BYC gardening thread!!

[vehve]

I made one like this, same design but with the added wick. It worked very well, but it was "too ugly to be in the house" so I got rid of it, and tried another design, pictured below the first one.

 

[vehve]

And here's an idea I'm playing around with at the moment, it's sort of a passive hybrid hydroponic-aeroponic growth medium free growing system. Basically I cut a round piece of plastic from a butter box lid, made a hole in the middle, tied together four strings and left them dangling down from the hole into water below, and stuck a seed into the knot. After it started on it's first true leaves, I added some fertilizer into the water. I think that plant is two or three weeks old now, it's not growing very well, but it's growing. I would probably need a lot more string for it to work better, but it's a fun little experiment.



*Edit* Actually, the main problem for this one might be the lack of light. I don't have space under my grow lights, so it has to get by with natural light, and it's been pretty cloudy lately.

 

[KentuckyMom]

@vehve
@Kraftcrazychick
These are very interesting ideas. I made greenhouses out of two liter bottles this year, but never thought about inverting them to draw up water. Vehve, I have observed your wicking system this year with keen interest. It looks tidy and efficient. The idea with the can is intriguing too. These are ideas I may try next year. I planted out some of my tomatoes in tires yesterday. The weather here is in the 80's this week. I have more tomatoes and peppers to plant in the garden as soon as it's tilled. I kept a pepper plant inside all winter because it grew so slowly last year that I did not get very many peppers. We'll see how it does once planted outside again. My pepper plants always start well from seeds but then grow extremely slowly once planted out.

 

[vehve]

Sometime in the future, maybe a month from now when the weather has finally warmed up so that nights won't dip much below 50, I'm going to transfer the tomatoes and peppers out, and while I was thinking of planting them in the ground at first, I've decided I'm going to go with pots anyway. I'm still working on the design, but I'm going to make pots with built in 1-2 gallon water containers, that will make keeping the tomatoes at optimum moisture a lot easier. Last year I planted them in solid 8 liter (~2 gal) pots, and watering was a bit difficult. I had some leca gravel on the bottom of those, but they had no drainage hole, and they tended to dry out easily in the hotter days, and get way too wet in the rainier days. We still got an amazing crop from them. This year, I figure with the new 17 liter pots I got, I can double the amount of soil compared to last year, and add over a gallon more of water holding space. I will also add drainage holes, so they won't get too wet. I think they will appreciate the modifications. I'm still deciding on exactly how I'm building the pots, I've got 3 or 4 different ideas in my head. Another change were making, is that they will be planted in home made compost, and they will only be fertilized with rabbit poop. We'll see how it affects the taste and growth.

 

[Kraftcrazychick]

@vehve , I agree that the 2 liters are ugly. But 2 liters are pretty much free. I grab them from the trash at work along with any clamshells from cookies/pastries and use those to start my seeds. I also have a small pile of 3" pots from the dollar store and walmart. All of which are just as "lovely".

If I had infinite money I would have a glorious garden and fine ceramic pots. Perhaps even a gardener that I could point out any weed to. LOL Sadly, we all have to live in the real world. The real world where I already spent $100 on the shelving, lights, timer, soil and seeds and just can't possibly dump more money into it. So ugly is what we've got for the time being.

All my plants will be making the journey outside in my new raised beds (hopefully soon) made out of dog eared fence pickets, scrap wood and painted with left over interior paint. I spent a whole $10 on those, which I think is not bad at all. I just have to fill it with dirt and compost which is probably about $75 worth.

Most expensive little plants ever. I could "save money" and start from seeds instead of buy started plants, my hump.

Perhaps between the chickens and the plants taking over the laundry room my husband will be weary about any new idea I have for awhile....

 

[vehve]

Yeah, I didn't have as much of a problem with the bottle as the better half did. But I have to agree with her, it wasn't the prettiest thing standing in our kitchen... Here the soda bottles are very much not free, each one is worth 40 cents. Doesn't sound like much, but they pretty quickly end up costing more than finding cheap pots actually meant for plants.

 

[Kraftcrazychick]

How very opposite of us. Here plastic is cheap, readily available and thrown away without thought. The aluminum cans are thrown out as well, just not as readily. Many people who have unstable or little income gather them up and sell them to the scrap yards for cash. At work we actually do the same. We gather any old or damaged metals (much of which is aluminum based on our business) and sell it as scrap by the pallet load.

I was offered a nice collection of large undecorated tin cans today (perhaps 8), some of which were 6 inches tall. They are shiny new and I hope my plants will think they are just right. It will be very shabby chic soon. Or just shabby.

 

[vehve]

Here we pay a deposit for each drink container. Aluminum cans are 15 cents, small glass bottles 10 cents, ½ liter soda bottles are 20 cents, and 1½ liter bottles are 40 cents, and wine bottles 10 cents. Finland has almost a 100% return rate on beverage containers, the highest rate in the world.

Recycling a plastic bottle consumes only 5% of the natural resources necessary for manufacturing one from scratch.

 

[Kraftcrazychick]

Here we pay a deposit for each drink container. Aluminum cans are 15 cents, small glass bottles 10 cents, ½ liter soda bottles are 20 cents, and 1½ liter bottles are 40 cents, and wine bottles 10 cents. Finland has almost a 100% return rate on beverage containers, the highest rate in the world.

Recycling a plastic bottle consumes only 5% of the natural resources necessary for manufacturing one from scratch.

That is great. Some states do have deposits on bottles/cans but not the one I live in. My local waste facility does sorting on their site. Trash goes in one big heap and they sort out all the recyclables right on site. I wish more of those existed around here.

 

[RichnSteph]

Here we pay a deposit for each drink container. Aluminum cans are 15 cents, small glass bottles 10 cents, ½ liter soda bottles are 20 cents, and 1½ liter bottles are 40 cents, and wine bottles 10 cents. Finland has almost a 100% return rate on beverage containers, the highest rate in the world.

Recycling a plastic bottle consumes only 5% of the natural resources necessary for manufacturing one from scratch.

I wish it was like that here.