's entire development cycle.

To remedy this problem I will be switching this squash plant's nutrient solution to use Maxi-Bloom rather than Maxi-Grow as its primary nutrient. However, the plant is damaged and under a lot of stress. To help with the stress and damage already caused by the nitrogen burn I have moved this plant to a bucket that contains a nutrient flush, where it will stay for 24 hours.

The most basic nutrient flush consists of nothing but clean, fresh water that is pH-adjusted to a perfectly neutral 7.0. In addition, I have added four teaspoons of Flora-Kleen (1 tsp. per gallon) to the flush solution to help break the plant/nutrient bond and hopefully release as much of the accumulated nitrogen as possible.

Hopefully this guy will make a full recovery. More as I have it!

pH adjustment with dry products

When I first bought a basic pH adjustment kit from General Hydroponics, it came with two small bottles of liquid adjusters. One to raise pH (pH UP) and one to lower pH (pH DOWN). Since I need to raise pH far more often than I need to lower it, I ran out of pH UP while I still have a lot of pH DOWN left.

As you may know, I'm a fan of using dry products where available. They're usually cheaper than their liquid counterparts and it's easy to keep a lot on-hand. Also, you're not paying to ship a bunch of water around when you purchase dry products. So, I bought a four pound box of pH UP at a local hydroponics store for $20.

By my best estimation, the dry pH UP product is about four times the strength of the same volume of the liquid version. That is to say, I use 1/2 teaspoon of the dry product to affect the same change that required 2 full teaspoons of liquid.

One downside is that the dry product seems to be quite a bit more reluctant to join the solution than the liquid version- quite a bit more mixing is required. This is an acceptable tradeoff for me given the large quantity of dry product that I get for the money.

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

Here you can see the Butternut Squash is really taking off now that it has some established roots.

The roots look like they're unhealthy in this photo, but what's actually happening is that the Rapid Rooter plug is dissolving and some of the detritus is getting caught up in the root system. I'll add some hygrozyme at the next reservoir change to help clear up the decaying material.

You'll also notice that this plant is in a plain bucket without any built-in supporting structures. That's because I'm going to train the Butternut Squash to climb the trellis that I built. I'm going to have to figure out exactly how to support the big heavy squash fruits but I won't have to worry about that for quite a while.

Photo Update: Roots!

While taking down the pepper plants this afternoon, we got a couple of shots of the root systems of the plants, and I thought you might find these interesting to look at.

This photo shows the root system of a bucket which had both an Ancho Magnifico and an Early Jalapeno plant in it. As I noted before, had I known how large these plants would eventually get I would certainly have given each their own bucket, something I'll be sure to do moving forward.

As you can see, the root systems of the two plants became co-mingled into one large network. Ideally the entire root system would be pure white like the bottom tips of the roots in this photo. The dark-colored portion at the center mass of the root network is slightly less healthy tissue, which hosts a small amount of algae. This is bad because the algae competes directly with the roots for resources in the nutrient solution. I have rectified this in the most recent bucket design by adding a wafer of mylar insulation to the top of the bucket lid to prevent light from penetrating the lid and supporting algae growth in the solution and on the roots.

Photo Update: Pepper Harvest

Today we harvested all of the peppers in the Bucke Farm, since each of the plants was in physical stress of one sort of another.

Here's a snapshot of the peppers we collected. We got around 80-100 pepperoncinis, 8 nice Anchos and about 40 Jalapenos.

Some of the peppers weren't quite ready to go, many of the Jalapenos had an unripe flavor and no heat. Others were tasty and plenty hot. Most of the pepperoncinis were green but you can see that a couple of them matured enough to pick up some red color, and they taste delicious, with just a tiny, tiny amount of heat.

I have already pickled and canned about half of the pepperoncinis and will probably can the rest tomorrow evening. They're just barely unripe enough to be useful in any fresh recipes but they'll be great pickled.


After picking all of the peppers, we completely cleaned out the growing area, upgraded the lamp to 600 watts and installed a very large reflector. Currently only two plants are in the growing area right now- a butternut squash and a miniature bell pepper. I need to get busy germinating new seeds so that I can fill up the farm and get the most produce for the energy we're using on lighting.

The plan:

-Babylon Cucumber (trained to climb the trellis)
-Roma Tomato (also trained to climb the trellis)
-Miniature Bell Pepper (already underway)
-Butternut Squash (already underway)
-Ancho Magnifico (these were so nice I have to grow them again)

When I start germinating the new seeds I'll do an update about the procedure I follow for germination.

[cuss word here]

This morning I went down to the bucket farm to pick up the notebook computer that's been logging CO2 for the past 26 hours. For whatever reason, Windows appears to have rebooted the computer at some point and there is no log file on the hard disk so I don't even have partial data.

The only CO2 data I have is based on some spot checks that I have done:

-5 AM (Before lights come on for the day)  CO2: 985 PPM
-12 PM (Lights have been on for six hours) CO2: 600 PPM
-6 PM (Lights have been on all day)  CO2: 550 PPM

Not surprisingly the CO2 levels are high overnight when the lights are off and the plants reverse their respiration, consuming oxygen and emitting carbon dioxide.

During the day cycle, CO2 levels drop to between 500 and 600 as the plant resumes taking up CO2 and emitting oxygen.

While I don't have the complete graph of CO2 levels that I was hoping for, I believe this is enough data to conclude that the bucket farm would benefit from the introduction of additional CO2. I'll discuss a plan for this once I finish this harvest and get the next generation of plants growing.

The 2nd generation farm bucket

Behold the next generation Bucket Farm container! I have improved two things about the design:

-A 24 inch tall cage of 16 gauge pvc-coated wire fencing is now attached to the lid of the bucket. This cage is held together and also held fast to the lid by plastic cable ties. This cage is plenty rigid.

-A thin disc of mylar (reflectix brand) insulation sits atop the lid of the bucket. Its job is to help keep the reservoir in the dark to prevent the growth of algae. As a beneficial side effect, the mylar reflects some of the blocked light back up towards the plant.

This new design should easily solve my plant support problems. Also, the cage and insulating disc are attached firmly to the bucket lid, providing a one-piece, self-supported platform for the plants that is easy to move from bucket to bucket when it's time to change out the reservoir.

Photo Update: Ancho Magnifico

Here you can see where the Ancho Magnifico (left) and another jalapeno plant (right) are plugged into their bucket, and how they have overwhelmed the wire supports that were supposed to hold them.

As you may have read, I have lost three great plants as a result of the stem snapping away from the root system. This photo really illustrates how the stress of an overweight and undersupported plant becomes concentrated at the base of the stem. The ancho plant (left) has uprooted its coco cup and started to pull it from the net pot. This plant will definitely snap and fall soon, which is why I kicked off the emergency harvest to get as many peppers as I can this week before the plants start to snap.

The next generation of buckets are going to feature a cylindrical 'cage' attached to each lid which should provide plenty of solid support for big heavy plants.

You may wonder why I don't simply support these plants by tying them to the ceiling of the growing area. One answer is - I can't. The entire ceiling of my 4x4 growing area is a huge umbrella reflector that blocks access to the crossmembers on the ceiling that I would tie the plants to. The other reason is that tying the plants only supports them when they are in their bucket and the string connecting them to the ceiling is held taut. Keep in mind, these plants have root masses that are about 24 inches long. When the reservoirs are changed, I have to lift the lid (containing the plant and its roots) completely out of the old bucket and into the new, clean one. If the plants are tied to the ceiling, they will not be supported at all when the plant is lifted and the support string goes slack. It's best for the plant and for my ease of maintenance if the bucket lids have built-in support for the plant and don't rely on being staked or tied to any other structures.

Photo Update: Pepperoncini

Here is the bucket that contains one jalapeno plant and two pepperoncini plants. A lot is going wrong here. Firstly, I had no idea how large these plants would eventually grow and each really needed to live in its own bucket rather than share root and foliage space with two other plants.

The other problem is that the pepperoncini plants went absolutely nuts growing stems and foliage and I failed to keep that under control so that the plants could focus on producing fruit. I knew that I should have pruned them a bit more but being new at this, I decided instead to let the plants go so that I'd have a good idea of the 'baseline' production. In the next generation I'll have to keep these guys tamed and focused on pod production.

If you look at the bucket lid, you can see that the net pots are being yanked from their holes and the lid of the bucket is being warped by the weight of the plants. The only thing stopping them from toppling completely is the sheer weight of the root system.

On the left side of the photo, you can see a pair of pepperoncinis which are maturing and changing color from green to red.

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

Shown here is the butternut squash plant that I transferred from my germinating tray to its new home in the bucket farm last week. It was started from seed almost exactly three weeks ago.

As you can see, the taproot is out of the net pot and has found its way into the solution. Tons of new roots are now sure to follow.

I have experienced some problems with elevated pH in this bucket, and my best guess is that the Rapid Rooter plug that the seed was germinated in is affecting the pH as it dissolves into the nutrient solution. As I said, this is just a guess. Even if the Rapid Rooter plugs are causing the pH bump, I'm so happy with their performance in germination and early root development that I wouldn't mind.

Early CO2 results

This afternoon I took the CO2 meter down to the growing area to see how much CO2 is available to my plants.

Due to an extra-short cable, I was only able to take CO2 readings from the spot where hot air is removed from the grow area by a fan. This reading showed CO2 levels at about 700PPM. I'm not sure whether the levels inside the actual grow area will be about the same, but I assume so. 700PPM doesn't give me much room for improvement, but I could still try something to get the level up around 1000.

I now have the CO2 meter connected to an old laptop computer and ready to do some data logging. I will place this arrangement into the grow area at 6:00AM tomorrow morning and log CO2 readings for 24 hours. After that I'll make a nice graph of the results and share them here.

Monitoring CO2

I have spent most of this year learning about hydroponics from scratch. Drawing on books, internet sites and of course, my own projects and experiments. I have tried to select methods and products that support the easiest production of high-quality food without too much fuss.

I have learned that there are some aspects of indoor hydroponic gardening that are so absolutely critical that you cannot skimp on them without seriously compromising your results. Lighting is an excellent example- I have spent way more money than I should have on various 'economical' lighting systems before finally purchasing a high quality digital ballast, HID lamp and reflector system.

The next thing that I learned was that monitoring and maintaining proper pH levels in nutrient solutions is crucial to plant health and crop success. Monitoring pH sounded to me like some sort of chemistry nightmare but it is absolutely a simple process (using the right products) and is incredibly important.

My point is, I have been looking for the correct aspects of indoor gardening to optimize. By this I mean that if I'm going to spend additional money, time or effort on indoor gardening, I want to see a significant result in my produce. There are several topics that are often discussed/argued in online forums that I feel do not represent huge wins for the investment- rather, they are micro-optimizations which are below the radar here at the Bucket Farm.

However, a lot of research has indicated that there's another worthy optimization that I have not yet paid special attention to: Carbon Dioxide. As I'm sure you're aware, during the day plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. CO2 is an essential environmental element for plants and they would die without it.

Manufacturers of various systems that provide supplemental CO2 for indoor gardening usually claim that plants will grow faster and produce more fruit/flowers if you supply additional CO2 to your growing area. I have seen claims that fruiting plants can yield up to 40% more fruit if CO2 is available to them in abundance. If true, this would certainly qualify as a Bucket Farm upgrade that would be worth the effort so it's worth looking into.

The first thing I'm going to do is figure out how much CO2 is in use in the Bucket Garden right now. Gases are usually measured by PPM, or parts-per-million. 'Normal' background CO2 in the outdoors is usually between 250 and 300 PPM. Many plants are said to be able to make good use of CO2 in concentrations up to 1000PPM and beyond, with (supposedly) astounding results.

The natural place to start seems to be acquiring a CO2 meter so that I can get an idea of how much CO2 is present in my current system so I can figure out how much CO2 I'd have to introduce in order to reach a concentration of 1000PPM for astonishing growth.

The first thing that I discovered is that CO2 meters are expensive! However, I eventually located the CAM Desktop CO2 Meter which seemed to be a great value for the money. This meter even has an optional feature that allows you to connect it to a PC and save off a log of CO2 levels over time. I will be sure and collect this data over a 24 hour period and post it here.

My CO2 meter arrives today. I'll take some immediate readings this evening and post the results. Based on the results of the 24 hour CO2 log, I'll discuss a plan for providing supplemental CO2 to the Bucket Farm.

Emergency Harvest

Yesterday, whilst replacing all of the pepper reservoirs, an awful snap indicated that the Ancho Magnifico stem broke away from a portion of its root system.

It's been a constant struggle to keep the pepper plants supported in the bucket farm. The latest design, which I felt certain would be strong enough to support the plants, has failed under the tremendous weight of the growing ancho pods. Now I'm certain that I know how to build buckets that can support these plants but the job is not a simple retrofit.

Since most of the plants have suffered some sort of stress or another as I tried (with varying success) to keep them supported as they grew larger and heavier than I had ever anticipated, I have decided to rush the current crops to harvest this week and start new crops in buckets that have a better design for supporting the plants.

Yesterday I changed all pepper reservoirs out with fresh nutrient solutions, a little heavier than usual on bloom enhancers:

Into four gallons of water:

-Five teaspoons General Hydroponics "Maxi-Bloom"
-Two teaspoons General Hydroponics "Kool-Blooms"
-Two tablespoons Technaflora "Sugar Daddy"

Adjusted pH to 6.0. PPM: ~1350

Starting Saturday morning, I'll flush the plants with Flora Kleen (more on this later) for two days and collect all of the peppers Monday morning. Many of the peppers will not be ripe, so they are probably better candidates for pickling than for fresh cooking.

I will post photos and instructions this weekend when I construct the new buckets.

Photo Update: Jalapenos

Look at these delicious specimens! This photo was taken when the plants were still a bit stressed from pH problems (which are now corrected). The fruits are all very healthy!

Photo Update: Pepperoncinis

I am having some problems with layout using this iPhone app for blog updates, but at least I can update from bed and you guys get to see pictures.

Here's a pepperoncini with my thumb in the photo for reference. There are about 50 (!) pepperoncinis between the two plants. They look outstanding!

Photo Update: Ancho Mangnifico

Here's a photo of the Ancho Chilis coming along nicely! These two are about four inches long.

Also, this is the first time I have tried making a post from my my iPhone. Hopefully nothing is different (worse).

Back on the farm!

My surgery went well! I'm off my feet for a few more days but once they heal, I'll be getting around better than ever!

A lot happened while I was away. Firstly, my wife took great care of the farm and learned a lot about how to keep it operating. Because of her, all of our plants are doing terrific.

I will get photos soon but for now I'll do a text update:

-The pepperoncini plants have about fifty peppers on them. The most mature peppers are nearly seven inches long! We're going to continue to let them grow until they start to turn a bit orange, then we're going to taste-test again.

-There are no baby bell peppers! Apparently I mislabeled my plants because two plants (which I thought were baby bell peppers and long thin Cayenne) both appear to be Jalapenos. I'm not upset- the fruits of both plants are plump and shiny, extremely healthy and delicious-looking.

-The Ancho Magnifico is named appropriately! This one has about twenty fruits. The largest is about 4.5 inches long and two inches in diameter. Like the jalapenos, these have an extraordinary dark green color and are very smooth, blemish-free and healthy looking!

-There was a lot of blossom drop while I was away. For a couple of days the water levels dropped quite low and the pH got a little low. I'm not too worried about this because all of the plants still have plenty of healthy flowers and no shortage of fruit. The adverse conditions have been corrected.

-Each bucket drinks about 2 quarts of water today. Very vigorous fruiting is taking place!

-I have no control group, but based on the accelerated and vigorous fruiting, I am happy with the performance of the Kool Blooms bloom enhancer.

-Of the seedlings that I planted before I went to the hospital, I have one very health specimen each of Butternut Squash and Babylon Cucumber. Today we're going to prepare a bucket for the Butternut Squash.

-The Baby Bell Pepper seedling was almost dead when I returned home, but I prepared a tonic of Maxi-Grow, Trinity (Roots Organics) and Hygrozyme (A new enzyme product that I will discuss in a future update). Literally overnight, that pepper seedling straightened up and pushed out its first set of true leaves so I'm going to say that plant is saved.

-As I get more experience keeping this blog, I'm adding lots more categories to the posts so that I'll end up with a nice searchable database for myself and for you.

Away from the Bucket Farm

I will be in the hospital for the next several days for surgery. You see, I have saddle bone deformities on both of my feet and I've finally gotten tired of wearing these special big puffy shoes that only come in one color. Obviously, I'll be off my feet for several days. People say you should do this surgery one foot at a time but I don't want to fill out the insurance paperwork twice.

My wife is going to take care of the peppers in the Bucket Farm and I'll be back with regular updates starting next week.

Changed reservoirs

This morning I refreshed both pepper reservoirs, using this formulation:

-4 gallons tap water (left to sit overnight to dissipate chlorine and chloramines)
-4 teaspoons Maxi-Bloom dry nutrient powder (less 1 teaspoon from my usual recipe)
-1 teaspoon Kool Bloom dry bloom enhancer (this is half the strength suggested on the package)

I have read some reports of gardners burning their plants with these high-powered bloom enhancers so I decided to try to introduce Kool Bloom gently. I used one teaspoon less of my basic bloom nutrient and half the suggested dose of Kool Bloom.

Last night I read an awesome article in Urban Garden magazine that discussed the differences between hydroponic and soil-grow food crops. There was an interesting bit about the aroma and flavor of hydroponically grown foods. I believe the gist of the statement was that mineral salt nutrients will develop healthy plants with larger fruit yields, but additional organic supplements are required for plants to develop full-flavored produce.

So, with this in mind I decided to add some additional products to my reservoirs:

-1 Tablespoon Roots Organics 'Trinity' (for Humic acid)
-1 Tablespoon Technaflora 'B.Seaweed' (vitamins & enhanced nutrient uptake)

In total, the solution had this profile:

-pH 4.83
-PPM 1283 (spot on!)

Two teaspoons of pH UP brought me to a perfect pH of 5.8 and I moved the plants into their new reservoirs!

New Crops

Sorry for the rapid-fire updates today, but I've done a lot. I started some new crops this evening. I have decided to try Rapid Rooter plugs instead of starting my seeds in pure perlite. Rapid Rooter plugs are strong, spongy plugs of bark and peat infused with some micro-nutrients. They're compatible for transfer into hydroponic systems of all sorts and supposedly contain microbes that colonize quickly in the developing plant roots. We'll see!

The new crops are:
-Butternut Squash (Lilly Miller Seeds)
-Cucumber (Babylon Cucumber) (Territorial Seed Co)
-Miniature Bell Pepper (Territorial Seed Co)

Right now there are three plugs of each type of seed germinating on a seedling mat (basically a low-grade heater) under a 42 watt compact fluorescent bulb @ 6500k (full spectrum).

All three of these plants are of a climbing, viny sort, so I have prepared the grow area by building a lattice of jute twine that covers on entire wall of the grow area. I will train the plants to climb this lattice. You'll see photos of the lattice when I move the plants into the grow area.

The whole operation

So far I have only taken closeup photos of the pepper plants that I'm growing, so I thought I'd offer a photo of the entire growing area. [TIP: You can click any of the photos in my updates to view a larger image of that photo].

So, here's the setup: It's a growing tent that is five feet wide, five feet deep and six foot-four inches tall. Overhead is a 400 watt HPS (high pressure sodium) lamp with a 24 inch reflector. It is currently burning a 2200k GE Photosynthesis bulb.

If you look between the two buckets of peppers, you see an inverted reflector with a 42watt compact fluorescent bulb at 2500k color. The purpose of this inverted bulb is to get light to parts of the plant that receive less light from the overhead lamp due to the thick canopies of the plants.

I'm currently growing about 25% of what I am capable of growing in this space with the equipment that I have currently, but I've been waiting for some evidence of success before investing in germinating any new plants. I'm fairly convinced now that things are going well, so I'll probably start germinating some new seeds this week. 

My... barrel runneth over

It rained a bit more this afternoon and when I got home I found that the FIFTY-SEVEN gallon rain barrel had filled and was actually overflowing. Wow! The water is not looking much cleaner, however.

I think I will try to clean up the roof and gutters a bit and if I can capture some decently clear water I will daisy chain a second barrel. It looks like there will be plenty of water to save this fall and winter.

For now, I'll use this water to make bleach solution to clean out buckets before re-using them. I don't feel good about using this water to grow food, but I am happy to use it to make sanitizing solution.

I'll run outside with the meter tonight or tomorrow morning and collect pH and TDS readings on the rainwater, just out of curiosity.

Captured some rainwater. . .

It rained a little bit last night so I ran to the rain barrel this morning to look at the catch. Looks like about 20 gallons, which is way more than I expected from the tiny amount of rain we got. The only problem is, the water looks like tea. It likely is a tea of sorts... water steeped in the pine needles and branches that clog our gutters.

I suppose it's also possible that this is general filth from the roof, as it's been a very dry summer and lots of pollen and debris and so forth have been sitting up there for a long time. I'll probably drain this water off and clean the gutters and see if we can't collect some cleaner water next rainy day.

Kool Blooms?

Almost every company that produces hydroponic nutrients has a blooming/ripening formula that is advertised to produce fruit with the most amazing size and concentrations of carbohydrates and essential oils. I've never used such a product but I must say the idea certainly is appealing. I don't want to go out of my way for tiny increases in crop size or quality, but I am willing to try one additional nutrient in my reservoirs, bringing me to total of three products.

Because I'm trying to operate strictly with dry nutrients and General Hydroponics does indeed offer Kool Bloom in a dry formula, I'm going to give it a try. It's an enhancement that you add to the nutrient reservoir when your plants are in the second reproductive stage, so right about now is the correct time for most of the pepper plants to start receiving this. I'll add it when I change out the reservoirs this weekend.

Photo Update (Cayenne)

Here's a close-up photo of a bit of the fruit that's on the Cayenne pepper plant. The largest pepper seen here is probably about 1 1/4 inches long. This plant is only supposed to produce about 25 fruits... if that turns out to be true I probably won't grow this variety anymore since my growing space is at a premium and more prolific varieties of pepper are out there.

Photo Update (Pepperoncini)

Ok! Finally here's an update with some photos. This is a close-up of a couple of pepperoncinis still growing. The plant has about 20 peppers so far. The two shown here are between four and five inches long (nothing in the shot for scale). The fruits are clean and colorful. They have very smooth skin that shines like they're waxed.

We actually tasted one of the peppers because we didn't know if they were ready yet. The pepper was fully-formed inside with lots of seeds, but in additional to the taste you're familiar with, there was a bitterness that suggested they're not ready quite yet. I think they need to fatten up a bit first. Maybe 7 to 10 more days.