Topping Peppers For Better Production

It may look wrong but the results speak for themselves.

Be sure to watch the way he cuts these peppers below to wye.

Hot July Garden Pics

It's been about 4 months since I built this garden

I just harvested 29lbs potatoes.  Red, Blue, White, and Yukon Gold

I'm not sure if it's time to harvest this corn.  The ears are kinda small.

The corner seems to be getting dry.  I took two ears off.  One was immature and the other was missing quite a few kernels.  No bugs.   I'm going to let it go a bit longer, The stalks are better than 7' tall.

 

Beautiful tomatoes are ripening everywhere in my garden.  These are hydroponic.  No worms!

I think these are Muskmelon.    They are growing up the arched trellis and hang down inside.

Guatemalan Blue Banana Squash hanging from the curved trellis.

The Kratky Method is great!  It's totally hands off, and fool proof.  Just set it up, and come back for the harvest when the plants are ready.  No watering, fertilizing, I never even did anything for pest control.  These were grown in the July heat where every day topped out near or over 100F. Several days were 110+.

Effective Microorganisms 3 Months Old

EM (Effective Microorganisms) after being stored for several months at room temperature.

Energy to Produce Vegetables

 I just read the article  "The Permaculture Solution – an Interview with Warren Brush". It said "Estimates are that the modern agriculture system uses ten calories of energy to produce one calorie of food."

Fearing that I too may be growing in a style of negative net energy. I immediately looked at the energy costs involved with my soil-less gardens and I published an article.
Chris Carr was kind enough to remind me that nutritional calories (KCal) are equal to 1000 chemistry calories (cal).    A chemist would probably use Joules and Kilo-Joules (KJ) rather than KCal.   But the we think of food in terms of KCalories rather than Joules, so I'll keep it in KCal also known as large or nutrition calories as much as I can.  There were other errors in my first draft,  so here's the rewrite.



I get that using the rule of thumb that a soil garden should get about 10 gallons of water /day /100 sq. ft. is not exact, and everything from soil condition, weather, crop, and stage of growth will affect these numbers, but it's the average I want to start with.
Lets say you irrigate 100 square feet of garden with 10 gallons per day, and you are pumping water from let's say 100 feet below the surface. 

To calculate the power used to pump 10 gallons per minute 100'

P_whp = q h sg / 3960

where

P_whp = water horsepower (hp)
q = flow (gal/min)    = (10)
h = head (ft)              = (100)
sg = specific gravity = (1)

P_whp = 10x100/3960 = .2525whp = 0.04497210699688 KCal/sec
This could also be expressed as 188.2892175745  J/sec which is the definition of a Watt.

If you are following along and checking my math you can use the 'Power Unit Conversion' to find the Power.
Energy is what is delivered and Power is the rate at which it is delivered.
In the above example we deliver 188 Watts for 1 minute or 3.138 Watt-Hours, but I'm going to stick with KCal units.



We pump for 1 minute so
0.04497210699688 KCal/s  x  60sec = 2.69 KCal / day to supply 1" of water to soil

Below is a list of common vegetables which I got from.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calories_in_vegetables.htm
Highlighted cells are used below.

Tomato can be expected to yield as much as 37500 lb per acre or 37500/43560x100 = 86 lbs per 100sf
80 KCal per lb x 86 lb = 6880 KCal
Lettuce can be expected to yield as much as 27000 lb per acre or 27000/43560x100 = 61 lbs per 100sf
67.37 KCal per lb x 61 lb = 4176 KCal
 

The yield statistics below come from eHow.com and johnnyseeds.com

Using the numbers from vegguide I have determined that on average lettuce will take about 50 days to mature and tomatoes will take about 80.

Soil

Here is the energy required to pump the water for these two crops till harvested.
Tomatoes - 2.69 KCal x 80 days = 215.2KCal
Lettuce     - 2.69 KCal x 50 days = 134.5KCal

Tomatoes - It takes 215.2 KCal to produce 6880 KCal of tomatoes.  About 31.9 to 1 . 
Lettuce     - It takes 134.5 KCal to produce 4176 KCal of lettuce.      About 31.0 to 1 .

Bioponic

I'm going to use a pump size that is far below what you are likely use to make the best case for soil-less gardening.
If you use a 20 watt pump 5 hours a day.
That's 20 watt-hours x 5 hours/day = 100 Watt-Hours / day 
Each W-Hr is equal to 0.859845227859  KCal
 0.859845227859  KCal  x 100 Watt-Hours / day = 86.0 KCal to pump water each day.

Tomatoes - 86.0 KCal/day x 80 days = 6880 KCal
Lettuce     - 86.0 KCal/day x 50 days = 4300 KCal
Tomatoes - 6880 KCal to produce 6880 KCal of tomatoes.  About 1 to 1 .   
Lettuce     - 4300 KCal to produce  4176 KCal of lettuce.       About 1.03 to 1 .

Compared to soil gardening the power efficiency of soil-less gardening is staggeringly bad, but water is also a commodity worth preserving.  Water use gets pretty complicated if you consider that some of the water applied to soil returns to the aquifer, but aquaponics and bioponics are definitely more efficient with water, and far more wasteful of power, which in some cases will be fossil fuel  

My comparison only scratches the surface.  Our home gardens may not be much better than the modern agriculture system which Warren Brush said uses 10 to 1 times more calories than it produces.  The cost of mining and producing nutrients for our gardens must also be included as well as the gas for those trips to the store for our gardening supplies and fish food.  Keep in mind petroleum is the main source of fertilizers, and even a source of power for production of organic products. The list goes on, and I'm sure I would not be able to think of all of the items on that list.

There are ways to improve each type of garden.  Solar power for water pumps, air pumps, and heaters.  Wicking beds and other Permaculture methods for soil based gardening as Warren has suggested,  Kratky Method for hydroponic gardens, but hydroponics use synthetic fertilizers.  In most cases I believe much more power is required in an aquaponic garden compared to a bioponic garden, but the trade off is protein from fish...  Finding the exact number seems out of reach - we can only try to make better decisions,
We are quickly out growing our planet, and its resources. I hope this has been  food for thought.   I hope you will share yours.

Kratky Method

I've been told the Kratky Method is also good for fast growing vegetables like tomatoes.  It's not the right time of year to be growing leafy greens, but I have some heat tolerant varieties that I'm experimenting with in the shade. 

 The Kratky Method appeals to me because it is so easy.  The hydroponic system requires mixing solution on a regular basis, and AP requires monitoring.  Once filled and planted there is nothing else to do with the Kratky Method.  As the solution is used the root grow down a bit further.

The initial solution for this 16-15-32 solution in a 200 litter tank is created by mixing
104 grams Masterblend 4-18-38, 104 grams Ca(NO3)2, and 52 grams MgSo4 in 200 liters of water.

I did not think the Kratky Method would be well suited to tomatoes, but someone left a comment assuring me they also grow well.  I'm growing tomatoes in a 50 gallon hydroponic Dutch Bucket system with a 20-18-38 solution created by mixing
132 grams Masterblend 4-18-38, 132 grams Ca(NO3)2, and 66 grams MgSo4 in 55 gallons of water.
Next summer I may try tomatoes in the Kratky bed.

The units are marked in liters on the Kratky tank and my hydroponic reservoir is marked in gallons so each of the above formulas are stated differently.  The lettuce formula is not as strong as the solution mixed for tomatoes.

After 34 days, I have decided to begin posting the results of this experiment.   Below are photos of the experiment taken every few days.  This experiment was done in the hottest part of summer.  Temperatures reached 111 degrees in the shade where these plants were grown.

Kale Roots Day 34

Lettuce Roots at day 34

For more about mixing the Masterblend fertilizer go to
http://hydro-gardens.com/mixing.htm
The idea for both the hydroponic and Kratky Method came from MHPgardener at http://youtu.be/vYv9iu2NI3M.

Garden Update

It's been a week since I added Epson Salts.  While I don't see significant growth the Epson salts have brought vibrant deep green color to the leaves.

These plants may be a lost cause since they were stunted so young, but I'll continue to observe their recovery.
I am experimenting with 8 different methods of growing.  AP, Bioponics, Bio-Char, Hugelkuture, dirt, Wicking Beds, Hydroponics, and  Kratky Method.  The tomatoes from the wicking beds, hugelkulture, hydroponic and wicking bed systems taste very good.  Given the problems I've recently encountered with my bioponic system it's not fair to judge the taste from that system.

Of all the methods I have come to like wicking beds the best.  Water levels must be maintained, but the reservoir allows one to be less attentive and if the soil web is good the plants take care of themselves..

Compost Tea - Watch Microoganisms Multiply

 I have several experiments that I want to do with my new microscope.  I'm a novice with the microscope so I may make some mistakes. I did not know that I needed microscope slips, so these first videos are a little blurry.

Growth is slow at first, but within minutes the organisms find food, and begin to multiply. This video takes us from the first few minutes after I added molasses and water to 21 hours later. Eventually the food will be used up, and toxic waste will build up. The organisms will die if left in this solution, so it's important to use the tea while they are thriving.

 Using a piece of acetate for a cover slip I examine the sample of compost tea I took five hours earlier.  The slip makes this video clearer than the one I took this morning.  Even though there was no aeration this jar of tea has continued to grow more microorganisms.

This next video is about 30 hours into the brew. I wanted to determine if Neem Flour (a botanical insecticide) will kill beneficial microorganisms and to see what progress they have made since the brew began. I had previously looked at a sample with no neem flour and it looked the same as this sample so I saw no reason to show both..

Neem flour is said to kill non-beneficial nematodes and anthropoids.  My conclusion is that it does not kill many of the microorganisms,  I lack the skill to determine if beneficial or non-beneficial nematodes and anthropoids were killed,but I feel confident that neem flour does not kill all of the microorganisms.

For more information about neem I found these sites to be helpful.
http://www.neemfoundation.org/neem-articles/neem-in-organic-farming/pest-management.html
and
http://www.infonet-biovision.org/default/ct/229/recipesForOrganicPesticides

I will continue to monitor the microorganisms, and I will post an update for the second part of this experiment which is to determine when the tea begins to get too old to use.  I may also experiment with dilutions and additional molasses to see how long tea can be kept viable.

To eliminate the possibility of anaerobic bacterial I will conduct this experiment again after I get my cover slips, but I will aerate the samples over night rather than simply leave the jars open.  It's unclear to me at this point whether or not the increased microorganisms is due to anaerobic organisms which may be less beneficial to plants.

More about microorganisms: 
These two are good for identification of compost microorganisms
microbeorganics.com/microbeidentifypart1.pdf  
http://microbeorganics.com/microbeidentifypart2.pdf

http://www.microbeorganics.com/
http://www.microbeworld.org/types-of-microbes
http://www.gardeningrhythms.com/preparing-extract-samples/
http://www.youtube.com/user/garendingrhythms/videos
http://www.gardeningrhythms.com/category/composting-for-growing-soil/soil-testing/
http://www.cellimagelibrary.org/browse/organism




 http://www.microbeorganics.com/