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

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.]]>

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),[/caption]]]>

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.

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