Ann's Air Gardens

A New Triond Article

Our Magenta Spreen is a bit over a month old and starting to look really good.  Instead of posting the photos here, I tried out Triond's new online editor and submitted an illustrated article here:

Why Don't More People Eat Lambsquarters?

Although this plant and its near relative commonly known as White Goosefoot both grew wild when we lived on a farm in the midwest, what we are growing now is from a seed catalog. 

Triond is a program that accepts articles for publication and they do all the work of showcasing them and then return 50% of the revenue from their online ads to the writers.  Even if you only earn 50 cents a month, they pay directly to your PayPal account. 

I like a lot of things about Triond, on of the neatest things is that they do showcase your work and give it a bit wider exposure than an individual might get.  That makes it a good place to share information that you want to get out. 

I should probably add that I have bought quite a few packets of new seeds with my Triond earnings.   In truth, I would have bought them anyway, but there is just something extremely cool about "earning" them online. 

Update on Our Golden Tomato Flowers

These are coming along:
Since hand-pollinating our peppers this summer turned out not be rocket science, I am more relaxed about pollinating these. 

Outdoor gardeners sometimes hand pollinate their plants in order to get special results, and so they need to isolated the flowers so that the bees do not get to them first.  Indoors, however,  where there are no insects we get to be the bees.  I love the smell that the tomato leaves release when I brush up against them.  If it weren't for that, I would probably replace them with faster growing, less persnickety plants. 

Ah, and this sort of thing keeps me motivated, too!  Our firstAerogrown tomato, found hiding below those bright yellow flowers 51 days from planting.

Also, a photo comparing this little baby to what it looked like 4 days later is HERE:

More on the Salad Bar

Started near the beginning of August some of the plants we grew in the AeroGarden Deluxe are now grandparents already, and have been removed from the grow holes, which I liken to prime downtown real estate, and moved to the suburbs, that is, to the side of the planter where they can share its bright grow lamps.

  I had to turn the lamps off to take this photo, but here are a few plants, including those just rooted at the bottom left, which are, from left to right, green and red amaranth.

These are square juice bottles cut down to nest, with holes poked in the bottom of the smaller inside bottle, which holds the Hydroton grow rocks, the plants, and in some cases the original sponge and or grow plug from the AG Master Gardener Kit.

Here is a close-up of the cut off juice bottles, with the smaller  inside container elevated so you can see it better.  When lifted up as shown, the liquid nutrient solution begins to drain.  I lift the small container out to let it completely drain once or twice a day to allow air to get to the roots and to help circulate the liquid:

If the sponge and/or grow tube was left on the base of the plant,
I bury it completely with the
smaller diameter grow rocks to help prevent algae from forming on top of it. 

Algae is to some extent an indication that the solution is healthy, but it should not be allowed to build up.  Pouring the solution over the rocks a couple times a day is not mandatory for easy to grow plants such as the basil shown here, but it makes the plant extremely happy and discourages algae growth. 

I use clear or translucent bottles to cut down because I like to be able to see the water level and also the density of the roots.  Pictured is the 15.2 ounce size of Naked Juice Company's Blueberry Pomegranate Juice bottle, nested inside a bottle from one of our favorite treats, their 32 oz Green Machine.  I prefer the square bottles, which fit closer together, because I want to be able to put as many of them near the AeroGarden's grow lamps as possible.  Fiji water bottles (which are also square and available in two sizes also work well, as do the Glaceau Smart Water Bottles, although they are round.  Really, any container will do.  Decorative glass containers look nicer, of course, and can be fitted with clear or even opaque plastic inserts for more attractive planters.

In a future post, I will discuss patterns for easy to make fabric covers for the outer containers which will make them more attractive while cutting down on the amount of light that shines in on the solution--without hampering visibility.

In this photo, the smaller container is still elevated a bit so you can see it better:

   First we have to drink the juice: 

Yes, that is a spice rack holding this home-made hydroponic planter up where it can get the most benefit from the AG's grow lamps.

The holes in the bottom of the inner container can be drilled with a dremel too, punched through with the small tip of a soldering iron, or even an awl, but I have learned that it works best to concentrate the holes closer to the center of the bottom than near the edge, so that when the bottle is drained, the liquid solution will drains straight down into the larger container and not splash.

An even simpler method that works with really easy to grow houseplants is illustrated here:  A Plant in Liquid Nutrient Solution.

Romaine: Nibbled around the Edges but Still Standing Tall

Every time I pass the living Salad Bar in our home, I have to eat a leaf of lettuce.  This is the result:

This is a tasty heat-tolerant variety of romaine and heat-tolerant it is, as the temperature in the room where it lives has averaged about 82 F since it was first sprouted. 

I often sing the praises of edible amaranth, too, as it is another fast-growing, heat-tolerant green, and a good substitute for spinach, since spinach takes much longer to start and needs special temperatures which I cannot provide it.  This is Evergreen Seed's Tender Leaf Edible Amaranth just after pruning, when it was 24 days old:

A Little Bitty Tomato Bud

This is going to be the first flower on our Golden Harvest Cherry Tomato, one of the varieties that was included in the AeroGrow kit.  We are growing several other kinds of tomatoes, too, but as they are bigger, they have been moved to passive hydroponic planters.    Planted at the same time, they have tiny buds as well. 

Here it is 2 days later: 

Skip ahead to this post  for the first bud :-)

Searching for Information on Curly Dock Turned up a Goldmine

One of the weeds some love and some hate, Curly Dock aka Rumex Crispus, has a long tap root and can reach heights of 5 feet.

The young leaves are gender and non-toxic for most people, and can be used as a salad green.  The seeds are highly nutritious and make great crackers, a nice complement to soft cheeses. 

I wrote an article for Triond about this plant:  Buckwheat's Cousins

Reply to a comment

For some reason, TypePad, my beloved hosting platform will not let me reply to a comment from a reader in the comments section today, so I will reply here instead:

Hi Wendy!  I'm glad you found my blog, too.  Isn't EC great that way?   AeroGrow sells a "Master Gardener Kit" that includes ingenious grow pods that come in two pieces that snap together so you can not only sprout your own seeds in it, but also snap the pod apart to release the plant without damaging the roots should you wish to transplant to dirt or to another kind of hydroponic/aeroponic planter.  The kit also comes with nutrients, grow sponges, and write-on labels which keep algae from growing on the sponges, as well as the little plastic covers that protect the seedlings until they are big enough to be in the open air.  They do not sell the pods separately, so I think the less expensive kit is a better deal as it has, proportionately, more pods and less of the other good stuff. 

You can transplant to dirt while the plant is still reasonably young.  If you wait to long, then the plant grows a different kind of roots which are more efficient in water culture and not so in dirty.   I think most plants in nurseries these days are started hydroponically.  Yes, you can do it and AeroGrow even makes a Starter kit just for that.

Just run a weak bleach solution through that neglected AG of yours after you remove the gunk, by filling the reservoice and then just turn the unit on  (lamps can be off) and run it a while but be sure to clean around the pump a bit first.  Your AG should be as good as new.

The cartoon cat is indeed as you say, but the term refers to a furry little bag that imbibers used to carry with them, so it is a play on words. Good catch ^-^

And very good questions, too!

Fluffy Fennel

I bought a pound of fennel seeds for culinary use, and decided to see if a few of the seeds would sprout.  EasySprout is my favorite sprouter, by the way, and they have recently improved it:

 My Favorite Sprouter Got Better

I always have 2 or 3 of these out on the counter growing something or another to use in sandwiches, usually fenugreek and sunflower seeds.  The fennel took  a long time to sprout and I was about to give up, when a straggly little sprout appeared.  A couple days later there was another and as soon as I had enough for a hit or miss trial, I put them in a grow pod from the AG Master Gardener kit and popped them into our AeroGarden Deluxe.    Here is what is left after tasting, now three weeks old:

The basil in the background is one of the  cuttings rooted from the plant we started a month ago.  It is growing in a weak liquid nutrient solution, supported by small diameter Hydroton grow rocks (4-8 mm) which serve the roots with capillary action. 

The parent plant is the rightmost photo below:

   

To the left is Red Asia Amaranth (one month old) , Bolivian Coriander (Papalo) snuggling up to the Mesclun Mix just 18 days after planting, and a closeup of the Tender Green Amaranth when it was still small. 

Cultural Differences?

I think one of these must be a to-MATE-toe and the other a to-MOTT-toe, because just look at the difference now, although they started out looking much the same:

Well, I knew when I put regular tomato seeds in the same AeroGarden planter with the dwarf ones, that in a short time I'd have to take the big ones out and put them elsewhere.    The trouble is my Hydroton grow rocks that I planned to house the big fellas in have not yet arrived from my mail order and nobody in these parts seems to know what they are, much less carry them in stock.  This is not the suppliers fault.  I'm the one who should have put my order in earlier. 

OK, I have a confession.    I raised the lamps and stuck that tall one in just to make a point and see if you all were paying attention.  Here is the real photo:

Instead of using the spacers that came with the AG kit, that hole to the right front is filled with a Forget Me Not seedling.   I've been keeping the taller tomatoes in our AG Mini, awaiting delivery of the grow rocks, but I had to cut the tops off again today to keep them from hitting the lights.

Ann's Air Gardening Glossary

Yesterday I learned another new word:  hydroculture.   For much too long I had been doing it without knowing exactly what to call it.  While mulling it over, I realized part of the apparent secrecy about this whole wonderful phenomenon of being able to grow things fast, dirt-free, bug-free, mess-free, indoors in all kinds of weather, and up close would be more accessible to people if the devotees were able to describe it in plainer and simpler language.

So I decided to start building a glossary of words anyhow related to growing plants in air and water, and to annotate it with information I find personally interesting, as follows:

Hydroculture:  Growing easy plants without soil in a nutrient solution. Passive Hydroponics.  While fancy equipment and special techniques may be necessary for high output food production, there are many useful plants which can be grown dirt-free quite easily, with great expense or preparation.  Hats off to the author of Water Roots, where I first learned this term:  Water Roots Blog

OK, here is the GLOSSARY