The lettuces are definately adding mass, one week after the LED array was set up. They didn’t get their first feed until yesterday: Miracle Grow at the package strength. (Sorry OGL folks, I promise, the next batch will be in a mix that includes compost.) I forgot how little water seedlings grown in relatively cool conditions need; they should have been feed a week ago.
I’ve worried over the height of the lights and can’t find relevant information.
Yugoslavian Red
The 90 watt light is supposed to cover a surface of four square feet. At 12-18″ away, the Yogoslavian Red lettuces at the end of the flat seem to be straining for the light. But they are showing some color. Too much of this light, I read, can hurt small seedlings. But I haven’t found a description of what that harm looks like, either. There is a good reason that I call this an experiment.
At least for the next week, I’ll leave the light centered about 12′ above the flat, moving the flat daily so that each end is closer on alternate days.
I started lettuces on 10/23 and they were just showing green, under my usual florescent bulb starting mechanisms, when the power went out for five days. I was worried that the sprouts would be too leggy and get my trials with an LED array off to a bad start, but after watching for a few days, these look fine. I guess that the cooler house temperatures also slowed development.
The light is an Illuminator UFO 5-Band Tri-Spectrum LED grow light. I vaguely thought that I would start with simple lettuces but the leftovers from last spring didn’t really offer that choice, except for Simpson Elite, a popular leaf lettuce, so I started two rows of it. And a row each (four 2″ soil cubes) of Australian Yellow (leaf) and Yugoslavian Red, my favorite heading lettuce. A row of Red Velvet didn’t germinate for some reason, I have had that problem before with that seed; this was a replacement pack. Thus, the empty cubes in the last picture.
In spite of plans to take advantage of extra basement space with a well-designed setup, in my usual haphazard way, I stuck the light in the guest/junk room. It uses the very sophisticated setup that I use in spring, two cross country skis over the tops of chairs and chains to hang the lights. I left one florescent fixture in place for times when I want to work with the lettuces. In just the time it takes me to get from the door to the outlet to unplug the LED array, my eyes are already complaining about the lurid pink glow. And everything is green while your eyes recover.
the setup
If anyone has advice about how long these lights should be on for lettuce, please speak up. I keep the seed starting lights on for 16 hours a day but I think that may be too long for these. Also, I suspect that day length has something to do with lettuce “heading up” so I’m thinking I should plan for some room to increase hours for that heading lettuce when it gets bigger. I have been warned that lettuces grown under low lights could have dangerous levels of nitrates, and did some reading on that. I do not know if “low light” applies to LED arrays. And about the only plans I have to deal with this is to use a low nitrogen fertilizer and get one of my lettuces tested at harvest time. I’ve also read that foods that have this problem taste bad so, guess what! I won’t eat them if they taste bad!
My summer food garden is moving quickly into full production. I’m picking a handful of green beans every morning (which really adds up), the cherry tomatoes have been giving me sugar for weeks and I picked the first of my large tomatoes today: a small Brandywine, a damaged Virginia Sweets and a good looking Black Krim. Although all have turned color, they will benefit from a day or two on the counter. The chipmunk(s) got the first of my crop. They seem to have a sixth sense for when a tomato is going to turn color and eat it before I can.
I was feeling a little sorry for myself until I stopped at a nearby farm stand and saw the Heirlooms priced at almost $5 a pound. I’m rich! Also asking the age-old question, how do you know when a green tomato is ripe?? (A: When the chipmunks eat it.)
One small head of Piracicaba, can more be far behind? I’ve eaten a couple of Zephyr summer squash; this variety keesps me from having to choose betwen growing yellow ones or green ones, and both the small yellow cukes and Sweet Success main crop cucumbers will be ready to pick within days. Everything has grown into a solid mass of green and I have to tiptoe between the beds to pick. My meal plans focus on, how can I use…?[oqeygallery id=16]
As of yesterday and these may be some of the best starts that I’ve grown. You can see they have little in common with the ones you buy in sixpacks. Some of the credit has to go to our weather. The storm that churned around in the ocean for a week or so didn’t come this far inland but it did create some substantial winds. Which made for some very sturdy stems on the tomatoes as they hardened off.
So it’s a couple of weeks earlier than I would normally plant them but they look ready and the nights are forecasted around the 50s for the next two weeks. Days not a lot warmer but warm enough. With all of the rain in the forecast I need to get them mulched. I do not have room to rotate tomatoes and most diseases that bother tomatoes are overwintered in the soil. Mulching will keep the rain from splashing the spoors back up onto the leaves.
As always, I have more plants than room and a couple of the tomatoes jumped into the new asparagus bed when I wasn’t paying attention. Naughty; naughty.
The tomato in the picture is Black Krim, a favorite of mine for both color and flavor. I hope that either the Pineapple or Virginia Sweets will act as a beautiful contrast on the plate.
Varieties I’ve planted
Old favorites:
SuperSweet 100
Sun Gold
Yellow Pear
Black Krim
Brandywine (Suddith’s Strain)
Pineapple
Challengers:
Black Cherry (I’ve grown Black Prince but it was a bit larger and slower to ripen than I like.)
Green Envy (Never grown a green that I thought was worth the effort. Trying again.)
Lemon Cherry
Balls Beefsteak and Chapman (I’m still looking for a reliable, high producing, red beefsteak)
Since my “win the lottery” fantasy, and the wishful purpose of this web site, which is now sustained by my real job, is to encourage sustainable gardening, this is fascinating news. I’ve also been evaluating whether using some of my basement space for winter gardening would be cost effective. However, some of the statements in this article, like fooling around with the light spectrum to get crops earlier and the idea the sun and other natural contributors to the garden can be a bad thing is all a bit, um, shivery. Orwellian, almost, and it’s not nice to fool mother nature.
However, since the existing market and research for grow lights has been s is so heavily influenced by cash crops, i.e., marijuana, I wonder if there isn’t a huge research opportunity for things like tomatos, herbs, lettuces; the kind of things that I would be interested in overwintering. Mixed growing, small indoor garden-type of growing. Keeping my citrus happier, and new ideas for yummy things to harvest in winter from under the lights.
First things, first; I’ll get through our outdoor season and then come back to this. I expect that the costs for these light arrays will go down over time, too. Are any of you considering a winter garden under the lights? What do you want to grow?
In 2009, I heard that cherries were being dumped in the West Coast of Michigan, where I hope to retire, because there were so many that they couldn’t sell them. I had done tours and tastings for Nashoba Winery for a few years between full time jobs and I knew what really good wine sour cherries can make. What a shame! It came to me that the ability to make a decent fruit wine might come in handy in that (completely hypothetical at the moment) day when I retired.
So I bought a box of cider apples for $4 from Bolton Springs Farm in the fall of 2009. After 18 months, and the third racking, it’s clear and smells like apple pie. It tastes like apples, too; although a bit sour. Fermentation uses up the natural sugars. I didn’t have the right tool for racking so I threw away a more than I liked when I moved off the clear wine. I put in an order for some stuff that prevents added sugar from fermenting, a stabilizer. (And the rigid tool that I should have had during racking to control the siphoning process better.) I’ll sweeten it and bottle it shortly.
The first picture is before the first racking. The second and third are from today’s process. I wish it were a bit lighter in color but wouldn’t want to mess around with the flavor.
Apple wine, after fermentationRacked wineRacked apple wine
I’m sure there’s a more elegant name for this simple dish. I created it after watching a friend make Bananas Foster but someone else has probably done this, too. It all needs to be done very quickly so have everything ready in advance. You might even want to have the ice cream in the bowls before you start the frying.
Peel and slice yummy apples (my favorite is Mutsu, like I purchased at Bolton Spring Orchard), enough to cover the bottom of your favorite frying pan. Melt a generous amount of butter and add the apples, stirring until they just start to soften. Add a generous amount of brown sugar. Stir and cook until the sugar carmelizes and the apples are cooked but still have some crunch. Deglaze the pan with a good splash of Calvados or other brandy and serve over the richest, creamiest vanila ice cream you can buy.
