More Hydroponics in the Basement Garden

Hydroponic kale

Hydroponic lettuce

Hydroponic spinach

Hydroponic collards

It's been two weeks since the last harvest of homegrown vegetables from our basement hydroponics system.  These are not quite what most people think of as "party foods" so we probably eat them before the big game tomorrow, but we'll be eating they in the next few days.  Linda has a good collards recipe with vinegar and bacon that is delicious.

Winter Kale and Spinach Harvest

Today we received our first significant snowfall of more than an inch accompanied by some of the coldest temperatures of the year for the Metro Detroit area.  But the cold temperatures didn't stop me from harvesting fresh kale and spinach for a dish my wife calls Easy Greens Bake from the Geraldson's Community Farm Farm to Table Cookbook.

It was 19 degrees outside when I harvested this collander full of hydroponic vegetables. Growing fresh vegetables outside in Michigan this time of year is impossible, but with hydroponics, efficient lighting, controlled temperature, and effective nutrients veggies these can be grown year round. I grew these in a spare room in my basement garden.





Hydroponic spinach and kale

It was 19 degrees when I harvested this collander full of kale and spinach today.  Growing fresh vegetables outside in Michigan this time of year is impossible, but with hydroponics, efficient lighting, controlled temperatures, and effective nutrients; veggies like these can be grown year round. I grew these in a spare room in my basement garden.

Kale, spinach, onions, tomatoes, and eggs = Easy Bake Greens for supper

It's a rewarding feeling to grow food, harvest it, and eat it within 30 minutes. Now that's fresh!

Hydroponic Spinach

One of the advantages to growing spinach hydroponically....You can eat freshly harvested spinach for supper, even if the outside temperatures are much too low to grow it in a traditional outdoor garden.  It was 24 degrees last night outside, but 68 degrees in the spare room I use for my basement gardening project.



I grew this spinach in my basement. 

We sauteed the spinach in a small frying pan with a little vinegar and salt. 

Eating For Energy - Raw Food Diet For Weight Loss

New Year's Resolutions

'Tis the season for goal setting and sometimes it actually works. 

This time of year many New Year's Resolutions are made and, unfortunately, within a few weeks they're usually crumbled and broken. Simply setting a goal seldom works, but if we establish a step-by-step plan and implement it the chances of success increase dramatically.

A few years ago I decided that I would catch up on my reading instead of watching television. I resolved to read a book per month off the 100 most popular novels list published by the New York Times. For 10 months, I actually did it. I read for 1 hour per night while my wife watched her favorite television show that I did not enjoy.

This year my resolutions are going to be a little different.

I hereby solemly resolve that I am going to get serious about improving our household food security.

1. I'm going to learn to can vegetables. Canning is almost a lost art, but jars and instructions are readily available at most of the big box stores. A couple of Google searches later and it looks like I can be off an running lickety split.

2. I'm going to grow more vegetables. Afterall to preserve food for eating later, you've got to actually grow more of it.

3. I have 6 Earthboxes. I plan to purchase 6 more before growing season arrives.

4. We had 2 above ground beds last year. This year I plan to have 3.

5. I plan to extend the growing season and get 2 plantings from my efforts. By planting warm weather vegetables in spring time and then cooler weather vegetables in late summer, we'll be able to harvest food from our backyard well into the fall and early November. We might need some frost protection late in the fall, but that's relatively easy to overcome with some old bedsheets.

6. I plan to plant only heirloom varieties next season. I plan to avoid GMO's whenever possible.

7. Continue my home made hydroponics basement gardening project and add a basement aquaponics system to my spare room in the basement to begin harvesting fish too.

8. Build an outside aquaponics system using fish that can withstand the winters we get here in Michigan. This will take a little more effort, but after talking to a local backyard pond builder today it's not out of the question. Finding blue gill or yellow perch to use in this project may be harder than I thought.

Build an Aquaponic System

Basement Gardening Project - Day 13

It's been 6 weeks since I started my hydroponic-lettuce-kale-collard-spinach-growing-system in my basement.  The kale and collards are not quite ready to eat, but today we harvested 3 servings of lettuce and spinach for a nice healthy lunch.

Here are some pictures:

Lettuce in the salad spinner

Spinning out the water after washing

Fresh lettuce home grown in Michigan during winter

With some additional toppings and a little Light Rasberry Vinegrette

Using T8 Flourescent Lights for Hydroponics

I've been using T8 flourescent lighting in my basement gardening project. I chose T8's because they are inexpensive. At 36 watts, they also use very little electricity. After using the lights for 5 weeks, I have a few observations I'd like to share.

Pro's:

• Inexpensive price
• Easily accessible
• Low energy usage
• Little heat build-up

Con's:

• Low light intensity
• Short coverage area
• Low heat build-up

You may have noticed that I mentioned heat build-up as a positive and a negative characteristic of the lights. A larger light with more intensity sometimes requires a cooling fan to ensure safe operation. The T8's low heat characteristics help make these lights safer to use indoors. I am using the lights in my basement where it does tend to be on the cooler side with temperatures in the mid-sixties or sometimes lower during the winter months. A warmer light would probably promote faster growth for my lettuce, spinach, collards, and kale in my deep water culture system, but in my own personal view I'm not sure the increased purchase price for the fixture, long term energy cost, and risk of excessive heat build-up would be worth it. I am personally satisified with the T8's so far. But, as you can see from the picture of the kale and collards below, I need to purchase additional lights to get proper light coverage for a wider area.



Kale

Collards

These pictures demonstrate growth, but at a much slower rate compared to the spinach and lettuce that are located more directly below the four T8 light bulbs that I am using. I have no doubt that if the kale and collards were located more directly below the T8 bulbs, the growth would be greater.  I plan to add two additional T8 fixtures in the future to improve my results.

Basement Gardening Project - Day 12

We have been out of town for a few days visiting family for the holiday season. The lettuce, spinach, collards, and kale have grown quite a bit while we were gone. Here are a few pictures I took this afternoon.

You can see from these pictures that the net pots are not seated down in these storage containers very far.  That was not my intention when I started building this cheap hydroponic growing system. I purchased a 3 inch holesaw and 3 1/2 inch net pots, so there is a mismatch. When I made this discovery during the construction phase I made the decision to go ahead and use the net pots "as is" rather than spending more money to get 3 inch or 3 1/4 inch net pot (if there is such a thing). I did wrap a single width of electrical tape around the lower portion of the net pot to keep light out of the growing chamber in hopes of reducing potential algae growth. In retrospect, I should have delayed starting my project a few days and purchased the correct size net pots, but I doubt the growth has been impacted much at all.

This photo gives you some insight into how close the vegetation is to the 36 watt T8 bulbs I am using in these inexpensive fixtures purchased at Lowes.

Basement Gardening Project - Day 11

My deep water culture hydroponic bubbler project just passed the fourth week. Things are really growing now.  It took a little while to get the momentum moving, but weeks three and four have been tremendous.  

Spinach



Lettuce in the foreground spinach nearest the camera


(Here are some pictures from Week 3 for comparison purposes.)

It's hard to know exactly, but I think this round of growth has been influenced by several factors:

• Root Rrowth - the roots are beginning to extend far below the water line
• Lighting - last week I lowered the T8 lights to within 1/2 inch to 1 inch of the vegetation
• Air Bubblers - I adjusted the timing cycle so that the bubblers are on 24 hours a day

It shouldn't be too long before we have the first lettuce and spinach harvest, but the collards and kale are a little behind the curve. I attribute the lag to the lights not reaching far enough with enough intensity to penetrate the outer edges of my growing beds. When I replant this spring I'm going to re-configure the overhead lighting and add an additional light T8 light bar to get proper coverage over all 4 growing beds.

TED Talk: Britta Riley's Window Gardening Project

You can read more about these small scale indoor hydroponic window growing systems via this link.

Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles -- researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. From Ted.com

You can also access free plans to build your own window growing system here.

Basement Gardening - Week 3

Here's an update on the progress of the collards, lettuce, kale, and spinach.

I'll post some more pictures in a few days to show the progression. 

Basement Gardening Project - Day 10

Today I've noticed that a couple of my plants in the hydroponic bubbler system are struggling. One of the spinach plants is under particular distress. The leaves are a deep vibrant healthy looking green color and the roots on that plant stretch 8-10 inches into the nutrient resevoir, but the stem on the plant is rather spindly (if that is even a word) and it's beginning to turn brown. It's literally hanging on by a thread.

My guess for the reason....rather than using rock wool to germinate my seeds, I used a popular moss-type pellet product that I had on hand in the garage that was leftover from my raised bed garden last year in an attempt to save a little money. The seeds germinate well, but in the hydroton filled net pots the moss doesn't really ever dry out. The excessive wetness caused the stem to rot. It may be too late to save this round of plants, but I will try again.

I think it's time to return to the hydroponic store and purchase some rock wool.

Update later in the day...

The trip to the hydroponic store was fruitful.  I got a sheet of 24 rockwool plugs for $5.78. My attempt to save a little money by using the moss product ended up costing me at least one spinach plant (probably more eventually) and three weeks of growing time. When I did a small scale experiment with a homemade bubbler system last year, I used coarse coconut coir.  The coarseness of the coir seemed to help keep it relatively dry. It was still damp, but not sopping wet like the moss.

After talking with the hydro guy a little, we determined my problem was most likely caused by another rookie mistake I made with the timing of the light and air pump. I have everything set up on a timer that runs the T8 lights and air stones for 18 hours and then shuts them off for 6 hours.  That leaves the plants soaking in stagnant un-oxygenized water for 6 hours, which is quite possibly the partial cause of the stem rot on the spinach plant.

I've reconfigured things so the air pump powers the air stones constantly, but the timer will continue to run the lights for 18 hours on and 6 hours off.

On a side note...the hydroponics store has set up a demo in the storefront window to demonstrate the simplicity of a DIY deep water culture system using 5 gallon buckets (my original plan). They are using the same pump I have with a splitter that runs 4 separate air stones in 4 separate five-gallon buckets. They have it set for 1 plant per bucket, whereas my approach using storage tubs has 6 plants for a 10 gallon container and 8 1/2 gallons of water.

Basement Gardening Project - Day 8

It's been a week since I planted the kale, lettuce, spinach, and collard seedlings into the do-it-yourself deep water culture system in my basement. Here's an updated picture:

Deep Water Culture bubbler system with hydroton

The spinach is starting to show noticeable growth and everything seems to be over the initial shock of the transplanting. Since this picture was taken, I've lowered the lights to within a few inches of the net pots.  This should help the growing considerably. I also took the first weekly ph and nitrite level readings today.

With ph at nearly 8.0 and the nitrite level at just barely above 0 ppm in each of the 10 gallon containers, I added an additional 10 tsp of nutrient solution (in addition to the 6 tsp of nutrient solution I added last week during system start-up). The instruction label on the back of the Botanicare product we are using recommends 2 tsp per gallon for hydroponics systems. I should have added more nutrient at system start-up, but I've learned that in aquaponics and hydroponics it's better to make small adjustments versus big ones.

It's been my experience that tap water from municipal water systems registers above 7.0, so I'll need to take a trip to the hydroponic gardening shop tomorrow to purchase some ph Down to adjust the ph.

Basement Gardening Project - Day 7

After installing the lights and adding the first 3 sacraficial seedlings, I decided to add some aluminum foil to help reflect the light and some heat toward the net pots. The light bulbs are approximately 12 inches above the net pots.

Adding the aluminum foil increased the light reflection tremendously and the temperatures in the growing zone increased a very noticeable 5 degrees or so.

Basement Gardening Project - Day 6

This afternoon I added nutrient to my first water resevoir in preparation for planting the first kale seedlings tomorrow morning.  I hope the nutrient will penetrate the hydroton a little overnight and help my seedlings survive the crucial first 24 hours after transplanting.

I am using Botanicare's Pure Blend Pro Grow Vegetative Formula 3-2-4 for my basement hydro gardening project.

So far the hardest part of the project has been getting my seedlings to "harden off".  I've previously tried to germinate seeds indoors a couple of times with poor results.  This third time has been no different. 

I've ended up with long seedling plants that are tall, but lacking in girth.  I can only guess that when seedlings are sprouted outdoors the wind and weather helps toughen up the plants a little. Indoors I haven't been able to get the same results. I've always assumed it was the lighting conditions, but in this attempt the seeds were germinated on my kitchen table and lighting is definitely not an issue.

Basement Hydroponics Project - Day 5

I have fully assembled my basement hydroponics deep water culture system.  Tomorrow I plan to add some collard and kale seedlings that have been growing in my dining room for a couple of weeks.

As I'm looking at this photo of my set-up I am realizing that I could have gotten away with shorter lengths of air line. The lights are going to be lowered to within a few inches of the net pots, but harvesting, accessing the inside of the container to check nutrient levels, or maintenance on the air bubblers would have required disconnecting the air lines to raise the lights. I was careful to cut each air line the exact same length so each tub receives the same air level. In this case, I think it's a typical "six of one and half a dozen of another" scenario.

Here's a closer view of the net pots, air lines and storage tubs.  I struggled with the decision not to reconfigure the air lines. To avoid the hassle of turning everything around so the air lines would be in the rear of the table and out of the way, which also requires me to move the air pump mount, I decided to wait a couple of weeks to make the changes in conjunction with doing the first water/nutrient change.

Each eight gallons of water in the 10 gallon plastic storage tub has 1 large air stone located in the center of the tub.  Hopefully this will help ensure the aeration is consistent throughout the majority of the root zone.

I need to do some additional work on the way this air pump is mounted. The pump has rubber feet to reduce vibration, but since it's mounted under the floor near my upstairs living room area the vibration causes a little more noise that I predicted.  I think that will be easily remedied with a minor modification to the mounting method by installing two more hooks so that all four rubber feet are out of contact with the wooden floor joice.

One pump provides air for all four tubs.  Here's a close-up of the "bubbling".

This is my first time using hydroton as a growing medium. I wasn't sure it would wick water very well and was prepared to hand water my seedlings for a week or so, but this picture was taken a couple of hours after adding water to the tubs and the hydroton actually wicks very well.

Basement Hydroponics Project - Day 4

Based on air pump I chose for my basement hydroponics project, I might be accused by some of straying away from "frugal" and "budget minded", but since I am building a 4 tub hydroponic bubbler system rather than a 1 or 2 tub system, the inexpensive aquarium pumps available at the discount stores and pet centers won't be quite enough aeration to do the job.

I purchased this pump for $52.99 at the local hydroponics store. It is an 18 watt commercial ECOPlus pump with a single outlet. It includes a splitter that provides a method for using the pump to aerate four different tubs.

The instructions explain that the pump needs to be mounted at least 15 inches above the water line (something I didn't realize when I purchased it). If not mounted above the water line there is a chance water could be sucked back into the pump causing damage.


It's difficult to see in the picture, but the pump has rubber feet to reduce vibration. The feet have holes in them, which come in handy for mounting the pump. I used two hooks to mount the pump above my growing beds.

I also splurged on air stones and opted for some larger ones. I purchased 4 of these large ECOPlus air stones for $5 each.

Cheaper air stones are available, but these commercial versions should last longer and provide much more aeration than those designed for smaller household aquariums.

Basement Hydroponics Project - Day 3

I installed the lighting system for the deep water culture hydroponics system a few days ago. 

I may add a third light in the future, but for now I think two will do the trick.  After adding the transplants to my deep water culture bins I will lower these lights to approximately 12 inches above the plants to maximize their effectiveness. I've seen pictures of other systems where the lights were even closer than that. 

I have the lights rigged up with a surge protector so I can turn everything on and off with one switch.  I plan to add a timer so that the lighting control is completely automated.

Basement Hydroponics Project - Day 2

The basement hydroponics project is progressing.  My seeds arrived on Wednesday and I planted them this weekend.  Collards, kale, lettuce, and spinach should do well in the system.  They can be harvested multiple times, which leverages the benefits of having a personal hydroponic bubbler system.

Hopefully the seeds will begin to sprout by the weekend.  I figure three more weeks and I'll add them to the hydroponics system.  The seed packets all reflect a 55 - 60 day maturity time frame. I think that time frame will be accelerated in the deep water culture hydroponics system with proper monitoring of nutrients and ph.

Growing Peppers in an Simple Hydroponic Bubbler

I've been growing bell peppers, banana peppers, and chili peppers in a cheap and easy hydroponic bubbler system that I built for less than $30.  I really built it more as an experiment than as an example of "how to" grow peppers, but it has actually worked better than I originally expected. The 18 gallon tote, 6 net pots, an inexpensive fish tank pump, some tubing, and four air stone bubblers are all I needed.

18 Gallon Tote from Home Depot



Orange Bell Pepper

Green Bell Pepper

 

Chili Pepper



Green Bell Pepper

The biggest challenge with growing peppers using a bubbler system is regulating the amount of nutrient being used.  I started out changing the water and nutrient each week.  Then I switched to every 10 days and later to every 2 - 3 weeks.  As the plants have been fruiting more and more now that the plants are maturing, I've used a lot less nutrient and done fewer water changes.

With warmer temperatures this spring, there has been more evaporation of the water from the tote.  The leaves begin to wilt a little when the water level drops, so that tips me off to the need to add more.  I usually just top off the tote with fresh water every 4 or 5 days. 

I'm not sure whether I will continue to use this tote as a bubbler after this growing season, but if I can figure how to better regulate the nutrient flow it would be more likely.  At this point, I've just been alternating 4 TBSP of fish emulsion with one water change to 4 TBSP of Bone Meal with the next water change.  Disclaimer:  I have  no idea if that is too much or too little nutrient, but it has worked o.k. in this experiment.

Hydroponic Troughs for Soiless Gardening

Sunday evening we were walking around in Home Depot shopping for a trellis to support some cucumber plants we're growing.  As we walked down one of the aisles, my wife pointed out a crude, but interesting, amateur hydroponic set-up on display.

The exhibit consisted of a black utility mixing tray about 10 inches deep and 3 feet long x 2 feet wide filled with water. Various plants were growing in net pots and inserted into holes cut out of a piece of styrofoam trimmed to fit into the utility tray. The holes were big enough for the roots to have contact with the water below, but small enough so the net pots would not fall completely through the piece of styrofoam into the water below.

I'm not exactly sure what they were using for nutrients in the water, but I suspect it was some liquid fertilizer that was on display nearby.  I don't have an exact hyperlink to the instructions they had on display with the exhibit, but it was similar to this document posted on the University of Florida IFAS Extension website.

Here's a description of water culture growing methods from the IFAS article:

In water culture, plants are grown with roots submerged in a nutrient solution, with the stem and upper parts of the plants held above the solution. With this system, the main considerations are: provision of a suitable container, suspension of the plants above the water, provision of a suitable nutrient solution, and proper aeration of the water solution.

I don't think the Home Depot display was using any type of aeration for the water, but an inexpensive aquarium air pump and air stones would likely work well.

I am not sure about the advisability of using styrofoam to suspend the plants, since I have no personal experience using it, so before you try to use these methods additional research needs to be performed.  I have been told that BlueBoard manufactured by DOW is often used in aquaponic systems, but again I cannot recommend for it or against it since I have no personal experience with it.

I may try some of these techiniques in the future.  Until then, if you decide to try it or you have personal knowledge of using this growing approach I'd enjoy hearing from you.