by mtcboom
Added fertilizer and lights.
9:42 pm in electronic components, Nutrients, posts with pitcures!, Projects in Process, questions by mtcboom
Big changes this week in Brooklyn and the windowfarm is beginning to feel like a stable viable thing in my home. Plants have grown a couple inches, timer, pump and valves working steady.
Recently I added liquid organic fish fertilizer (Neptune’s Harvest 2-4-1) – about 1 Tbs diluted in 1 gallon water added to resevoir that already had a gallon or two in it. There’s definitely a bit of a smell. I think I’ll probably drain the resevoir and try a different fertilizer at some point for a comparison. I really need the windowfarm to be as smell-free as possible as the guestroom of our apt will soon be occupied and so I need to tone down the workshop/mad scientist aspects of the project.
After reading Britta’s post about lights yesterday I suspect that my baby mint and thyme plants are looking leggy so I’ve added linear flourescent shop lights balanced vertically in the corners of the windowframe. I put these on the same 14 hour on timer that I’m using with my seed germination light. Since I’m not trying to induce flowering (I’m growing leafy kitchen herbs.) does anyone know if I should be using a dawn to dusk light cycle instead with the lights?
Hopefully by next week plants will be big enough to show up in a photo. I swear they are there.
What a great idea. Your vertical shop lights design is such an incredibly inventive and attractive solution to getting both your plants and seedlings enough light at the same time.
It wasn’t clear if you are raising your seedlings in some of the bottles at the same time you’re keeping herb plants going in the Windowfarm – or if you’ve got your seedlings under lights someplace else.
But, in either case, I think both your seedlings and herbs will be fine on the same 14 hour cycle.
This is the timing I used when growing seedlings at the same time that I was keeping herbs I’d already bought in 4″ pots healthy under horizontal shop lights on a plant stand – waiting to plant them outdoors, not in a Windowfarm – but I don’t think this makes a difference here. 14 hours worked. (I had seedlings and plants on different shelves to keep the closeness of the lights adjusted for each)
The only thing to keep watch for is that none of your plants touch or gets closer than a few inches to the bulbs.
(Though fluorescents stay cool enough not to cook them immediately if they touch. I’ve found pea shoots curled around them and they survived. So you don’t have to have someone spelling you on night watch. But do steer them away as they grow.)
By the way, re: leggy seedlings: Your seedlings definitely need the light source as close as possible – within 1-2″ overhead for optimal results – because the aim at this stage is to keep them short and stocky, and have most of the development going on with the root system. Keeping the light close achieves this.
And this distance should work for your herbs as well, if, in the short term, you are raising both in your Windowfarms in the window.
Otherwise, your herbs can tolerate more distance.
It’s a great design – and I think your seedlings and herbs are going to thrive having the light source so close and consistent at 14 hours.
Would love to see photos and hear how things go. It looks great already.
Donna
correction: re: leggy seedlings. I meant to write “Your seedlings definitely need the light source as close as possible – within 1-2″ overall.” Not “overhead.”
I would keep the lights on 14+ hours. Im guessing what you mean by dawn til dusk Would cut the lights back to 12 hours. Their night cycle can be as little as 0hrs but i would at least give them 4.
1 tbsp to 1 gallon sounds way too strong. I use alaska brand 5-1-1 and 0-10-10 at 1tbsp to a gallon to feed soil plants every 3-4 weeks.( btw Neptunes harvest has less smell and is processed better). What Im saying is that`s Soil strength and they recommend that be used half strength indoors. while hydro ferts might be 1 tbsp to a gallon at .5-.1-.1
So a good starting point would probably be 1/20 of a Tbsp per gallon and work your way up. Check your ph and make sure its between 5.6-5.8. with just a ml of seeweed extract and a dash of worm poop.
Or you could just get some goldfish and use the tank water in the system to fertilize,after balancing ph. (The stuff you vaccuum from the bottom of the tank is too strong for hydro and should only be applied to soil plants with caution) I would also throw in the worm turd and seewead extract. The smell is bad bacteria overpopulating since its too strong. The worm turd has good bacteria that fight the bad bacteria and help nutrient obsorption and the seeweed extract will pack the food with vitamins and nutrients
to smokerX:
are you making a reference to aerobic vs anaerobic bacteria determining the smell? I know worm tea has to be aerobic to be good bacteria to battle bad kinds, which I’m assuming would happen due to it being put in an air pump situation. Just trying to clarify what you meant.