新车间 [Xinchejian]

The planter built a week ago is doing well on my balcony. Here is the before and after photos.

A week ago

Today

Finally, the seedlings are ready to be transplanted and time to get the hydroponic planter ready.

The planter is ordered from Taobao. Good size and come with the drainage screen at the bottom.

Fix the aquarium air stone strip to the bottom of the drainage screen. Thanks to Rocket’s suggestion with his background in water processing, the air stone is mounted upside down. This is really clever one. It avoids deposit on top of the stone to make the strips last longer. Cool idea!

A small piece of PVC pipe with holes is used to tell water level and fixed on to the screen with cable tie.

PVC pipe is used to protect the air pipe from be squeezed by the ceramic ball.

All done and ready to fill in the ceramic balls.

Big ones at the bottom with 2 cm deep of small one covering the top. While filling in the nutrient solution, make sure only up to the big ones’ height and keep the small one dry. The small one is mainly used to insulate the lights and heat of the Sun from reaching the solution to prevent algae growth and heating up the solution.

Transplanted some cucumbers, sun flowers, and other seedlings started in the past few weeks.

Some words of advice, soak the ceramic ball in the water a few days before setting up the system so they will sink into the water. At the last picture, the big ball float to the top while I was planting the seedling.

Mini Workshop is a short and hand on workshops offered by different projects in XinCheJian to provide new members an introduction to the projects and opportunities to get involved in the projects of interests.

The first workshop “starting seedlings for hydroponic” was run by David from Urban Farming Team success this afternoon. Everyone sowed a tray of seedlings in coconut peat with variety of vegetables, including parsley, carrot, tomato, coriander and many others.

On next Saturday afternoon, we will hold the 2nd mini workshop and teach you how to set up a small hydroponic system at home.

this is the 3rd week after oregano cutting been transplanted into small pots with 4 different mediums and was surprised to find out those in vermiculite/‎蛭石 grow generally better (light blue pot) than the rest; especially there are 2 out of 5 died in soil base – with 24/7 lights on, water in soil base probably be dried out faster than vermiculite, coconut peat and perlite. 三周后的牛至幼苗在各自培养介质中均有良好的成长趋势；另人意外的是，在蛭石中，牛至的生长高度和强壮度是整体最好的。其次分别是椰糠，珍珠岩，再者是传统的培养土 – 猜测可能是因为在24小时持续的外加光照条件下，培养土中的水分流失比较严重。

top: 4 best growing in vermiculite base
bottom (from left to right): the best in soil (H=65mm), in perlite (H=67mm), in coconut peat (H=58mm) and in vermiculite (H=95mm),

It has been 2 weeks since oregano been transplanted into bigger pots with 4 different mediums, including soil and hydroponics which are coconut peat, perlite and vermiculite. By far, all cuttings are survived in their own home base while those in perlite are slightly shorter and smaller.

Florescent lights are set up last weekend (216W in total with 4 bulbs) running 24/7, and a small fan (2.5W) is available for creating mini air circulation environment. Once timers are fixed, ideally they will be off for 6 hours every 18 hours.

If you have any questions or be interested in growing your own hydroponic plants, feel free to contact David Li, Roger Mu or Jackie Hu.

The farming team got two more systems online today: Bubble bucket:

After another one week, we got pretty good seedling with strong roots; transplant was completed this evening with great support from Roger.  More details will be shared on this Wednesday evening XCJ meetup; stay still and get your nose ready

instead of traditional seedling from seeds, we are trying to grow roots in water and coconut peat bases from fresh oregano plant (stems with leaves). after 1 week, more than 50% oregano has grown its own roots. finding:

• oregano grows taller with more leaves in coconut peat than in water,but with less and smaller roots
• in the same water base, oregano grows more and roots with lightening compares to those under sunlight.

The Urban Farming Lab is opened! We have setup an ebb and flow system and are planning to build other system in the near future.

Ebb and Flow system

PH, Temperature and Conductivity PPM meter

LED growing lights

Fish Tank for Aquaponic

Roger Mu who presented his home farm a few weeks ago just sent a few pictures to share. Some pretty nice tomatoes

Finally I get to taste the first batch of aquaponic Spinach. Thanks to the fishes and thanks to those who help feeding the fishes.

Materials：water bucket, strainer, ceramic balls, plastic tube, water pump, air pump, plants, water, nutrient.