Sometimes it is best to look at a few pieces of old knowledge and some old school techniques to find some new ideas for enhancing your garden. I have recently come across some mentions of using molasses as a natural fertilizer in your garden and I wondered if it could be used with hydroponics. Let’s take a look.
There are rumors about adding sugar to the soil of your garden to increase the sweetness of the fruits of your plants. This may be a bit of a myth and I have not been able to confirm this yet, but I have been checking out the nutrient content of the molasses and I am impressed. There is calcium, magnesium and a bunch of other great stuff in there.
The biggest advantage of using molasses is that it supports a healthy microbial ecology in your hydroponics system. This is one of the biggest difficulties that we, as hydroponic gardeners, can face. You will want to get un-sulfured molasses as the form of sulfur they use is a preservative meant to stop microbial activity. We are trying to encourage those microbes and this would be highly counter counter-productive.
The best way to use molasses is to get some black strap and mix it with water in a ratio of 1 part molasses to 100 parts water. This is the absolute maximum concentration that you want to use. Any more than this and your risk causing root rot or slime in your hydroponics system. You also need to make sure that you fully dissolve the molasses or you are risking clogging your system. IT can gum up your growing medium, pumps or sprayers and be very difficult to clean out. For this reason, I suggest adding the molasses to boiling water, mixing it in completely and then letting it cool before using it with your hydroponics.
There are a few factors for you to consider when setting up your indoor garden. You must first decide if you are going to be using soil or hydroponics. If you are new to gardening, I suggest starting with soil until you learn the effects of your fertilizer on your plants. If you are growing a variety of plants, I highly recommended starting with soil. You can work your way up to hydroponics by building your own drip system for your indoor garden.
Modifying the Circulating Drip System for Soil Container Gardens
To make the Circulating Drip System into a regular drip system for your container garden, you will just need to take the containers off the reservoir and into a Drain Table. There is a guide for building a homemade drain table here. It is for small plants, if you fill it with large containers it will tumble over. For bigger containers, you can buy a strong drain table or just sit them on something you can drain every day.
After getting several germination questions I decided to create a quick video on some techniques and tips I have learned over time. It is important to point out that nature makes germination a simple process. A warming ground, increasing light, available moisture, and a medium to allow roots to expand and anchor the plant all combine to set the seed in motion to create a new plant.
With that being said, there is no “best” method, but the simple basics will almost always allow success. I present a method and a few products that economically fit my goals and current growing systems. I will “up-pot” the starts destined for outdoors soil in coir as it is sterile and will do well in soil. Those will be germinated in peat pellets or under paper towels. All plants going into hydroponic systems (indoors or outdoors) will be germinated under paper towels or in rockwool. They will then be”up-potted” into silica stone grow media.
The methods I outline allow me to “up-pot” into both soil based raised
beds and containers or hydro media with a consistent method and products (peat pellets / rockwool) while using a common lighting system and 1020 trays. My goal of a completely “soiless” environment in my basement start and hydroponic grow room is achieved.
I also posted this under the youtube channel “Misterhalfwaythere1” along with the rest of the hydroponic growing videos at the Mister Halfway Youtube Channel Don’t forget to subscribe!
About Mister H: I journal my hydroponic growing endeavor in my blog at Frugal Hydroponics. After prompting from friends and family and seeing a need to better record my results, the blog has proven a great platform for videos and photos of my progress, techniques, and of course results. Hydroponics is highly efficient and a great complement to our soil-based containers and raised beds.
Azamax is an OMRI Certified Organic Pest Control solution. You simply mix a little bit with water and spray it on your plants to provide a pest and fungal barrier.
How Long Does It Take Azamax to Work?
7-21 days.
The first week of Azamax applications will pretty much stop the reproduction of your spider mites, aphids, or other pests. You need to reapply Azamax to your plants every 7-14 days.
You will still see the bugs, well what looks like bugs, but you will notice they aren’t really moving. Their dead bodies will still be on the leaves of the plant so make sure to spray your plants before harvest, and then give them a good rinse after harvest. You don’t want to be eating dead bugs!
If this sounds gross to you, think about what commercial farmers have to deal with. Now do you understand why they just use harsh pesticides to wipe out all the insects. If you grow your own food, you can be sure you are not ingesting harmful chemicals. Not to mention your food will taste and smell better. There are plenty of advantages to using Azamax over a harsh chemical pesticide.
Where is the Best Place to Get Azamax?
Get the best prices on Azamax at Amazon. You can also find the perfect hydroponic nutrients on Amazon. If you are interested in learning more about hydroponics or gardening in general, search through some of the 100’s of books Amazon has. I’ve picked up three or four used books from Amazon and they were all in perfect condition. They seemed brand new! Don’t be afraid to make purchases at Amazon, they have great customer service.
Every gardener is always looking for new nutrients to try. If you prefer real natural fertilizer, Annie Haven’s Moo Poo is for you. Moo Poo is an all natural soil conditioner made from life stock manure. It is also known as manure tea.
The Moo Poo comes in tea bag sized pouches that you let seep into water for a few days before use. It is a really simple process for some really strong organics.
One tea bag can make as much as 5 gallons of nutrients. If you are using a hydroponics system, I suggest using one tea bag for 10 gallons or more. You can really make these go a long way.
The natural tea is perfect for all kinds of plants. You can use it indoors or outdoors. It is good for container gardens, outdoor gardens, and even hydroponics.
Hydroponic gardeners will be able to get 90+ gallons of fertilizer out of the 9 pack which is only $22. Thats the same price you are paying for nutrients now.
There are three types of manure tea from the ManureTea.com shop. You can choose from horse or cow manure for your vegetable garden. There is also an alfalfa mix for roses.
How DO plants grow? Did you ever stop and think about it? When you notice little movements from day to day, you know your plant is growing. It seems like those leaves just pop out of no where doesn’t it?
Today you are going to learn a little horticulture 101. You are going to find out exactly how plants grow. Plant growth is an interesting topic, because before we had microscopes, there was only speculation on how plants grew. There are a few key terms we must define:
Horticulture: “A process by which a plot of soil is prepared for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings.” About.com Archaeology. We are going to let horticulture encompass all of hydroponics as well.
Meristem: The Meristem is the part of a plant that is capable of cell division.
Cell Division: The process by which cells multiply. The cells multiply by constantly dividing. (No pun intended).
Where Does Plant Growth Happen?
Plant growth can only occur where there is cell division. Cell division occurs at the Apical Meristem. You can think of this as the top node. It is the node that is just popping up. If you have ever topped your plant to bush it out and spread the top nodes, you cut the apical meristem.
Apical Meristem
The apical meristem can be cut to make two new top branches. The meristem doesn’t physically split into two branches. The two shoots below the apical meristem, both become apical meristems. It is actually a cool trick for the plant to make two apical meristems, because if another one got cut or damaged, it could continue growing. You’ll find that if you chop off both of the other two apical meristems, you will have four apical meristems.
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When I saw people were searching for this on Google, I just had to write a post about it. Below is an excerpt from Suite 101 about Early Research on Plant Growth and Music.
Early Research on Music and Plants
Dorothy Retallack, a researcher at the Colorado Woman’s College in Denver, published her work on music and plants in 1973 in the book The Sound of Music and Plants. In one experiment, Retallack found that plants thrived when she played a tone intermittently, but died when she played the same tone constantly. In another experiment, she found that plants grew better when she played “soothing” music on the radio, whereas rock music affected plant growth negatively.
Another of Retallack’s experiments sought to discover what kind of classical music plants liked best, finding that plants exposed to North Indian classical music leaned towards the speakers, while plants exposed to the modern, dischordant classical music of composers such as Schoenberg leaned away from the speakers — but not nearly as much as the plants exposed to harsh rock music.
Isn’t that interesting? I didn’t find the study report, just the reporter’s view on it, but nonetheless, its interested to hear a scientist make claims like this.
What do you think?
You could try your own experiment or research more about the topic. I figured it would be insignificant gains at best, but anything is worth a shot! Here is a link to a experiment you can do yourself.
Leave your results and thoughts in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear what you have to say!
Are you preparing for your Spring Garden? Do you know when to start your seeds or is that why you’re here? Its a common question/anticipation between gardeners everywhere. When should I start my seeds?
You can closely watch your weather forecasts and plan the frost dates of your zone, but it takes a lot of time. Time that a lot of you don’t have. I’ve found an easy solution to the age old Spring Garden planning dilemma.
GrowVeg.com is a Garden Planning service. You sign up for an account(Free 30 Day Trial) and plan out your garden. You can choose the type of plants you are growing and set up automatic reminders for yourself.
GrowVeg.com Client Area
Why Should You Care?
You can plan out the varieties of plants you want so you don’t forget any. GrowVeg also allows you to setup automatic reminders, so you can plant varieties on the exact days you want. GrowVeg will adapt to your zone and tell you when to plant your seeds. You will get a reminder saying when its time to start seeds.
GrowVeg also remembers your garden for next year. You won’t have to replan your garden. When Spring time comes around, planning your garden will be a piece of cake.
Plastic containers are a crucial component of most home hydroponics systems. They can be used as plant containers, reservoirs, rain barrels, and even humidity domes.
Plastic buckets for home hydroponics systems can be expensive and counter productive to the project at hand; saving money and eating healthier in the process. If you are willing to ask around you can probably find what you need for free.
5 Places You Can Ask For Plastic Containers
1. Deli – Have you thought of using pickle jars or other deli containers?
2. Grocery Store – Sometimes the different departments of the grocery store will be tossing out buckets, see if they can be tossed to you.
Here is an example of a Grow Box made out of a dresser. It is very easy to do because the frame of the grow chamber is already made.
So you want to start an indoor garden but don’t know how to build a grow box. Building a grow box is actually simple once you understand the mechanics. Today you will learn every thing you need to know to build your own grow box.
The following guide will walk you through the basics of constructing a grow box out of an old piece of furniture. A lot of indoor gardeners are also very enthusiastic about recycling, so this should really hit home for a lot of you. The dresser grow box could be considered a grow cabinet, whatever you want to call it, the function is the same.
5 Reasons You Need Grow Box Plans:
1. Grow Room Ventilation: There is too much to say here. You will obviously need some sort of exhaust. The size of fan you need depends on the size of your grow box or grow room. This simple grow box uses PC fans which can be wired to an old PC power supply very easily. You can also control the timing of the fans by putting the power supply on a timer.
WARNING: Do not use the biggest power supply you can find. Stick to a smaller power supply with low wattage because the fans use very little power. If you do not know what you are doing, use a pre-made fan that you can just plug in. For 20 bucks you can get a dryer type ventilation fan that can be attached to ducting.
Cut a hole in the back of your box and screw your fan into place. You can also use epoxy or strong glue.
2. Reflective: Reflectiveness should depend on your budget. Aluminum foil is probably the cheapest material, but it certainly doesn’t reflect the most light. Since you will likely be using small grow lights, you will want to get the most out of it. White poly or Mylar are the premium choice.
3. Water proof/Bug proof/Mold proof: Water proofing is one of the most important things about building a grow box. All hydroponic systems should be in water proofed grow boxes, or outdoors where they can’t possibly make a mess. I’ll discuss bug proof more in the next point. Mold proofing takes a little common sense. Don’t use carpet for the floor of your grow box or anything dumb like that.
4. Air tight: You will want your grow box to be air tight so that light doesn’t escape, bugs will have a harder time getting in, and you will want control of the ventilation.
5. Odor control: Some people enjoy having fresh herbs, vegetables, and fruits growing in their house, but don’t want their house to smell like a garden or green house. Some people just don’t like that smell. You can get a carbon filter for the unwanted smells, but you will need to get an inline fan, which could dramatically raise the price.
Electrical Components
Please make sure all of your electrical components are away from possible water sources. You should place your outlets on the out side of the grow box and hung up. The last thing you want is water in your electrical components.
Key Components
The small desk fan provides plenty of air movement in this small grow chamber. Here you can see two of the small ventilation fans and a few 23w CFLs. You want to get the most surface area of each bulb facing towards the plants. Notice the fan is pushing air OUT of the box. The fan at the top is drawing the heat from the lights and pushing it outside the grow box. The lights are what make the grow chamber's temperature rise. You don't want your plants to catch a fever!
