FUTURE BLINDNESS

Another garden update

AKA — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:54:58 +0000

After a rocky patch, the garden is doing better. This, however, is the only result of the entire operation so far. A ~200$ pepper, photograph much enlarged.
The current problem (which I believe I may just now have resolved) is that my pepper plants took off: once I installed the LED panel and set it to provide 18 hours of consistent light, most of my plants much improved. The Thai basil is still oddly spindly, and the rosemary withered up and died, but an investigation of their respective root structures leads me to believe that they were doomed to fail. The Thai basil had few usable roots at all after its potting-soil transplant (its leaves were constantly brown, brittle, and flaking off), and the rosemary had such spare, woody roots that I imagined it had been compromised long before I got ahold of it, when it was being potted for sale at the garden center.
The aphids have returned, though, and I will make a second spraying tonight in an effort to defeat them.
The real problem, though, is that while the pepper plants have really thrived, they are not producing any peppers. It is also shockingly difficult to find anywhere online that will describe what it is like to watch a pepper grow. I have worked out that the flower turns into the pepper, but all my flowers have been drying up and falling off.
In a move of reprehensible deceit, I visited a local garden store and asked about this issue, carefully implying that I had sourced the peppers from their establishment. I was told by a dull boy that I should probably have been pruning it, so pruning it I have done, this evening.
Do please leave jibes, advice, or commiseration in the comments. Thomas, I hear you! But this household is leery of worms, because our landlady would not like to hear of such a thing. (“Hydroponic grow operation” does not faze her, but I know that worms will!)

Garden takes a turn

AKA — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:32:41 +0000

The garden is not doing well. The pH of the nutrient solution is almost always far too acidic (no matter what steps I take to adjust it), and if one plant isn’t suffering, then another is. I appear to have chosen a poor mix of plants—that is, an environment that makes one thrive (say, causing my peppers to flower) causes another one to fail (and my rosemary immediately turns black and curled). Here are some photos from a recent five-week checkup:

I have my doubts about the mechanical efficiency of the system I am using. It has two tiny air stones at the bottom that both oxygenate and circulate the nutrient solution. However, in practice I can see that very little circulation takes place. In a test, I half-emptied the system and refilled it with a new nutrient solution (whose light-red color made it easy to differentiate from the existing solution in the bed). I poured the entire gallon of solution in one corner—the airstones run down the center of the bed, so one corner is the same as any other—after five minutes the new solution had barely moved at all.

pH monitoring has also revealed some complications that may be impeding plant growth. It has been difficult to keep the acidity of the solution down to a normal level, which I didn’t initially think would be an issue. (Not that I didn’t think there wouldn’t be issues—I just anticipated wild swings in either direction, rather than a persistent acid problem…) I’ve posted the readings in a graph below; will Google Docs be smart enough to update it every time I add a new reading? We’ll have to see. I intend eventually to use my server to publish these graphs without needing Google.

These considerations spur me to two actions: to increase the size of the system (in order to better dampen it from shocks like the introduction of new nutrient solution), and to change its main method of circulation to flood-and-drain. This will involve sourcing two larger grow beds and installing them one over the other, much like this arrangement. Flood-drain will, I hope, circulate solution much more efficiently and get more oxygen to the roots. It is also convenient that flood-drain is also the eventual system we’d like to have running when we try adding an aquaculture element to the system.

I have also added a grow light to the setup, and have (but have not yet set up) a large solar panel and charge controller. More about these next time.

First seedlings started

AKA — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:51:16 +0000

I enjoy hobbies, and this one seems fun—I can combine my interest in resiliency, my love of cooking, and my pleasure in experimenting with code and hardware.

Thai basil seedling in expanded clay medium

I set up the garden kit this evening and transplanted three seedlings: rosemary, chive, and Thai basil. I’m using this system to begin with (I’m not a good gardener, so I needed all the startup help I could get) but the plan is to use this setup to learn the processes and then make a larger-scale, more complete system when I have more room.
The current system is smaller than most—especially if I were to try to add the aquaculture element now. Murray Hallam, who seems to know what he is doing, says that smaller systems are much less stable, prone to large swings in state. Part of the reason I’m going to try to monitor and automate this process is to get faster, more precise access to the state of the system.

Catch-up

AKA — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:16:44 +0000

Graduated, moved to Brooklyn, now living in the heart of Hasidic America.

I’ve become very interested in aquaponics and hydroponics, and am just starting out experimenting with an in-apartment hydroponic vegetable garden, hoping to grow tomatoes, peppers, rosemary, basil, etc. I’ll post some photos when the system is set up.

All my worldly possessions are in storage until the beginning of July, so my capacities are a little limited. More as I settle in.

Secret project/job is progressing at a slow pace.

Protected: Thesis done, unfortunately

AKA — Wed, 19 May 2010 23:15:02 +0000

3d printer finished

AKA — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:57:55 +0000

More details soon.

3-d printer nearing completion

AKA — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:54:38 +0000

Andrew2.0 and I have been working on building our own RepStrap for the last three or four weekends, and last night we had a very successful first run (without the extruder installed). Above, you can see a video of it in action. (Thanks for the FlipHD, Dad!). We made some initial measurements of its alignment and were pleasantly surprised to find that the X and Y axes are just about perfectly square to each other, and even with our hardware-store threaded rod we seem to be getting accuracy to about 0.02mm(!)

We’re assembling and mounting the extruder head tonight, so by early next week we should be printing in ABS for real. It’s pretty addictive building these, partially because it’s awesome to build something that is so much more accurate than a person can be.

Protected: Modest Flair

AKA — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:44:40 +0000

O BTW

AKA — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:10:21 +0000

I have been documenting some of my more semiautobiographical experiences here.

Protected: Introduction to my thesis

AKA — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:34:39 +0000