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.

Now that the system is in full swing it seems like I’m getting nowhere near the amount of light that I should be for proper growth, which to be honest I expected. The plants could definitely benefit from some extra light, and have shown that they are somewhat light deprived. The entire row of plants have been creeping more and more towards the window to soak up all of the available rays, so I flipped the system 180 degrees so they will have to bend back towards the window. I have a bad feeling that if I get sloppy and let them plants touch the window, the cold from our -20 degree winters will kill them off in no time.

Prepara has been watching my progress with their system and recommended that I give their grow light for the system a shot, as it should help with the plants growth significantly. I agree that the light is needed, the short daylight hours of Prince Edward Island in the winter don’t exactly inspire fantastic windowsill growth….

Happy New Year from everyone at the Hydroponics Dictionary!

Matt

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

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.

The Basil is going along at a steady rate, as well as the pepper that sprouted last week. I think the tall one is green pepper, and the three that just started are chili peppers. I think that I only put in 2 green pepper seeds, while I put in a bunch of chili pepper seeds, but you never know, I could be made to look stupid by the time this is over.

My little window piece has gotten me quite a few questions and is generating a fair bit of curiosity among my girlfriend and I’s friends and family. My father mentioned growing tomatoes in a system for his winters in Newfoundland and explained that the Powerplant mini would be better suited for a cherry tomato plant, a variety like beefsteak will likely topple the poor mini (Great system, but C’mon….its MINI!) I have a full 5 Pot drip system and some nutrients that I’m going to send up with him that’s better suited for full size tomatoes. I’m not sure but the powerplant pro could probably handle some substantial tomates.

I ditched the cell-phone pics this week, my ACTUAL digital camera is tempermental and decided to work for me this morning, so you can actually see what is growing on. The basil and newly sprouted peppers have their humidity domes on, while the tallest pepper has had the dome off for over a week.
The sweet basil has taken over most of grow area, towards the front of the unit is the green pepper, and chilies.

Happy Holidays

Matt

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

I must say it was smaller than I had assumed. That’s a good thing though because it fits nicely in my windowsill. It looks similar to an XBOX360 in its looks and actually looks quite a bit like the HD-DVD add on for it.

For the first grow I decided to just run it with what came in the box. I do have several types of nutrients and additives, as well as some CFL grow lights and an LED grow panel, but I’ll leave those out of the equation for now. So I mixed up the nutrients, moistened the grow sponge, and went to work placing several seeds in the sponge.

I used mainly the sweet Basil it came with, but some of the seeds slipped out and there may be too many in one spot. I also grabbed a couple of hot chili pepper seeds, and green pepper seeds from the chili I made for supper.

I have absolutely no expectation for the green peppers as the system wasn’t really designed for something like green peppers. I have hopes for the chili peppers, but the seed I used weren’t of the best quality so I’m quite interested to see how both types turn out.

So its all seeded, in the windowsill, plugged in (the pump is fairly quiet too, about 1/3 as loud as a typical aquarium would sound like) and it has the seed cover placed on it. Now hope fully we’ll see some growth by Monday.

Overall I was fairly impressed with my first experience with the Powerplant, and the only real issue I had was the seed cover. Its made of cardboard, and my first instinct was to throw it away. Over time I can see this getting lost and/or beaten up. Not a big deal though, In the event it goes missing I can just cover it with something else to germinate. Maybe I’ll grab an HD DVD or 360 game and toss it on top just to confuse people.

I will post some pictures as soon as there is something to take pictures of.

Matt

More info about the Powerplant Here

Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.

The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics — a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil — to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.

Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots.

“The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces,” he said.

Long a niche technology existing in the shadow of conventional growing methods, hydroponics is getting a second look from university researchers and public health advocates.

Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.

However, the expense of setting up the high-tech farms on pricey city land and providing enough year-round heat and light could present some insurmountable obstacles.

“These are university theories,” said Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business magazine. “They’re not mapped to things that actually exist.”

The roots of hydroponically produced fruits and vegetables can dangle in direct contact with water or be set in growing media such as sponges or shredded coconut shells. Most commercial operations pump water through sophisticated sensors that automatically adjust nutrient and acidity levels in the water.

Hydroponics are generally used for fast-growing, high-value crops such as lettuces and tomatoes that can be produced year-round in heated, well-lit greenhouses. So far, production is not large enough for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to track.

The country’s largest hydroponic greenhouse is Eurofresh Inc.’s 274-acre operation in southeastern Arizona, where more than 200 million pounds of tomatoes were produced in 2007. Most large-scale commercial operations are in the arid Southwest, where water-efficiency is prized, or the sometimes frigid Northeast, where the method can be used year-round in heated greenhouses.

The technology has benefited from nearly three decades of NASA research aimed at sustaining astronauts in places with even less green space than a typical U.S. city.

Hydroponics bears the dubious distinction of being a growing method for marijuana.

Fujimoto said one of his research assistants got a call from the FBI after using a credit card to buy nutrients for the campus greenhouse at a hydroponic-supply store.

There’s clearly nothing illicit going on at the greenhouse, where thin streams of water pass silently though dozens of long white plastic tubes arranged in rows across chest-high stands. Rose-shaded lettuce leaves, pale-green stalks of bok-choy and sprigs of basil poke from the holes in the tubes.

Fujimoto aims to prepare his students to operate the urban hydroponic businesses that he thinks will gain importance in the future. They sell their lettuces, peppers, tomatoes and other produce to an on-campus grocery store and at a farmers market.

In Ohio, the ProMedica Health System network of clinics used a Toledo hospital roof to grow more than 200 pounds of vegetables in stacked buckets filled with a ground coconut shell potting medium. The tomatoes, peppers, green beans and leafy greens were served to patients and donated to a nearby food shelter, hospital spokeswoman Stephanie Cihon said.

When the project resumes in the spring, the hospital plans to expand into at least two community centers in economically depressed central Toledo, where fresh produce is hard to come by.

“From the health-care perspective, the more we can increase people’s lifestyle changes and encourage them to eat better, it’s going to impact our services greatly,” Cihon said.

In a New York City schools program run by Cornell University, students grow lettuce on a school roof and sell it for $1.50 a head to the Gristedes chain of supermarkets.

Cornell agriculturist Philson Warner, who designed the program’s hydroponics system, said his students harvest hundreds of heads of lettuce a week from an area smaller than five standard parking spaces by using a special nutrient-rich solution instead of water.

The numbers have some researchers imagining a future when enough produce to feed entire cities is grown in multistory buildings sandwiched between office towers and other structures.

Columbia University environmental health science professor Dickson Despommier, who champions the concept under the banner of his Vertical Farm Project, said he has been consulting with officials in China and the Middle East who are considering multistory indoor farms.

He is also shopping his concept to engineering teams in hopes of having a prototype built as he seeks funding.

“Most of us live in cities,” he said. “As long as you’re going to live there, you might as well grow your food there.” Source

Terry Fujimoto sees the future of agriculture in the exposed roots of the leafy greens he and his students grow in thin streams of water at a campus greenhouse.

The program run by the California State Polytechnic University agriculture professor is part of a growing effort to use hydroponics _ a method of cultivating plants in water instead of soil _ to bring farming into cities, where consumers are concentrated.

Because hydroponic farming requires less water and less land than traditional field farming, Fujimoto and researchers-turned-growers in other U.S. cities see it as ideal to bring agriculture to apartment buildings, rooftops and vacant lots.

“The goal here is to look at growing food crops in small spaces,” he said.

Long a niche technology existing in the shadow of conventional growing methods, hydroponics is getting a second look from university researchers and public health advocates.

Supporters point to the environmental cost of trucking produce from farms to cities, the loss of wilderness for farmland to feed a growing world population, and the risk of bacteria along extensive, insecure food chains as reasons for establishing urban hydroponic farms.

Read More?

Perfecting the Use of Aroma Enhancers in Your Garden

Whenever you grow flowers in hydroponics, you probably are only interested in growing the largest and best smelling flowers possible. These two things, however, do not go hand in hand. It is entirely possible to have a flower that is heavy, large, and even rich in color, but severely lacking in the scent that makes flowers so appealing. This can be extremely frustrating, but fortunately, it is very avoidable if you use a good aroma enhancer.

Aroma Enhancers are special hydroponic supplements that contain a lot of ingredients designed specifically to improve the smell of flowers. When used correctly, they can turn flowers that smell dull into something that has a lot of complex and perfumey scents.

Here are some of the most common ingredients that aroma enhancers contain to beautify your flowers and plants.

Select Bio molecules- There are lots of bio molecules that have a very special effect on the health and development of your plant, like polyphenolics, terpenoids and anthocyanins. These kinds of ingredients, when introduced into your plant, help produce the kind of oil and other elements that help create the flower’s signature scent. This is why the best aroma enhancers load up your flowers with exactly these kinds of ingredients.

Sugars - One of the oldest and most effective ways to increase the aroma of flowers is to provide them with special sugars. Things like molasses, cane sugar, corn syrup and other sweet stuff gets absorbed into the plant and has a positive effect on the scent. Molasses in particular is notable for its high level of both sugar and scent boosting biomolecules.

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Grow Great Tasting Herbs Through Aeroponics Gardening Systems

An indoor herb garden grown by an aeroponic system is a rewarding experience for those looking to not only begin a wonderful new hobby but also craving fresh herbs to serve friends and family. You may not realize it but growing plants and herbs through aeroponic hydroponics offer a great deal of benefits. Aeroponic kits produce great tasting herbs that bring out mouth watering flavors of your cooking and also produce herbs with medicinal value, as well.

Aeroponic gardening is still relatively new and not many people are aware of it and its many benefits. One thing people do agree on is that once they learn more about it, they all agree it is an interesting process for growing plants without soil. An aeroponic system uses the environment to grow its plants.

Aeroponic kits used to grow herb gardens implement air and mist to grow its plants. It is a natural system for growing herbs from the comfort of your very own home which is great for people who don’t have the luxury of an outside garden. All you would need is the proper room, an aeroponic fogger, aeroponic pump, some seeds, and a little patience.

Read More?

Owner Sue Donato told Voices she remembers her parents, Eugene and the late Eleanor Cozzolino, working very hard, building their business and enjoying what they did.

In 1958, Woodbury Farm Market was located across the street from the current site of the business. The family moved the business across the street in 1976 where they sold fruits, vegetables and plants.

The Touch of Holly gift shop, long a popular stop, is run by Sue’s sister, Wendy Linholm.

Sue and her husband, Joe Donato, expanded Woodbury Farm Market’s offering in July, adding Donato’s Hydroponic House of Greens to the garden center greenhouse.

Joe Donato told Voices his interest in hydroponics came from, “our passion for growing, creating organic and pesticide-free greens, helping to preserve our earth, working green, extending our seasons, creating high quality products with the best taste and preserving the earth for future generations. This is a dream come true for us.”

Read More/Source

For anyone missing a green thumb, a farmer is making growing things a little simpler by subtracting a key ingredient.

Joe Donato with Donato’s Hydroponic House of Greens says, “Hydroponics is growing vegetables or flowers in water as opposed to soil.”

Even though the baby heads of lettuce look like they’re sitting in soil, they’re not. The roots are surrounded by clay bits or coconut husks. Then the tray is flooded with water, so the vegetable can soak up the nutrients.

“You give the plants exactly the nutrients they want so there’s no soil-borne insect because there is no soil,” says Donato.

Instead of insecticides, the Donato’s use actual insects to keep bad bugs away from their plants. Donato adds, “We use beneficial insects that are good insects that use bad insects.”

Contrary to popular belief, the vegetables don’t taste watery.

Donato says, “they taste better and there are more vitamins.”

He also uses an organic based fertilizer and recycles the water that is used in this process. Another green advantage: it’s all locally-grown, so there is no transportation involved.

Greenhouse takes heat, reuses it

Co-generation system makes hothouse part of province’s power grid

The Star reported yesterday that more greenhouse operators in Ontario are trying to save on fuel costs by switching to coal. Today’s story takes a look at one tomato greenhouse in Leamington that’s taking a greener, more innovative approach.

ESSEX COUNTY–Tiny eggs bonded to a paper tag begin to hatch, unleashing 150 parasitic wasps that go about their mission with deadly precision.

Like falcons bred to chase seagulls from airport runways, the wasps target, attack and destroy one of the few and most damaging pests found in modern vegetable greenhouses – the tomato-destroying whitefly.

“We breed our own biological control,” explains Darren Didychuk, president of Great Northern Hydroponics, a large greenhouse operator in Kingsville, Ont.

There are hundreds of egg-laden tags attached to tomato-plant stems throughout the 50-acre operation, where bug warfare has proved a more efficient and eco-friendly alternative to chemical pesticides and herbicides.

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Here’s how to care for houseplants indoors

It’s November and there is no denying that the outdoor gardening season is at an end. Though I’m an avid outdoor gardener, I am not an avid indoor gardener. Sure, I have the standard issue Philodendron, Spider Plant, Wandering Jew and “Christmas” Cactus, but that’s it. This year I am going to expand on my indoor gardening for three reasons; this column, the passing of my last cat, and my youngest is old enough not to eat my plants – I hope.

I have had most of my houseplants for almost 10 years, so it’s not like I can’t grow anything indoors, it’s really been an issue of space and time. I used to have put my plants high enough so they would not get chewed up by infants or cats. I really didn’t mind if the cats chewed on them, I just didn’t like the finished product of their grazing. But most houseplants are poisonous, so if animals and children are around it’s better to keep them out of reach. Now that the demographics in my household have changed, I can put them where I want and taking care of them will be much easier since I don’t have to climb a ladder to reach them.

Read More?

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” from Prepara
Compared to the Aerogarden, its a much more versatile hydroponics system and I’ll tell you why;

1. NO SEED PODS! It has grow sponges that you put your own seeds in.
2. CHOOSE YOUR LIGHTING! there isn’t an attached arm on the power plant mini so you can use any light source you choose.
3. INEXPENSIVE! for the price of the aerogarden, you could get 4 Minis, or 2 minis and a $100 LED grow light
4. STYLISH! In my eyes these are far more attractive in the kitchen than the black and green oval that is the aerogarden

The flexibility and simplicity of this system have my head spinning and I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these and try it out. Or I may have to wait for the soon to be released Pro Model and try my hand at that.

Hey Prepara, if your listening, I think I can find another blogger who would like to give your product a full-on review.