• Tag Archives Hydroponics

  • A Lot of Growing Around Here

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    52  bar rises 29.78 0mph W dewpoint 34  Beltane

    A very beautiful Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

    More garden work tomorrow.  It feels so good to be back out there.  Kate planted Ireland Creek Annie and Cherokee Trail of Tears and Dragon Tounge beans today.  Also some mixed gourds. 

    A cool evening, a warm day.  Perfect.

    Tomorrow I’ll dig in three tomato plants.  These are plants I’ve grown from seed.  They’re now about a foot high.  It will be nice to see my babies go into the soil.  I’m keeping one back for my kitchen garden which will have tomatoes, lettuce, basil, cilantro, peppers and egg plant.  The latter three I’ll start from seed sometime soon.  Kate’s gonna pick up some seeds at the Green Barn tomorrow.

    Got a nice note from Jon saying they’ve turned Gabe’s lights off and taken him upstairs to his room.  I passed on the e-mails and comment from Tristan’s mom, too.  We’ll gradually weave a web of support around them and the little guy so he can grow up to move on and do what he needs to do in this life.

    A lot of growing be done around here right now.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Garden 📎and tagged

  • I’m with Rev. Wright

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    44  bar rises 29.89 0mph SW dewpoint 23  Beltane

                  Waning Crescent Moon of Growing

    A first tonight.  A salad made from lettuce I cut from the plants in our kitchen.  Enough for two with plenty left on the plants.  So, one test of the hydroponics down, a few more to go.  I want to produce tomatoes and herbs on a year round basis, while also using the setup to start plants for the outside garden.  Flowers, too, would perk up the kitchen and the inside, especially in winter.  Slow, steady.  Learning as we go.

    Kate has tomorrow off, unexpectedly, so we’re going to go over to NOW fitness and buy a new treadmill.  Tres exciting.

    Looks like a couple of good days for outside work Sunday and Monday.  I have plenty to do.

    I haven’t said anything here about Rev. Wright and Barrack Obama.  I’m with Rev. Wright.  I know, I know.  He comes off like a fruitcake, an angry voice untethered from day to day reality.  His sermons are strident, cut deep.  His critique of American society as a racist, vicious culture seems to describe a place none of us know.  And we don’t.

    Preaching has a long and complicated history.  Its strongest and its most dangerous form comes when a minister decides she must speak truth to power.  This always, always comes from a particular situation which the minister holds up to the Christian tradition, most often scripture in the Protestant community of which Rev. Wright is a part.  The preaching task is never done in the abstract; it is always a spoken word to a people, a spoken word shaped by the scriptural and historical roots of today’s Christian church.  When the community to which you speak and from you yourself come have experienced marginilization, unearned disadvantage, then the spoken word will express the truth of God’s justice to the powerful forces aligned against your community.

    This type of preaching is never easy.  It costs blood.  It often produces pain.  Clergy who insist on prophetic preaching, because they feel they can do nothing else, often lose their jobs, get branded as crazy, misguided, idealistic, out of touch.  This is just power talking back, trying to press the truth to the margins again, where it can be contained.  We, that this those of us in the white upper-middle classes do not know what it means to live as marginal persons, bereft of influence, beholden to power.  We are the main-stream, the influential, the holders of power.

    Naming truth hurts.  But, as Jesus said, the truth shall set you free.  But, he might have added, only after a really long painful time.  Even so, it doesn’t make the truth any less true.   

    I never served a congregation as a minister for just this reason.  I knew my politics were too radical for a congregation of Presbyterians.  The tension and pain would not have had  a constructive outcome.  Rev. Wright made a different calculation and I support him in it.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Politics 📎and tagged

  • A Fed? LOL

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    43  bar steady  29.47 11mph  NNE  dewpoint 42 Beltane

                    Waning Crescent Moon of Growing

    Well, ok then.  The reader who wondered about my hydroponics is not a Fed.  LOL they said. 

    It is a weirdness about the Web that we can connect directly with people, yet know nothing about them.  The weirdness compounds when we realize the people with whom we come in contact in this way, we don’t know at all beyond a few words on a computer screen.  In the case of comments on a website or a blog like this one the stakes are, for the most part, low, but when you consider the apparent number of people who meet up in person after such interactions. 

    All this reminds me of Alvin Toffler and his book, Future Shock.  I still remember many ideas from that book because he was a good phrase maker.  High tech, high touch is the one that comes to mind here, but in a slightly different vein than Toffler’s.  His version was that the more we connect through technology, the more we will want to see each other in person.  I believe that’s true, but I’m on another tack here.  High tech, high touch heightens the need, the desire for personal interaction, yes. It produces that desire–the original sense of eros in the Greek, the desire for human contact–in a situation we have not evolved to understand.

    We are animals wired over hundreds of thousands of years to read the language in another person’s eyes, the way they hold their hands, the set of their neck, the wrinkles and twitches of the mouth.  Though we are often wrong even with those cues, at least in face-to-face encounters we have a chance to assess, to ponder.  Words on a page are not the same.  Not even close.  It may be that we have a sophisticated reader’s intution about how language reveals the author, but that’s a game often got wrong by critics, so how good can we be?

    The point is this, words without flesh, disembodied words put us at a disadvantage.  We can’t judge the intent of a phrase, the reason behind a conjecture.  This has led to the all too familiar problem of flaming where some unhappy soul takes this anonymity and uses it to vent, often just to vent.

    Toffler also described Over Choice, a situation where we face more decisions about more matters than we can handle with anything approaching wisdom.  This applies to people we meet through the electronic ether, too.  The reader interested in hydroponics might be a valuable interlocutor, one whose journey with indoor gardening might supplement and enhance my own.  And vice versa.  Or, they could be, as I speculated, a law enforcement officer hiding behind the web’s anonymity.   Because it is my nature to trust first and question later, I accept the response to my speculation at face value; but, I have no face.  Therein lies the dilemma.

    We must evolve some method, some means of reading people we meet on the web.  I suppose that’s what Facebook, Youtube, Myspace propose to accomplish, but there it is often meeting people to be meeting people.  And those social networking sites get gamed, too.  An endless loop. 

    Enough on this.  I have to get to work writing my piece for the Muse.  It’s taken an odd turn.  Wonder how it will finish?


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Garden GeekWorld Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Hey, Buddy, Got Any Pictures?

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    55  bar falls 29.59 8mph NE  dewpoint 36 Beltane

                     Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

               grandmaanddescendants.jpg

    This is Grandma and her descendants, Gabriel and Ruth.  Gabe still has to learn to suck and swallow.  He also needs to wean himself from the canula that deliver an oxygen stream.  Both of these are maturational tasks that would have completed on their own in the womb, so he just needs to grow and get older.  Right now everyone wishes he’d do both quicker, unmasking one of the many contradictions in human development.  As we age, no one wants to get older and grow bigger. 

    Kate came home last night.  She was sad.  Ruthie now knows her and runs up with a smile and arms out, “Grandma!”  That’s tough to leave.  Gabe, too, is in a vulnerable place even though she’s confident he’ll be fine.  She also helped out Jon and Jen with domestic matters like cooking, grocery shopping and Ruth care when Ruth was not in daycare. 

    Having a child in the hospital creates stress just because, but there is stress, too, because work goes on while the daily routine gets disrupted.  No one gets enough sleep.  A tough time for the Olson family, Denver branch.  It will receded into the past, someday, and become the stuff of family legend.  When you were a baby, Gabe, you were in the hospital so long and we were so worried.

    A reader from the Webiverse asked to see some photographs of my hydroponic setup.  It occurred to me that it might be the feds trying to catch a not too intelligent dope grower.  Go, ahead, buddy, show me your pictures.  Heh, heh, heh.  I hope so, but because boy are they going to be disappointed.

                               hydro2300.jpg

    From this and the next angle all you can see are lettuce and tomato plants, but there are also morning glories, cucumbers and three varieties of beets.  These last are not as far along in the growth process and will go outside as soon as the weather warms up.

                               hydro300.jpg

    As I’ve begun to work with the hydroponics, this setup seems small.  The megafarm is the larger of the two; the smaller is sold as Emily’s farm.  

                              Here’s the whole deal, including the seed sprouting area. The halide bulb and shield are just out of sight near the top.

                              hydrosetup300.jpg

    It’s amazing the charge I got out of working with seeds and young plants when snow and cold weather blew around the house.  I plan to branch out (ha,ha) a bit over the year to include flowers and, maybe, carnivorous plants.  No, I don’t know why.

                             


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Great Work 📎and tagged

  • One Psychiatrist Says to Another

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    61 bar steep fall 29.73  6mph WSW dewpoint 33 Spring

                    Last Quarter Moon of Growing

    Some leaf curling and cupping on my lettuce and tomato.  Not sure if it’s a problem or not.  I can’t find any organisms.  No sign of mildew, virus, aphid, biting insects.  Still, it doesn’t look quite right to me.  Time will tell.

    Fed the dogs at 11:00AM and took off for the Walker to talk to Stefan.  He asked me to edit and comment on his poems. 

    I got there early and wandered through the Suburbs exhibit and the Richard Prince exhibit.  I’m not sure about Prince, as I know many others are not, but he has some funny jokes. 

    Two psychiatrists are at a bar together.  One psychiatrist says to the other, “I had dinner with my mother last night and I had a Freudian slip.”  The other psychiatrist raised an eyebrow.  “I said, ‘You ruined my life you fucking bitch!”

    Also, “You know what it means when you come home to a warm, loving embrace?  It means you’re in the wrong house.”

    These are on monochrome backgrounds, sort of pop artish.  Most of the other re-purposed photographs show an interesting angle on American culture.  I can imagine a curatorial meeting where having Richard Prince and the Suburban show together would add irony, creative tension.  I’m not so sure. I found the suburban show more provocative than the Prince.  It has an original take on a widely experienced phenomenon.  Prince recycles material from our magazines, our popular culture, but his work seems more cool, distant.  The suburban exhibition is lively, engaged with the subject either ironically or in a non-judgmental way.

    Stefan and I met in Gallery 8, the first place aside from United Theological Seminary I saw when I first came to the Twin Cities over 38 years ago.  Oddly, I had lunch with Lonnie, his wife, there many times when she and I used to keep up. 

    We talked about his poetry.  I took a slash and burn approach to editing this batch.  “I’m trying to find the line here, Stefan.  Like skiing.  I cut out everything that didn’t get me down the hill fast.”  I told him that was an idiosyncratic method and that he could do whatever he wanted with the feedback.  He gave me a few more so I guess it wasn’t too bad for him.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture 📎and tagged

  • Hazards in the Learning Process

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    41  bar steady  29.96  0mph ESE dewpoint 24  Spring

                        Last Quarter Moon of Growing

    Spent a good part of the afternoon on mechanical and electronic stuff.  It was time for the first changing out of the nutrient reservoirs in the hydroponics. 

    I first tried the way the setup suggested, that is, drain the reservoirs onto the plastic shelf on which they both sit.  This is not as crazy as it may sound since the shelf has grooves pressed in to carry used nutrient mix and water toward a drain plug at the end of the shelf.  So, I hooked up some plastic tubing by cutting a small hole in the end of the cap and opened the taps.  This is slow.  The drain hose is not too big.  It’s also messy since the hole in end of the plug allowed a bit of the liquid to drain around the tubing and drip on the lights (electric!) and the floor. 

    Hmmm.  Had to be a better way.  Then I thought of all those car thieves hard at work stealing gas.  Siphon!  By chance I had one hundred feet of plastic tubing and it fit inside the drain tubing quite neatly.  I pushed this tube through the hole in the drain cap, sucked on it a bit and voila!  Both of them drained all by themselves.  Still took a while, but it is a handsoff operation.

    As I read somewhere, I took the used nutrient mix out and poured on the garlic, garlic is a heavy feeder and impervious to the cold weather we’ve had.  That’s important because you can’t encourage growth in most plants when the temperature can still go below freezing.  That possibility exists here until May 15th.  I also poured it on some daffodils about to bloom.

    Then I made 9 gallons of fresh nutrient mix and poured it back into the reservoirs through the pots holding the lettuce, tomato plants, three kinds of beet and morning glories.  A tip I read in the hydroponic bible (according to the folks at Interior Gardens) suggested swapping out the nutrient every three rather than four.  So, I did.  This is fun.

    The treadmill still has some hiccups.  I had to rewire it again this afternoon.  Landice apparently thinks they may have sent me a bad rheostat.  If so, that means I swapped a bad one for a bad one rather than a good one for a good one.  More work ahead there.

    I also put away all the material from the Weber tours and the bronze tour I have a month or so ago.  The library is neat. (in a manner of speaking.  That is, my manner.)  I have a file to read for the three hour bronze session I have for Family Day on the 11th.  I also have a number of articles and objects to use as reference while I write something about Urania visiting the MIA.

    Kate called today, too.  Ruthie ran out of the kitchen yesterday, into the dining room and tripped, falling on the corner of the coffee table.  Big cut.  Lots of angst.  But super grandma was there to be calm.  She and Jon took Ruthie to urgent care for stitches.  This is a busman’s holiday for urgent care doc, Kate Olson, but it gave her a feel for the other side of the examining table.  As she often does, she felt guilty.  Not her fault.  Ruth is a puppy, running and playing and trying out the world.  There are hazards in that learning process and none of us escape.

    She comes home tomorrow and I’m glad.  The bris has been delayed because Gabriel still has not decided to eat enough and he’s still on some oxygen.  Until he can eat and breathe on his own, he’ll remain in the level 2 nursery.

    And.  No snow!


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden GeekWorld Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Oh, Dear

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    31!  bar steep rise 29.62 2mph S dewpoint 27 Spring?  Snow

                           Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

    OK now.  That’s enough!  I woke up, looked out the window on April 26th, just 5 days before Beltane, the beginning of the Celtic summer, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but snow, snow, snow.  Oh, dear.

    To season the irony, I leave in a few minutes for the Arboretum and a day devoted to the Natural Rhythms of Time.  I guess if it happened, it’s not unnatural, but the snow feels like it has come outside the natural rhythms.  I don’t know what to expect from this day, but the notion of natural rhythms and a cyclical view of time are important to my own, still evolving sense of the cosmos.

    No wonder the moon of growing has begun to wane.  It’s retreating before the Hawthorn giant as he takes a return visit, stomping around and shaking his shaggy head.  I can just hear him laugh.

    My hydroponic setup continues to evolve.  I’d say I should have edible lettuce by the end of next week. The tomato plant I put the under the light first is over 8 inches tall and leafing out more and more every day.  The morning glories and cucumbers have begun a stretch toward the light, which means I need to reposition the megafarm under the light and move Emilies over.  This is addictive.  I can tell because I’m already planning how to  make my own setup out of parts I can buy at Interior Gardens.

    The piece that gets me is the growth and maturation of plants from seed.  It never fails to excite me when I see a seedling appear.  Not quite the same as that cute Gabe, but the principles are very much the same.  DNA works its magic. 


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • Morning Glories in the Lead with Cucumber Right Behind

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    52  bar rises 30.13 0mph S dewpoint 39  Spring

                 Waning Gibbous Moon of Growing

    The moon of growing has fulfilled its role.  Daylilies have popped up everywhere.  A few magnolia buds have popped open.  I found a couple of daffodil’s with flowers still furled around the stalk, but visible now, where they were still hidden a day ago.  No tulip flowers visible yet but the plants themselves are in full leaf.  A few aconites bloom in the front, hidden by the asters of last fall.  I have to cut them down so we can see the blooms.  Leaves to rake.  Last year’s perennials to cut down.  The growing season outside is slowly getting underway.

    Kate’s getting ready for her Gabe trip.  She’ll probably head straight to the hospital to see the little guy.  I’ll feel better when she’s there.  She’s got a lot of experience with infants.  A lot.

    I’ll take her to the airport, then return here and probably work in the garden for a bit.

    The morning glories have begun to rocket up.  I only planted them four days ago and they’re already an inch and a half above the plug.  The cucumbers race right along behind them with, for now, the cylindria beets.  I can see evidence of seedling’s emerging from most of the other plugs, too.  The vegetable garden has begun to grow, right here in our house.  Meanwhile, the lettuce and tomato up top with the halide bulb and the hydroponics continue upwards as well. 


    📂This entry was posted in Family Garden 📎and tagged

  • The Hawthorne Giant Shakes His Shaggy Head

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    64  bar steady 29.81 2mph S dewpoint 50 Spring

                 Full Moon of Growing

    It’s that time of year again.  The time, that is, when I have to pull the shades of my east facing computer room windows.  Otherwise, it heats up in here.  Pretty fast.

    If we’d get some rain to get with this warmth, we’d have plenty of blooms.  I have daffodils and tulips getting close.  Went out yesterday and wandered through our woods and garden.  While looking at one of the large beds shifted from flowers to vegetables, a lily question came up.  Namely, where did I plant all the lilies I had in that bed?  I’ll be damned if I can recall.  They’ll come up as a surprise. 

    The Hawthorne giant must have shaken his shaggy head and stomped off to the Arctic circle.  Hope he finds cool weather when he gets there.

    The rock wool cubes in which I planted the lettuce dried out last night, at least in the smaller of the hydroponic setups.  I don’t know why.  The plants themselves don’t seem affected, so I conjecture that their root system now reaches down into the nutrient solution.  Learning while we go. 

    The truck needs an oil change and I need to read Stefan’s poems and finish the book on Mastery that Tom Crane sent.  So, I’m off.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden General 📎and tagged

  • Megafarm Hydroponics

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    54 bar steep fall 30.20 0mph SSE  dewpoint 18  Spring

                   First Quarter Moon of Growing

    A 28 degree spread between 8:00 AM and right now.  We still have patches of snow, but they lie now mostly in the shade or north facing slopes.  The tulips, daffodils and iris should continue their growth.  The magnolia buds look pregnant.  Some of the garlic has broken the surface, about 7 bulbs.  It’s starting.

    The generator now sits on its little pad on the west wall of our garage.  The electrician has been here all day.  He cut into the garage wall with a reciprocating saw to splice the transfer switch into our electrical panel.  This transfer switch plus a sensing device discovers a power outage, waits a beat or two to be sure the electricity is really off, then turns the generator on and transfers itself as the power source for the house.  When the power comes back on, it senses that, too, then transfers the generator off-line and runs it a bit longer to cool it down and allow it to shut down smoothly. 

    It’s not ready to go, yet, however.  The next step is to run the gas line from the new gas meter (not installed yet) up through the garage ceiling and down to the generator’s fuel intake.  The next step after that is–pay for it.

    The Megafarm hydroponics (the second and larger plastic tub) has begun to function, too.  I filled the reservoir with seven gallons of nutrient solution, smoothed out a kink in the tubing connecting the pump.  It needs to get set on a two hour cycle soon, but right now, I’m filling the growing bed and shutting the pump off by hand.  It has a few lettuce plants and three tomato plants.  This is all still experimental, but it feels like we’re headed in the right direction with it.

    Kate has prepared snacks and drinks for the meeting tonight.  All I have to do is meet and greet.  Should be fun.


    📂This entry was posted in Great Work Politics Weather +Climate 📎and tagged