How on point?! I just ordered two heating pads, or germination mats, or whatever you want to call them, today. Have never used them before. There was a discussion on these prior in this thread, I think. January in North America might be a proper time to bring it back up. What am I getting into?
@binx bolling yeah it's that time of year again! Peppers take awhile to get to size so I usually start them first out of everything. I've never really grown hot peppers before but many of them come from near the equator and require good heat and some time to germinate. My germination mats say they raise the temp 10 to 20F above room temp, you'll need to look at what yours say. Its probably 65 where I have them set up. I miss typed, I had a mat on the counter with 1 wrapped around the container. I need to grab a thermometer from the coop to keep a read. Probably dont want it any hotter than 90F.
I’m probably gonna back off the heirloom varieties this year. It was a cool experiment, and maybe it was the drought conditions, but even before that they didn’t thrive. I’ll be growing a lot more herbs this year for sure. Having fresh and dried herbs has been a game changer in the kitchen.
Yeah heirlooms are super temperamental. Sucks because there are some super cool varieties and they dont do well in your zone or area. You look at the varieties that do? Always lame ones. Herbs are never fail for the most part. Rosemary doesnt do well so Ive skipped that.
Ive finally had luck with keeping Rosemary indoors. The trick is to keep the grow light going 12-14 hours a day and resist the urge to water it more than about once a week. My basil is doing well too, though I’m thinking about cutting it way back and see what happens. It’s real tall and stalky before leaving out.
The more you pinch basil, the more it will branch and bush out. Otherwise you'll get a single stalk that eventually flowers. Pinch early and often and never let it flower unless you want to collect seeds. It'll get woody
Yeah that’s what happened here, it grew outdoors into tall stalks with smaller leaves on the end. Since I see some smaller buds forming low, I’m thinking of cutting it way back and see what happens.
Kind of a gardening/intro woodworking project that I was super nervous about because I had never used a doweling jig before. It was SO easy to use and I'll be using the jig to make some book ledges for the nursery and the hall bathroom. It is an excellent tool. I had to rig up a simple shelf to get the plants higher since the lights aren't bright enough in the bottom of the shower stall. I have a stronger adjustable wattage HID lamp but I need to buy some hardware for proper attachment on the corners of the frame. I was able to just drill holes for the hooks on the LEDs. I'm also going to buy a detachable shower head so everything can be watered in the shower directly. I'm glad to get this little project out of the way. The seeds are popped and were starting to lean toward the window they were sitting in temporarily. This shower stall never gets used. This location will allow the plants to be watered freely without worry of drainage and it will be temperature controlled.
That is all kinds of awesome! Come to think of it, a shower stall would be ideal for even a multi-rack system... if you put a watering hose attachment onto the shower head, had a few racks of waterproof LED strip lights, a few shelves, and some misting nozzles on some water tube... that'd be the ideal system. Just show up, turn the water on for 30 seconds, and done. No worries about water drainage, etc.
Oooh, I never thought about that. I have a cheap detachable head in my grocery pickup order I might need to remove. I'm in the laundry room where that stall is every day... doing laundry, washing my hands after coming in from the ducks. I have some wire racks from a garage sale I rigged up for the shelf just now. When I have more time to dedicate to this I'll definitely be putting it together for more surface area. This was a "shit they need to be closer to the lights and the baby is about to wake up" situation. I have plastic 1/2" irrigation hosing, 1/4" flexible irrigation lines, plus an assortment of drips and misters that I used for the outdoor garden. It this the type of materials to use for this project? I guess I would just need a female threaded piece to connect the 1/2" tubing to the shower water output? Watering was a big problem with the other location... The plants were in the potting shed and it was a pain in the ass to get to and to water. I was either using pitchers or dragging the hose in there. And running heaters and all sorts of ridiculous shit because it was freezing outside. This is already a serious upgrade but a semi auto watering situation would be dreamy.
Exactly. Most water kits come with a cheap plastic adapter to do exactly that kind of hookup. Shouldn't be too hard to find something. Mind you, I always measure or get those details wrong so as a result I have a box of couplers like that for various sizes/genders that I didn't need, but might come in handy for the future. Lots of options on this page that should work for you: https://www.homedepot.com/b/Outdoor.../Adapter/N-5yc1vZbx57Z1z0uqq5?storeSelection= Your typical shower head is 1/2" NPT (national pipe thread). So you're looking for something that goes from 1/2" to 1/4" drip... but you may have to go to garden hose first (which is 3/4" usually).
I was pretty sure the shower was 1/2" but it's good to know that for sure. I also keep an assortment of odds n ends. I keep one of those cheap orange Homer HD toolboxes to organize it all after getting tired rummaging through a plastic bag full of parts. I might actually have everything I need for this project except the correct emitters. I'm going back to look at the pics of your setup to get an idea of what works. Might need to pick up a heat gun too. I know the stuff outside leaks like crazy. What specific emitters do you use? I'm only seeing a couple options at HD, either one that does a 360o spray with terrible reviews, or one with a little better reviews that only does 180o.
I bought a bunch of specialty higher grade misters from China a few months ago. Something like these: https://www.advancedmistingsystems.com/garden-hose-misting-kits/ The shit from HD is just that, shit, and I didn't like them at all... didn't last more than a year. These new ones are pretty kick ass, and will hopefully do a better job.
They have much better, solid locking compression fittings rather than just heating plastic tube to slide on a barb... and the metal fittings are easy to replace if they get shitty over the winter. I can also drop them in a sonic cleaner I have and fill it with CLR to get the buildup out of it.
Those are actually really nice, and a good price too. This project will require some planning. I need to get my shelving straightened out before I do anything else. I think for now I'll use the $10 detachable shower head. I have a tendency to buy supplies for projects and then not touch them for a year. Trying to avoid that this time around at least.
One thing I did that was handy with small seedlings was make a 1/4" tube that came off the main water supply, that had 2 ends on it, each controlled with it's own valve. On one end I had a mister head, on the other was just the 1/4" tube, no misting. That way I could easily mist/water the seedlings gently without fear of higher pressure shower head streams breaking shit.