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Growing Tomatoes in Winter under dual spectrum lighting !!

Growing Tomatoes in winter. Read more

Powerplant – Final impressions

Well I think that 6 months should just about cover what the powerplant can do. I would say that easily it’s best use, is for keeping fresh herbs in the kitchen. The sweet basil grew pretty quickly, and was pretty tasty when it was cooked into some spaghetti sauce, as well as some chili. I can very easily see the powerplant finding a permanent home on the kitchen windowsill for those who prefer using fresh herbs in their cooking, and for that purpose I fully recommend the powerplant.

My poor, poor chili peppers, well that is another story. Read more

Powerplant – Continued

Well it has been a while since i last updated, and the plants have grown significantly. I harvested some of the basil to use in pasta and it made quite a pleasing difference. The basil leaves are huge, and ready to be harvested, while the chillies have grown significantly, there’s still no actual chillies.

Since its has gotten brighter and warmer lately, the little plants have grown significantly faster, even in the cold windowsill. When I start my next crop in a month or two, I should notice a massive improvement in growth, and my 1 little green vial of nutrients I have left may be too little. I’ll have to start using all my aftermarket nutrients.

Who knows, maybe that will make the largest difference.

Matt

Hydroponics system; Powerplant Mini

Slowly but surely my plants are coming along. The sweet basil is looking good, with big bright green leaves, but the chillis, not so much. The chili peppers are definitely smaller than they should be at this point, which leaves me to wonder if they will produce a single pepper.

As an experiment I can’t say that I’m too surprised. I figured my plants would be farther along than they are, but the cold weather and short days came sooner than I expected, and shorter and colder than I expected. The windowsills in our new place are colder than I had anticipated a few weeks ago in the milder weather. I guess the double pane didn’t help a whole ridiculous amount in keeping the temperatures up.

I’m thinking of pulling it from the window and moving it across the room and using a grow light so I have some hope of getting chilis out of my miniscule hydroponics system, and starting a fresh crop in April. What do you guys think?

The Prepara Powerplant Mini; Week 5

Hope everyone had a good holiday break, and decided what New Years resolution to break this year. After a four day trip to my mother’s and a blizzard that buried our car in 4 feet of snow, and I’m back to let you know how the plants are doing.

The basil is starting to look like basil now, the leaves have started to get that ruffled shape around the edges, instead of just the perfectly round leaves they were last week.
One of the pepper plants have begun to sprout a few new leaves and is well on its way, while the other 3 seem to be doing just fine.
Read more

The Prepara Powerplant mini; Week4

So the biggest plant died the other day, but I’m not too worried. Two or three of the basil have died as well but new basil and new peppers have sprung up in their place. They probably aren’t getting enough light in the windowsill, with these cold Canadian winter days not offering more than a couple hours of decent sunlight.

If I had started this in June then I feel the plants would be doing much, much better but I like hot peppers year-round and couldn’t be bothered to keep the Powerplant sitting around doing nothing for months.

I removed the humidity domes the other day, some plants looked like they were kept too soggy and two started to turn black. Now that I have taken them off the peppers are starting to get going pretty well. I would like to see what this little beast could do when I set it up with a proper grow light. It would be really cool if I could find an LED strip just the right size to cover the system with red and blue light.

Well I will be back mid-week with an update while I have some cider.

Happy Holidays All!
Matt

Prepara Powerplant Mini; Week 3

New week, New Powerplant Update.

UPDATE: The tallest plant seems to have died It was stuck to the top of one of the humidity domes

So I was kind of disappointed last week when I saw that only one of the two types of peppers had sprouted, but luckily that’s changed. 3 of the other peppers have sprouted and look like they’re coming along nicely, two have pushed out a pair of leaves, while the third hasn’t stood upright just yet.

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The PowerPlant – Part 2

So it has been about a week since I first planted my seeds in the powerplant and the other day I noticed some seeds had sprouted. Most of the basil has sprouted, and one plant that I’m not sure if it’s basil, chili peppers, or green peppers, but it’s taller than the others and has already popped out two leaves. I’m hoping it’s chili peppers.

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Powerplant Mini: First impressions

Recently I wrote about a new countertop hydroponics system called the “Powerplant Mini” from Prepara. They were nice enough to send an evaluation unit so I could let you all know how it all works.

After getting home from FedEx, I tore into the package and opened up the box. Here is what waited for me inside;

• The Powerplant Mini
• AC adapter
• 2 x Nutrient Vials
• 2x grow sponges
• 3x Humidity Domes
• Seed Cover
• sweet basil seeds

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Watchout AeroGarden, theres a new countertop garden out.

UPDATE: Prepara has agreed to send us an evaluation unit, so We’ll be sure to keep you up to date on how our configuration and how well it works for us
I’ve had a personal fascination with the Aerogarden for quite some time now, but its price, and lack of options had me hesitant about buying one. The computer in it that controls nutrient distribution seems to me a bit too easy. I like to play with settings and see what the effects are (with all my toys).

Couple that with the “seed pods” they sell which are nice, but couldn’t they sell blanks and let me put in my own seeds? the lighting always bothered me too. A high output CFL will get the job done, but I would prefer something more robust and energy efficient such as an LED light. To me the aerogarden just seemed too limited and expensive.

Then today I came across the “Power Plant mini” Read more

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