Going Green - Recently Updated Pages

Red Potatoes

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:16:25 CDT

May 26th, week zero, I bought a box of red seed starter potatoes and will attempt to grow them in a barrel again this year. I am hoping to locate some straw or hay to lighten up the load in the barrel to facilitate the growth of the potatoes.

Onions, Yellow

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:12:21 CDT

May 26th, week zero, a friend of mine had a bunch of small yellow onion bulbs leftover that I was able to take. I planted them in two rows across the width of one of my 4x8 foot raised beds.

There is no photo as all it would show is dirt.

Carrots, Little Finger

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:04:56 CDT

May 26, week zero, planted seeds in the ground. As the carrot seeds are so small I put them on a plate and used a toothpick to push the seeds off the plate into an attempt at multiple rows of four carrot seeds. Occasionally a seed would fly off the plate in a random direction, so the pattern won't be exactly true.	No photo as it would just show the dirt.

Carrots, Nantes

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:04:16 CDT

May 26, week zero, planted seeds in the ground. As the carrot seeds are so small I put them on a plate and used a toothpick to push the seeds off the plate into an attempt at multiple rows of four carrot seeds. Occasionally a seed would fly off the plate in a random direction, so the pattern won't be exactly true.	There is no photo as it would just be the dirt.

Tomatoes, Roma

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:58:07 CDT

March 15th, zeroth week, planted two seeds per 3" compostable pot, planted four pots even though my garden plan only has three spots for the Roma Tomatoes. The idea here is redundancy - in each of the four pots I will cut the smaller of the two seeds if both happen to grow, and when it comes time to plant, I will not plant the weakest of the four pots.
March 20th, zeroth week, I took the plants out of the incubation area (behind the fridge) to check the moisture level and add a bit of water. No buds yet. Note that the plastic covered twist ties crisscrossed over the four pots are used for holding up the cling-wrap that I use to enclose the containers so that the humidity stays contained.
March 22nd, first week, yesterday I saw the growth had started so now these guys are in the grow light station. Only two out of four have started, so I have started two more pots with two seeds in each, I will call those the Roma Batch 2. Pictured here are the Roma Batch 1.
March 22nd, zeroth week of batch 2.
March 29, week one of batch two, no sprouts but I think I know why. I did not enclose these compostable pots such that the humidity in the soil could be stopped from evaporating, so I had to add water every day or so. As gentle as ladeling the water in with a spoon I believe the seeds were disturbed and so they did not stay in place to germinate. Hopefully they are still okay, pictured here are the compostable pots with the poppy paper pots that I've put into a tupperware container for which I will put the lid on top to seal it. I'll keep an eye on them each day to see if they sprout now.
March 29, week two of batch one, the seedlings are progressing nicely and the fourth container finally germinated and has sprouted.
April 5, week three of first batch, looking good.
April 5, week two of batch two, one seed in one and two in the other have come up, they are still a little frail but appear to be doing okay.
April 13th, week 4 of batch one.
April 13th, week three of batch two, both seeds in each pot have sprouted, I will be chopping one of them down in each pot this week. Probably next week I will combine the two batches into one.
May 19th, week nine, I have planted the seedlings outside.
Here is a cloesup of one of them.

Tomatoes, Beefsteak

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:55:56 CDT

March 15th, zeroth week, planted two seeds per 3" compostable pot, planted four pots even though my garden plan only has three spots for the Beefsteak Tomatoes. The idea here is redundancy - in each of the four pots I will cut the smaller of the two seeds if both happen to grow, and when it comes time to plant, I will not plant the weakest of the four pots.
March 20th, zeroth week, I unwrapped the container to check the soil moisture and to add a bit of water. One of the four pots has one tiny bud, so this tells me that the minimum germination period for the beefsteak tomato seeds is five days. There is a close up below to see it.
March 20th, zeroth week, closeup of the very first bud.
March 22nd, week 1, of the eight seeds planted, six have now sprouted. Yesterday I noticed this growth and so now the tomatoes are in the grow light station.
March 29, week two, the seedlings are progressing nicely.
April 5, week three, the seedlings continue to do well.
April 13, week four, the seedlings are starting to grow the leaves that make them look like tomato plants.
May 19, week nine, the seedlings have been planted outside.

Lettuce, Paris Island Cos

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:54:06 CDT

April 5th, week zero, first planting, used the paper potmaker and put two seeds in each of eight paper pots. I will be growing four lettuce plants per square foot in two square feet.
April 13th, week one, quite a few of the seeds have sprouted successfully and the plants are growing very well.
May 19th, week six, the seedlings have been planted outside.

Lettuce, Butterhead

philplasma — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:52:36 CDT

April 5th, week zero, first planting, used the paper potmaker and put two seeds in each of eight paper pots. I will be growing four lettuce plants per square foot in two square feet.
April 13th, week one, not all of the seeds have sprouted, and only a few that have look strong. Hopefully in the next few weeks the weaker stalks get stronger.
May 19th, week 6, the seedlings are now planted outdoors.

Fixing Leaks

philplasma — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:03:23 CDT

Sadly, after the first rain fall I noticed that the center barrel is leaking.
Here are the barrels lying down, it was a bit of an effort to do this on my own - I ended up using some rope that I wound around all three of the barrels at their tops, and then I yanked really hard. This would be easier with two assistants to each pull one of the barrels over.
Here I show that bottoms are now disconnected.
I reinserted the adapter pieces, reapplied the silicon and reconnected the tube. I covered the three barrels (not shown) with a tarp so that the silicon would have a chance to cure. Sometime in the next day or two I'll get two friends over so we can lift the three of them up together to try and keep the adapter pieces in place.

Starter Barrel

philplasma — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:56:20 CDT

At local big box stores you can purchase a commercial rain barrel that is equipped to connect to your downspout and contains a drain and a screen and everything needed. On this page I show you how I managed to create the same thing for significantly less. At the store the commercial rain barrel can be priced at 80$ or more. I will keep a running total of how much I spend to see how it compares.

First I started with an 8 litre food grade container that I got for free from my cafeteria. I realize this may not be a true cost comparison as I was able to get this component for free, but if you go to restaurants or cafeterias, you should be able to find an equivalent.
I then cut holes through the top as in the following photos.

And so I ended up with this as the top.
I cut off the bottom part of the container - the idea is that since this container has an over lap, I will use the overlap to rest on the top of the barrel, and cut an opening into the barrel top that matches the smaller perimeter of the top of this container.
Here is a different angle to show you the overhang of the top part of the container that will be used to prevent this part from falling into the barrel.
Next I cut a section of fiber-glass window screen that I had on hand. Again this is an item that since I had it on hand the cost is zero, but buying this new would probably only cost maybe 5$.
I held the screen over the lid but into the container and then pushed the lid down. From the inside I was also able to pull the screen to make it more taut. Not seen in this photo, I cut away some of the excess screen visible on the inside. The plus sign of plastic lid that remains was left there because I found in the commercial design that they had support in case some heavy object struck the screen. In this way the screen will not be pushed out. The other purpose of the screen, of course, is to prevent mosquite reproduction.
The next part was to modify the top of a barrel to accept this screen opening. At this point going forward the related costs are the same no matter if you are creating a starter barrel, or if you are daisy chaining barrels, so further costs are not tabulated. In the photo present the shape is slightly odd, this is because after cutting the initial hole, one of the corners couldn't be pushed in so the hole shape had to be adjusted. If I were to do this project again, I would make the lip of the screen piece longer so that it would protrude further into the barrel providing more stability.
Here is a photo of the back of my garage where I will be placing the barrels, notice the down spout from the gutter.
With a hack-saw to cut away the outer three sides of the down spout, and a tin-snip cutter to cut the side of the downspout that is against the wall of the garage, the bottom section of down spout was removed and the flexible down spout adapter was put in place. This flexible down spout adapter is meant to blend with your lawn which is why it is green - too bad they didn't have a white one. Note that there remains a metal clip near the bottom of the photo - I removed this before installing the barrels.
Here are the barrels in place. I daisy-chained them in exactly the same way as is described in the Daisy Chain page on this website.
Here is a closeup of the overflow hose. There is one inch tubing that connects the barrels to each other at the base, and a small section of one inch tubing that feeds a 1 - 1/2" adapter. I had about eight feet of 1/2" tubing that was left over from my SWC's last year that I used as the overflow tube.

Mike's Plants

michaele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:31:19 CDT

As I didn't really keep track of things this year, here are some photos of what took place in my garden in 2008.

I planted Blueberries this year.

Potatoes in a can (this works really well, I got 5 pounds. I think I can get more with a better soil mixture.).

Cucumbers

Strawberries

Radishes

Tomatoes

Jalapeno and Lavender

Swiss Chard

Beans

Cabbage

2009 Season

michaele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 15:39:39 CDT

This year I did not start as much in my greenhouse, partially due to laziness, partially planned.

Jalapeno Peppers

Red Peppers

Red Cabbage

Lettuce

No sprout photos :(

No sprout photos :(

Cherry Tomatoes

Roma Tomatoes

2008 Season

michaele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:40:54 CDT

The following are images of the seeds I started in my greenhouse this year.

In the beginning there was only dirt...

Then plants grew! This is where starting seeds is very fulfilling (especially when they get big enough to eat!).
After just one week the following have started to grow (and some are quite large).

1. Cherry Tomatoes

2. Chives

3. Cucumber

4. Fennel

5. Kale

6. Marjoram

7. Roma Tomatoes

8. Sweet Fennel

Seed Starting

michaele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:09:24 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Basement Greenhouse

michaele — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:01:21 CDT

The Greenhouse

This is my basement greenhouse. I purchased it a year ago from Canadian Tire. Basically I was too lazy at the time to create one of my own. The idea was that if I can make this one work, then I could build my own larger version.

My idea for this greenhouse was to run it as cheaply as possible. I want it to be energy efficient, and would even like it to run entirely off of solar power some day.

In this section of the Wiki I will go over all of my various trials while getting this thing working. Pages linked to this section will deal with everything from new setup ideas, additions to the project and the plants that I'm growing.

The Setup

Setting up this greenhouse was a cinch. It took about 20 minutes to open the box and set it up. I do find it to be a bit wobbly, but since it's in my basement, I'm not overly worried about it being knocked, or blown over.

The First Issue

I knew this was going to be the case, so there were no surprises here. Lighting. There isn't any. I managed to purchase some cheap flourescent fixtures and hang them up with chains. So far I'm not that happy with them. I find that they don't shed quite enough light, however they are cheap to run. They also provide a small amount of heat, although not quite enough. This leads me to...

The Second Issue

I didn't think of this one at first. My basement is a bit cold. It turns out that plants like some warmth! For the winter months I was forced to add a small heating unit (900 watts!). This was able to keep the structure at any temperature that I wanted (at a substantial power cost!). I hope to get rid of this one day.

In September 2008 I had walls and insulation installed in my basement. This significantly increased the heat retention of the basement, and consequently I haven't had to use the additional heater to keep the greenhouse warm enough for the plants.

Financial Costs

philplasma — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:23:43 CDT

Mike started his going green projects two years ago and did not keep track of his costs. I am only starting now, so it is easy for me to keep track of my costs right from the start. I will encourage Mike to keep track starting now so that we can see what are the costs of going green. It would be nice to also have a 'Financial Revenues' page, but it seems that going green is all about reducing our impact which has a cost to us and only occasionally a financial benefit.

Date	Description	Who?	Amount	Running Total
2008-04-08	Seeds, cotton string	Phil	23.00$	23.00$
2008-04-16	3.8cu ft of Pro-Mix	Phil	31.59$	54.59$
2008-04-18	Supplies to build small indoor grow light station, and some water soluable fertilizer	Phil	96.26$	150.85$
2008-04-29	Seed sarting Potatoes, one bag of cow manure compost	Phil	11.27$	162.12$
2008-05-07	Adapter pieces, Silicon Sealant, tubing, pressure rings	Phil	20.57$	182.69$
2008-05-12	Timer for lights and fan of growlight station	Phil	16.92$	199.61$
2008-05-31	Additional SWC components	Phil	2.66$	202.27$
2008-06-18	Container Mix 2cu ft	Phil	28.17$	230.44$
2008-06-18	3 Metal 6ft Trellises	Phil	87.98$	318.42$
2009-01-03	Raised Bed Grow Box Corners x 2	Phil	27.18$	345.60$
2009-04-14	Three 55Gallon food grade plastic barrels	Phil	75.00$	420.60$
2009-04-14	Wood to enclose Raised Bed gardens plus Rainbarrel interface supplies	Phil	89.11$	509.71$

Flanders Poppies

philplasma — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:46:50 CDT

March 22, week zero, We received on Remembrance day last fall a packet of Flanders Poppy seeds. Wanting to add a little bit of colour to my garden I have decided to start these using the paper PotMaker. The poppy seeds were very tiny, so I let tumble into each paper pot four or five as it was difficult to do it in a more controlled manner. I may thin them out once they start to sprout.
March 29, week one, no sprouts but I think I know why. I did not enclose these paper pots such that the humidity in the soil could be stopped from evaporating, so I had to add water every day or so. As gentle as ladeling the water in with a spoon I believe the seeds were disturbed and so they did not stay in place to germinate. Hopefully they are still okay, pictured here are the paper pots with the other batch two tomatoes that I've put into a tupperware container for which I will put the lid on top to seal it. I'll keep an eye on them each day to see if they sprout now.
March 31, week one, quite a few tiny sprouts have come up. The seedlings look frail and may be too close together. Once they have matured a little I may attempt to separate them.
Apr 5, week two, some of the sprouts are starting to look stronger while others have germinated and just started to come up. I am watering from a cup of water and using a spoon. I need to find a more gentle watering method.
Apr 13, week three, the sprouts are getting bigger but do not look particularly strong yet.

Paper Pots

philplasma — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:30:22 CDT

From LeeValley I purchased a Paper Pot Maker which I figure to use for starting seeds.
First cut a piece of newspaper 3.5" by 12".
Here is the pot maker out of the box.
First wrap the paper around the top part of the pot maker.
Then crumple the bottom around the top part and squish it into the bottom part.
Here is the final product.
And this is what they look like when you fill them with soil and have them seeded.

Phil's Garden

philplasma — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:52:16 CST

I found that the SWCs of last year were a little bit tedious to build and I'm not sure that the results I got are as good as what I can get from a raised-bed square foot garden. Early in January I purchased two sets of raised-bed corners that I will use to construct two 4x8 foot raised beds. In them I will plant the same group of seeds that I purchased last year, but increasing the quantity of each plant sown. Find in the subpages of this category the plant growth updates from the earliest seeding to harvest.

2009

philplasma — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:45:02 CST

Below are the description pages for our gardening efforts in 2009.