Added fertilizer and lights.
March 6, 2010 in Nutrients, Projects in Process, electronic components, posts with pitcures!, 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.

I’ve taken the plunge, set up a timer, got the water flowing, and have planted out my tiny tiny seedlings. Sorry plants are such babies that they’re barely visible in this photo but it’s mostly spearmint and thyme. As other things germinate I’ll plant out different herbs, hope to have oregano, spicy globe basil, marjoram, dill, and nasturtiums. The first generation of plants have been in the windowfarm for a couple days now and they seem to be happy.

