August is here and harvesting has begun. The onions are drying on the rack; the sweet corn is being processed; the cucumbers are becoming refrigerator pickles; and the tomatoes and bell peppers are on the verge of turning red. This is the month that all gardeners covet. All their diligent work and sweat is finally paying off. Preserving and storing the harvest is foremost in the minds of those that garden. This is what it's all about. Canning, freezing, drying are all procedures that allow the tasty summer goodness to be enjoyed in the cold freezing winter months.
August is project month. The neighbor across the street from Terra Nova Gardens gifted me with a pile of treated 4X4s some 12 foot long. I decided to use them for a new water tower stand which will hold two IBC tanks. These are 250 gallon tanks. This is the basic frame to hold these tanks. I will be putting many more legs under the tanks to make sure that the platform will not buckle under that much weight. I may have as many as seven more legs under the tanks.
Here's the frame up on the ground supports with only the corner legs. There's a bit of tweaking the level for the platform. It has to be extremely level when water is involved. Water will seek it's own level so if the platform isn't perfectly level and very stable, it just won't be very effective. I'm hoping that all will work out and by next year I'll be using the platform for the next level of garden watering. I am working toward automation of the watering from the tanks. Filling of the tanks will begin March 1st. It will take the entire month of fill the tanks. I will have to take the tanks to a car wash and spray them out. The tanks had truck wash in them which is basically soap. I want stair steps up to the platform for maintenance on the tanks and the water pipes. The tanks will be filled from the top. There will be a solid floor platform between the tanks where the work area is.
Here is one of the pilons for the leg support for the platform. Two cement blocks are buried in the ground with a concrete deck support on top for the leg to set on. I will have a total of 18 of these to put under the tanks. I have figured out that each leg will support 250 pounds which I think is extremely over engineered. I want this structure to last forever.
Friends have been hearing about the basement salad garden that I've been cultivating over the last six months. It's a simple method and works really well. I'm hoping to expand the plants from just lettuce and radishes to many more varieties. One lettuce plant can be harvested many times. It takes 25 days to grow a lettuce plant to harvest and probably three or four salads can be harvested from the plant over the next three to four weeks. This picture is a 16 ounce plastic cup that I've burned drain holes into the bottom with a small project soldering iron. This will also be the cup that's filled with potting mix soil. Regular garden soil is too compactable to use for this type of growing.
Another cup of the same size will be needed for watering. When watering, this cup will be used to hold a small amount of water. I usually put about 1/2 inch of water in the cup. Then the cup with the soil and plant will be slipped into the watering cup. The water in this cup will wick up through the soil and keep the plant watered. Watering must be done every day or the soil will dry out and the plant will wilt. The good news is if this happens as long as there's still life in the plant a good dose of water will bring the plant back to a healthy state. These plants are durable and will snap back if given a chance. In my experience, the lettuce plants take about 25 days from planting the seed to the first salad harvest.
This is the soil cup planted with one lettuce seed and the water cup with the small amount of water in it. The lettuce seeds are extremely small but I've found that one seed can be planted with a little patience. All that's needed is a very little soil over the top of the seed and just enough spray bottle water to moisten the top of the soil. The seed package says there's 250 seeds in the pack but I think there's way more than that. Even if that's true, 250 seeds times about four or five harvests would be over 1000 salads in this package. When I start harvesting the lettuce leaves of one planting, I plant the next group of cups. That way I have a continuous supply of lettuce.
The planted soil cup is set inside the water cup and now all that's needed is a few days of keeping the top soil moist and waiting for the lettuce seed to sprout up through the soil. Once that happens it's time for close proximity grow lights. One thing I've learned is that it works better to start with fresh soil each time and to clean the cups. I suppose that should be a given but I have a tendency to learn the hard way. Short cuts hardly ever work out.
This is about four or five days after planting. This was the very first planting and as you can see there's more than one seed in each cup. I only plant one seed now and if it doesn't sprout like the upper left cup. I just plant another in the cup. Even if that plant is a little later is ok as once the lettuce gets to harvest stage, it's good to have a couple slower growth plants. These plants I transplanted into their own cups and they were just fine. There's really no room for more than one plant per cup.
This is about 14 days from planting the lettuce seeds and these plants are well on the way to harvest. They could be harvested at this point but I usually wait a few more days for a bigger harvest.
It's day 25. Time to start harvesting and planting the next wave. The leaves on the plant can be harvested down to just a couple small leaves. The plant will recover and look like this again in about 8 to 10 days. Each harvest will be the same only with a longer main plant stalk. When the stalk gets so long that it falls over, the next wave is ready to harvest so I just pull the plant; dump the soil to go to the garden bed; clean the cups; and start over again. Radishes can be grown as well and could be grown the same as lettuce but I've found that radishes can be grown in a little less space. These radishes can be grown in 1 1/2 inch PVC pipes that are about 4 inches long. Watering in this case is accomplished by putting about 1/2 inch of water in the tray and letting it wick up through the soil. Watering for radishes really only needs to be done on a demand basis. That is when the tray is dry for about one day then put another 1/2 inch of water in the tray. It only takes about 20 days to grow an edible radish.
Twenty days after planting, a radish is ready for harvest. The top foliage can also be eaten. It tastes just like a radish. I suppose if icicle white radishes were your taste they could be grown in a deeper section of PVC pipe. Many possibilities are available with this system.
Of course grow lights are a must to get good plants. When the seeds are planted a grow light isn't necessary. The soil needs to stay moist on the top for a few days so a spray bottle is used to spray just enough water on the soil to keep it moist. Once the seed sprouts and starts growing, spraying the soil can be discontinued. When the seedlings are young, they need to be close to the grow lights to make sturdy plants. One to two inches away from the soil is a good place to start. As the plants grow (and they grow quickly) the space between the very top of the plant and the grow light needs to be kept as close to 2 inches as possible. Instead of constantly raising and lowering the grow lights, I raise and lower the tray of plants with spacers under the tray. The ambient temperature for this system is consistently 75 to 80 degrees.
