Eat your thinnings...

I have read recently about micro leaves and seen a little film on them. It seems to me (and my wife) that it's just eating the thinnings which we've been doing for ages. This picture shows a salad of 'micro-leaves', herbs and weeds (hairy bittercress) that I had for lunch today along side a lovely savory tart made my wife. This salad had at least ten different components and was very tasty!

An extra Holiday Watering Kit

I was quite surprised by the five boxes that awaited me from Greenhouse Sensation. Confused during ordering, I ordered the Solargrow... then I added the Holiday Watering Kit thinking that I would probably be away for a week or so over the summer. Then I decided to add the frame too so changed my order. I failed to notice that there was a Holiday Watering Kit included in the Solargrow that included the frame so now I have two Holiday Watering Kits!!! Strangely the two Kits don't seem to have quite the same pieces but I will have to check through carefully to see the differences.

N.B. Greenhouse Sensation say on their website that "(* Please note that Holiday Watering must be ordered along side your growing kit as it can not be added at a later date)". However, having checked the pieces I can't see why this is really the case. Adding the Holiday Watering Kit afterwards might be a little awkward - you might even have to drill a hole but it's NOT impossible and I would think CAN be added a later date! Don't be bullied into ordering it just by their warning. I emailed them about this just now.

Windowgrow seems to work....

So the Windowgrow system seems to work. The seedlings are growing. I had to top up last night because the watering indicator was resting on the bottom rather than floating up and telling me it was full. A liter of water (with 6ml of each of the two nutrient solutions) was sufficient to have the indicator read 'Full'. I also turned it around on the window to stop the seedlings growing permanently at a tilt. Looking forward to some nice salads in a few weeks....

More hyrdoponics kit arrives...

My order from Greenhouse Sensations arrived last Friday. Five boxes of kit. A bit too much I suspect. I set up the Windowbox, on the south facing bedroom window, over the weekend and transplanted some salad seedlings.

NFT Tomatoes

Tomatoes started off in my hydroponics unit, yesterday. They already seem to be growing.

Salad Table Month one

Over the weekend, I set up my first salad table of 2010. Using the principles of interplanting, I planted the crops very close together. I will harvest these as baby leaves and as cut-and-come again leaves. N.B. All this is a container that is about 18 inches by 36 inches (I will measure it later!) I placed six markers to orient myself and here's what I planted:

At each marker:
* 6 rows of Radish Saxa 2, ready in 3 to 6 weeks

Between markers
* 4 rows of Lettuce Salad Bowl, ready in 6-8 weeks
* 3 rows of rocket, ready in 5.5 weeks

In the radish rows, because the radishes will be removed before these get large...

* 2 rows of Pak Choi Red, ready in about 6.5 weeks
* 2 rows of Chinese Cabbage Spectrum, ready in about 10 weeks
* 2 rows of Swiss Chard Bright Lights, ready in about 12 weeks (baby leaves earlier)

So six different seeds planted in the same small space. Should be fun watching it grow.

Sowing seeds... at what price?

Easter weekend - a great opportunity to sow some seeds and do some reading about growing vegetables. Lots of fun. Over the last three weeks, I have planted 21 different types of seed. I was surprised when I added up the list last night. I am most excited about my first adventure growing peppers: three different types, including a cultivar of chili called Demon Red!

One thing that surprises me is the price of seed and how much it varies from place to place. I bought some at Pugh's Garden Centre - mostly supplied by Thompson & Morgan but the cheapest place by some margin was Lidl - at 29p for a packet of lettuce seed, this represents the GREAT value. Those Demon Red seeds, however, were £3.29 - that was supposed to be for 8 seeds although there was only four in the packet. I am going to email Thompson & Morgan right now! On the positive side all the seeds seem to be growing.... :-)

Easy2Grow Kit

So last night, I spent a little while looking at the Easy2Grow kit that I ordered from the Centre for Alternative Technology. It's an interesting product which looks easy to use. The plant pots, the base and the other bits and pieces look nicely engineered and fit well together. There are some useful bits supplied like the inline filter and some root control membrane. The instructions look as if they are just a photocopy but seem easy to follow. There is a nice animation on the web site of the producers which tells you about the product and how to set it up. Right now it looks like good value for £20.

The key piece of enabling technology is the AQUAvalve. Basically, it's a plastic float valve which controls the entry of water from the tank into the tray into which the pots work. However, it is a little more complex than that as you can see from the website if you want to check it out.

I have two concerns/disappointments. Firstly, the instructions don't seem to suggest any particular type of compost although the website does suggest using 30-50% perlite.

Secondly, the technology doesn't seem appropriate for new seedlings but rather for larger plants. Again, a piece of information lacking in the instructions. It looks to me as if the plants should have a root ball that you can place at or close to the water supplied through the base. This suggests more mature plants than I expected.