Runner up

Well, the strippers have been busy. Busy producing leaves. Who cares about leaves? Leave it to strippers to bobble things up. In an effort to get strawberry production underway, I added some 20-20-20 fertilizer into the mix. Before, I was using MiracleGro 24-8-16 and attribute the nitrogen heaviness of that mix to the amount of foliage the girls produced. It's been about a week or so since the switch, and low and behold something new happened.

A runner happened. Punky Brewster kicked out a baby! That slutty girl. During research, it was tough to find a picture of a runner online. Like, a picture showing the difference between a runner and a normal leaf. Well, here you go. It looks like a long skinny skeleton finger and goes sideways. Mystery solved. According to 100% of the internet, to increase berry size or frequency, you're supposed to cut off all runners and tiny, abortable fruit sites. Well screw that, I want to see if the runner roots. So, I buried it in some of my signature fish tank gravel mix and wait.

Here's some photos of the ladies taken today. They're kicking ass with leaf making.

07/05/09 Album

~ Grow Monkey

Berry Facts

Found these facts while looking up grow techniques:

Here's a list of fun (They're not really fun) and interesting (or interesting) strawberry facts and trivia:

Madame Tallien - She used to bathe in strawberry juice

• A strawberry has, on average, 200 seeds
• If all the strawberries produced in California, in one year, were laid berry to berry, they'd wrap around the world 15 times
• Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside. It is argued that for this reason, it cannot be considered a real berry, since berries carry seeds on the inside
• Ninety-four percent of U.S. households consume strawberries at least once a year
• Strawberries often gain top positions in surveys as the favorite fruit: in 2007 over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit
• A French noblewoman at the time of Napoleon, Madame Tallien, used to bathe regularly in strawberry juice, using 22 pounds per basin. She didn't bathe daily though
• Strawberries have a long-dated history of medical uses, the Romans for instance used them to alleviate symptoms of fainting, kidney stones, inflammation, diseases of the blood, liver and spleen, throat infections, bad breath, attacks of gout, melancholy and fever
• The etymology of the name "strawberry" is still largely unproven: some argue that they were named in the nineteenth-century by English children who picked the berries, strung them on grass straws and sold them as "Straws of berries". Others theorize that the name was derived from the nineteenth-century practice of placing straw around the growing berry plants to protect the ripening fruit
• Charles V of France ordered, in the 14th century, that twelve hundred strawberry plants be grown in the Royal Gardens of the Louvre
• Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in spring
• Strawberries were a symbol of perfection and love: for instance, folklore says that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with a member of the opposite sex, you'll soon fall in love. Medieval stonemasons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in sacred places such as churches, as a symbol of perfection
• 23,000 acres of strawberries are planted in California each year.
• The world's largest strawberry shortcake is hosted in the annual strawberry festival in Lebanon, Oregon
• In some places of Bavaria, country folk practice a spring ritual of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to wood elves. The legend states that the elves, who love strawberries, will offer their gratitude producing healthy calves and an abundance of milk
• In Belgium there's a museum entirely dedicated to strawberries
• Strawberries are grown in every state in the United States and every province of Canada.
• The strawberry plant belongs to the same family of roses, genus Fragraria, together with other fruits such as apples and plums. The name of the genus comes from the Old Latin word for "fragrant". In modern Italian, the word for strawberry is still "fragola"
• California produces one billion (yes, with a B!) pounds of strawberries each year

Here's the original site.

Fungus

Misting is bad. Shit. Reading this page and I think there might be some mold on the ladies. There is a laundry list of diseases possible, so hopefully they will do better now that I'm not misting them anymore. It's tempting to scrap the whole thing and start off with better stock, but I'll see what happens.

Pictures

Album

So I figures it's time to put some photos up of the blackwater berries. Since they're true identities cannot be known, they were all given stripper names. There's Misty, Punky Brewser, Paris, and Raggity Ann. Raggity Ann is the one in the foreground. If you look closely, you can tell that she's the skank of the bunch and as such, not much is expected from her. She's the one that will get the rest kicked out of the bar if they ever go and probably get pregnant first, which is good in this case, because pregnancy means berries. Sweet, delicious unaborted berries. Then again, she's the one who looks full of diseases, so like teen moms there is a trade off here.

Not much is expected for now, but I figure in a week or two it'll be worth it to take a few more snapshots.

No word on that strawberry stealing baby. I couldn't find any pressure-activated claymores at Wal-mart so instead there are rattles placed strategically over punji stick traps. It may be too soon to worry as there are no berries to steal, but you can never be too careful with babies. If there's something worth stealing/slobbering on/ruining, you're bound to have an infestation soon. Hopefully, the blackwater berry stripper codenames will act as a deterrent. Babies fear strippers because they cannot feed on them without getting a mouthful of silicone.

~ Grow Monkey

Another thing

Researching Hydroponic strawberries and the Internet Google produced this pre-packaged junk as information:

Hydroponic Strawberry Growing

Day-neutral strawberries adapt well to your heated hobby greenhouse. Instead of discarding runners from your strawberry patch, keep those from your healthiest plants for hydroponic growing. Insert the roots into an inert growing medium such as perlite, coconut fiber or Rockwell.Alternatively, you can purchase starter plugs from most hydroponic suppliers. Cover your transplants with a clear plastic dome to keep humidity levels high and keep them out of direct sunlight until roots are established. Next, simulate a winter for your new seedlings. Dip roots (or plugs) in microbial solution, gently wrap them in clear plastic and refrigerate them for two to five months. After this rest period, your transplants are ready to be added to your hydroponic system. If possible, grow your hydroponic strawberries in a glassed in porch or green house. However, indoor garden lighting also provides them with the six to seven hours of full spectrum sunlight they need each day. Keep temperatures in a range from 64 to 77F (18 to 25C) for best results. Nourish your strawberry plants with a commercially prepared organic hydroponic preparation. Although pH should be maintained between 5.8 and 6.2, in lieu of constant testing, changing your solution twice a month typically works as well. Since you won’t be able to depend on honeybees to pollinate your blossoms, you need to hand pollinate. Simply brush the blossoms just after they open, transferring some of the pollen from the stamens to the pistils. Also, use an oscillating fan to help accomplish pollination.

Oh, well 64-77F degrees and nourish my plants with 5.8 phs. Thank you for all the insight.

Although, I am well-versed in hand pollination.

~Grow Monkey

Baby Intruders

Yeah, I was looking up things for ideas on growing these here strawberries and came across this blog about a creepy baby who steals from hardworking strawberry growers.

So now I have to take measures to secure my setup from intruding babies. A pressure sensor claymore should do or maybe a shotgun.

Here's the link: http://daisysfamily.blogspot.com/2009/04/hydroponic-strawberries.html

That's her in action.

Speculations er specifications

For this grow, I slowed things down. Instead of ADHD'ing out with 6-7 plant types and 3-4 different growing mediums, it's one plant in one type of container.

The Plant: Strawberry. There's a million different types of strawberries, so which one are we talking about here? For the time being, they are Blackwater berries, because their identities are unknown. My best guess is they're normal ever-bearing strawberries with special ops training.

The Setup: One type of setup here and it's hydroponic. I made as few improvements as possible to little Venice. One improvement was covering the top of the reservoir with aluminum foil as to keep the light out. Last time I had algae growing in the reservoir and it got gross and weird. No more of that. Yeah, that's all I did. I'm looking up cheap ways to boost co2 and things like that, but until I get some cheap answers, that is the final list of improvements.

Preparation: I threw all the tomato plant corpses into the trash. That's a bad atmosphere and counterproductive foreshadowing to the strawberries. If they were to see dead comrades, they would most likely give up hope and quit growing. The reservoir and grow area got bleached and refilled. I used 6 gallons of water and 5 teaspoons of Miracle Grow 24-8-16 blue powdered fertilizer. Strawberries do better in acidic medium, so the solution was PH-balanced to around 6.3. That may be too alkaline, but we'll find out. The main goal right now is to get the plants growing leafs and otherwise. I'm looking for signs that they are adjusting to their new environment and beginning to take to it before I go jazzing up the nutrient mixture with proper fertilizer. I'm considering buying some grow light flourescents and seeing how that plays. Since the area is small, I may even spring for a HPS outfit or build my own CFL grow lamp, which could be fun and... educational.

Research: Came across some information saying that picking off runners and little berries will encourage root growth. So I did that along with yanking off anything dead looking. Spider mites are a concern with strawberries and there was some funky stuff going on with the plants before I got them indoors. Did my best with that, but I'll see what happens. I have no idea if Lysol helps, but I Lysol'd the shit out of my room and specifically the grow area. I'm hoping spider mites are one of the 99.9% things Lysol kills and that strawberries are among the .1% it does not kill. These berries must be tough though or they never would've made it through Blackwater's training regiment.

Temperature wise the room's a pretty decent 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit now that it's summer, so I'm not worrying about that much.

We will see how this horrible experiment plays out. Possibly adding a few more blackwater berries into the mix, because 4 plants makes it look all sparse and depressing. Plus, I'll be damned if I don't get at least a few nice strawberries out of this mess.

Problems & Solutions

So after a couple months of looking at dead tomato plants (they really set the atmosphere), I decided to replace them with something less dead. I actually have been thinking a lot about this and was looking for a plant that I could commit to that would work better in the indoor environment. Here are some of the factors to consider:

Height. Chinatown has a maximum height of 3 3/4 feet from base to top. Without modifying Venice too much, about 8 inches of that 3 3/4 feet goes immediately to reservoir. So ideal plants would be max out around 1-2 feet to make my life easy. And when my life's easy, there's less of a chance I'll let everyone die out.

Variation. For awhile there, there were about 5-6 different plant types. Spinach, broccoli, cabbage, tomato, jalepeno etc. Different plants have different needs. Much like an orphanage, having different needy plants led me to neglecting all of the plants to some degree (compromising acidity in some, light in others, etc). Since you can't compromise too much if you want something worth harvesting, only the strong survive and you're left with 20 healthy tomato plants surrounded by a bunch of gimpy, shorter, unadoptable comrades.

Dirt is boring. As much extra work hydro stuff is, it's worth it to see progress. After you buy 14 timers, pumps, PH testers and everything else it's a shame not to use it. On the flip side, growing both hydro and dirt simultaneously is time consuming and annoying when the one group you're babying (dirt) tends not to get as big or move much. Plus, dirt is a bigger pain when it spills on your carpet.

Payoff: There's a fine line between legal and illegal things (that line is called the law), but payoff tends to factor in. When you spend 4 months growing cabbages only to end up with two ziploc bags full, it's time to reconsider what you're growing. I don't eat healthy. I hate tomatoes. Time to grow something I like.

My solution: Strawberries. Plants are short, researching one species is doable, there's not a lot online about hydro strawberries and strawberries are delicious.

Outcomes

Well, I got bored. Many out of town trips led me to totally neglecting the plants and the ones that managed to stay alive er.. kept fighting ended up either outside (where they died) or given away (where they also probably died). Aloenzo fell out of his pot at some point and has successfully failed to root while laying on the desk sideways. John Doe lives in the kitchen now, being severely overwatered. I may have to repossess him and get him flourishing again, but who knows. Those monkeys have grown their grow and I'm ramblin on.

New Grow!

Now is where I am cryptic about what the new crop contains.

7er gy s qghwixollz!

hint: You put it in your mouth

~Grow Monkey

New Photos

New Pics

The plants are coming along nicely. John Doe has grown two sets of leaves and is working on his third. It is very possible to grow that type of plant from cuttings. Aloenzo is well...


Some cuttings were taken from a couple of the tomato plants. We'll see if they root soon. Lil' Venice is working 'too' good.. every time I raise the light up an inch, at least one Venician plant grows to the bulb by the next day. They will need to be transplanted soon to a more viable location.

~Grow Monkey

Restructuring

Photo Album
Pre-restructuring Photos

To rectify the growing space concerns (get it?) in Chinatown, some restructuring and downsizing was necessary. After careful review of each plants performance reports, many were let go. Some of the seedlings had mold on their peat and others didn't make their case well enough growth-wise. So many ended up in the trash and good riddance anyways. As it stands now there's 67 plants remaining plus the new additions that I'll talk about later.

Other than that, the remaining population is quite happy. Lazarus is enormous. After measuring from the tip of one leaf to the tip of the other, his wingspan is 10inches. Tip to base is 6inches. A couple of days ago, I checked on him after I woke up and he was completely wilted. At some point during the night, he drank all his water and was near death. Watered the bejesus out of him and now he's growing like no monkey has grown before. Considering some sort of growth cone to make Lazarus more manageable, because as it stands, he's a real pain in the ass to deal with.

News in Little Venice: My first venture into hydroponics is teaching me a lot. Venice is set to flood with water for 15 minutes 3 times a day. Originally two times, I upped it after noticing wilting. There's a half-strength concentration of Miracle Grow all-purpose plant food (24-8-16) for nutrients in the reservoir. I'm completely in love with hydro. The plants grow noticeably faster than their dirty counterparts. The automatic flood/drain setup frees me up from having to babysit them, unlike the dirt gang who require watering at random times and remove all of my over watering concerns as well. I've kept the setup as unscientific as possible. There was no ppm check and only a half-assed initial ph balancing. My belief is that if plants can survive in the wild with raccoons and llamas, tornadoes, and crap like that, then the hydro boys already have a leg up on surviving. These monkeys grow with the fury and make me proud. I have a couple other hydro/aero designs that are a bit more complicated that are still in the 'vision' stage of production.

Venice is simple in design. One tote sits on another. The top tote has three poorly drilled holes on the tote bottom while the bottom tote has a 'square' opening on its lid. These line up so when the top is flooded, it drains through the holes into the bottom tote (reservoir). There's a submersible waterpump in the reservoir attached to a timer that turns on three times a day. The timer's settings are in 15 minute increments, so the pump remains on for the full 15. A hose goes from the pump to the top tote and floods the basin. This flooding is achieved because the water is pumped in faster than it can drain out. Since the pump runs for 15 minutes straight, controlling the flood level was important. This is done by limiting the amount of water in the reservoir, so when the top tote reaches the desired level the waterpump in the reservoir is sucking some amount of air. I think this aeriates the water as well and will keep the water from stagnating. Other than a few notches for the pump powercord and to keep the hose from pinching, that's about it. The top tote is at an angle so the water flows towards the drain holes. The pump powercord jacks the one side up enough to achieve this.

Anyway, hydroponics are awesome and worth screwing around with.

New pictures of the post-restructured area soon. Til, then Grow Monkeys, Grooooww!

~Grow Monkey

Time Progression

I've been really busy avoiding this blog. On the other hand, the plants are doing well.

Here are some links to some pictures of the fellas

February 26th

March 8th

March 10th If you're wondering what "Little Venice" is about, it's modeled after the European city of Venice, which is also overrun with polluted water.

March 12th



More frequent and timely posts are expected, but until then, grow monkeys. Grow!

~Grow Monkey

What to do what to do

Today's photo album!

It's been about 5 days since the last blog post and I could go into all the soul searching I did about nixing the project and how something someone said triggered an emotion in my brain area that led me to keep the project alive and post some more... The honest, boring reason why there hasn't been any updates is that 1.) Netflix 2.) I'm lazy.

Another biggun is that I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to sustain 170-odd plants. Maybe it just hit recently, but that's a hell of a lot of sprouts! Obama found out about the project's earmark on the stimulus bill, so my budget's all shot to crap now. See, the thing they don't tell you about indoor growing is that every little odd and end you need to do it is gonna cost you $20. There's just no way around it. Want a timer? 20 bucks. A water pump? 20 bucks. Hygrometer? 20 bucks. I could keep going. Second thing they don't tell you is that if you order something you need off of eBay, one of two scenarios will follow. One, what you ordered is not at all what you need or thought it was or two, you never find out because it's two weeks after you won the auction and the guy sends you an email saying he's 'backed up' and 'will give you a refund instead'. (You never get the refund.) So... yeah.

Anyway... the plants are getting bigger and the sunflowers have sprouted and were pushing up against the top of the jiffy greenhouses. Figured that was bad so they got the transplant. Nothing fancy. Just took the plug, put dirt around it, whittled a pot out of rosewood, found a priest to sprinkle it with holy water, and you know put an ad in the paper. The pots for transplanting are of my own design. Bought a sleeve of clear, plastic containers and drilled a bunch of holes in them. They got some miracle gro potting soil and some water, whala they're transplanted. After about 10 transplants I was done and had enough.

Not sure which day it happened, but it happened. Tweeks has sproutafied. No matter how hard I tried by dumping expensive coffee on him, he defied all odds and kept living. Take that Darwin ya big party pooper! Tweeks is like half an inch above the soil now for no apparent reason. I'll have to look at the archives to figure out if he is actually Brussels or not, but as of right now I'll say definitively he is one baaad Brusselfuc... watch yo mouth yes, I am talking about Tweeks. Actually a bit proud he survived. Like that baby you had, but you had seven others at the same time so you decided to not breast feed it and only give it coffee but it still lived even though you're a horrible selfish mother living off tax dollars and farming babies like golden retrievers, but the baby survives and then you're like 'What? Oh. Neat. Something else adding to the ongoing struggle for space in Chinatown,' because you named the moldy laundry room where you keep your 14 children 'Chinatown'. And then Supernanny punches you in the face which inevitably backfires because the sudden shock of her fist's impact somehow activated dormant leavings up inside your cervix causing a chain reaction that ends in even more media coverage because with wars going on across the globe, deadly brushfires, and everything else one lady with poor judgment who took enough steroids to ensure lifelong incontenence and disappointed lovers needs to be featured on the news... and and and...

Where was I? Yeah, Brussels sprout. The ones in the greenhouse are doing amazing. There's some sage Germans coming up too :) I am interested in what that plant is about and smells like. Did you know? Sage is in the Salvia family. There's an interesting fact to tell your smoking friends.

In Clone news: I've started to cycle the lampkin so the plants get a few hours each day to rest and figure out what roots are. Pretty much been leaving them alone while the root-coke works its magic. I could be mistaken, but it appears John Doe is developing new leaves. Aloenzo doesn't look so hot. Sorta baby pea soup colored. My "smoking=faster growth" theory is getting shot to hell. Well there goes my grant from Philip Morris. It seemed so plausible too...

Reconfigurating the way pictures are done. A couple will still be sprinkled randomly throughout the posts, but now there will be a link for the 'days photoalbum' and you can look at whatever you want. Like today the link will be right at the top. The point of this is that I've been taking 10 or so pictures a day and only end up with two or three on here so what's the point of paying the plants to pose nude if no one's gawking at alll the pictures? It's just bad business.

That's all for today. I have shouted "Grow Monkey Grow!" at the plants and they have answered.

~Grow Monkey

Another day in Chinatown

Did a little house cleaning with some of the plants that were frustrating the bejesus out of me. Ended up tossing a couple that still haven't sprouted to conserve space. Now there are two sage seeds outside the Jiffy greenhouses, kickin it like it was meant to be kicked. Hopefully they will go German soon and then sprout.

In the absence of some of my supplies (President's day delayed my mail-ordered presents) and good growing conditions, I've been wicking the plugs daily. What that means is taking all the Jiffy plugs that are outside the greenhouses and putting them in water until they are moist. Then, slapping them back inside the holders. Tada! Wicked plugs. Anyway, I figure once a day is good and will keep those guys nice and moist.

Here's a shot of the spinach. These three make me feel more accomplished than any of the rest. Spinach is a b**** to German and seeing them sprout like they got a pair is refreshing. *girds loins* ungirds. Yep. Theya maka me prouda.

Anyway, this is weird.

Second shot is of the many cabbages growing in the Jiffy greenhouse. Lately, I've started wondering how many cabbages I actually want. I mean, if it's perfectly grown and tastes better than any other cabbage on earth it is still, a cabbage. I highly doubt I can eat fifty cabbages. Even if shared, that is a lot of friggin cabbage. Brussels sprouts I can eat pounds of, but cabbage... Jesus christ what was I thinking?!?! (I was thinking about Smurfs.) So, the plan now is to either make more friends who are rabbits or Fedex some cabbages to third-world countries. And this is how the Blood-Cabbage controversy was born... 50 cabbages? You know what. Screw it. Let's go a hundred. Grow monkeys grow! HAHAHAHA!!! (FYI: insane laughter over the mundane is a sign of cabin fever)

Finally some strange developments in other areas. The jelly bean tomatoes (which are impossible to German in Kleenex) are flourishing inside those damn greenhouses. In fact, something happened during transplantation so that two seeds ended up in the same plug. They both went German. I don't know whether to send a thankyou card to Jiffy or give them the finger. Inevitably, I had to get over my pride and acknowledge no matter what techniques I use to create Germans, Jiffy will always kick my ass at it. Instead of moving the sprout I have decided in all my wisdom to keep these conjoined twins conjoined. They will share the name Tweedle Deedum and hopefully both will live and produce copius amounts of freak tomatoes.

I'm ignoring Aloenzo and John Doe. I feel that is the only way they will survive. My tinkering has caused enough pain and must be constrained to Chinatown which can handle a few casualties. Anyway, both those guys are boring and are going in the trash if they don't stop their tedious suckfest.

Adding some shots of the demonic sunflowers tomorrow. Adding pictures of the peanuts when they decide to spontaneously German like my father's.


~Grow Monkey

Presidents Day

In honor of President's day I watched the first 30 minutes of Robocop on Hulu.com. It would have been more, but in all her wisdom, Hulu decided to stop the projector mid-film. Personally, I think Robocop is quite analogous to the current political climate President Obama inherited. Firstly, Robocop, like Obama, must merge the separatist worlds to get anything done. In Obama's case, the Republicans and Democrats and in the case of Robocop, the humans and the cyborgs. Obama and Robocop are both agents of change, ushering in a new era of changiness that can be believed in if one so chooses. Finally, they both talk the same too.

All the plants are doing their thing. The spinach is starting to sprout. A couple cabbages are working on their second sets of leaves. The Brussels sprouts are doing well. Temps are good. Ph's are good. Lights are what they are... There is an air of peace in Chinatown tonight. Took some more pictures of random sprouts and things to illustrate the gist of what I'm rambling on about. The first picture shows the gang. It's easy to distinguish Albino Pete from the others because of his pigment issues and the half-assed transplant job I performed from plug to cup.

The second photo shows a couple of the cabbage plants that are on their second pairs of leaves. Grow monkeys grow!!

And the last pic I'll bore you with today is what spinach looks like when it finally sprouts. The difference in starter leaves between the spinach and cabbages is huge. Notice how the spinach has elongated string-like leaves and the cabbages have more clover-esque deals going on. The difference between the cabbage and Brussels sprout are more marginal at this point. They're both growing at about the same rate and their leaves are relatively similar.

Oh what the hell, one more pic.

Here's the cabbages growing inside one of the jiffy greenhouses. So far, this is sprouting Germans faster than any other method. Second, is the Miracle Gro soil cups, but I'm guilty of letting the plugs outside the greenhouses getting bone dry, so the results may be skewed.

Anyway, that's the news from Chinatown. Folk in Deutschland have been awfully quiet. Hopefully the root-coke is working out for the fellas. They both seem not dead, so that's good.

P.S. Happy Presidents Day

~Grow Monkey

John gets hormonal

Did some scavenging in this giant dumpster called Walmart and found some great deals on supplies. Got two more jiffy greenhouses and some cloning gel that's not a gel at all. It's a powder or root-coke as I like to call it. Those two cutting bastards are screwing up my life and they needed some root-coke to jazz things up.

I blew there minds. Now they're face down in the dirt tripping balls and hopefully growing some damn roots.

To the left, is the drugs and on the left is John Doe getting his coke fix. Aloenzo got a big dose too. For those nerds who want to know how to root stuff at home, the process goes thusly: 1.) Find your plant. 2.) Wait till he's not looking and yank that sprout from his dirthole. 3.) Now *quickly* run to the car and root through the Walmart grocery bag until you locate the root powder. 4.) Run back in, make sure you still have your plant in hand and remember, if it has a name, it's wrong to kill it so don't drop that sucker in the snow. 5.) Get back to the room, and dunk John Doe in some water and with nailclippers, cut some of the stem off at a 45 degrees angle while still submerged in the water. 6.) Dip the wet stem into the root-coke and wiggle it around. At this point, your plant is 'snorting', so give him a second. 7.) Find some place better to put him than the carpet and insert his coked up portions into the dirt. 8.) Repeat this process for Aloenzo but with more frustrated anger. 9.)Take those coke fiends back to Deutschland and place under the lampkin for rehab.

In other news, Chinatown had a huge influx of populations despite the one seed per plant decree. There are now two jiffy greenhouses full of Germans and seeds. There are other rogue plants still around too. Priscilla's the Brussels sprout queen. The only other big sprout in that camp is Albino Pete who is featured in the picture to the left. When he sprouted, there was no green on his leaves. His tap root is dangling through the jiffy peat and he needed some place to go.

That's an issue that came up. Turns out watering the jiffy plugs twice a day didn't keep them moist. I think the dryness of Pete's plug is part of the reason why his tap root is so long. To solve this, I took a jiffy greenhouse top and turned it upside down. Then, i put all the plugs in that top and flooded it with water. The plugs wicked up the water and pretty soon they were ready to go back in their holders. Pete got upgraded to a plastic cup with miracle gro soil in it.
Planted quite a few more spinach and Brussels sprout seeds and a hell of a lot more cabbages. Tomatoes and jelly bean tomatoes. Some sage and some weird sunflowers. And two peanuts.

Got a hygrometer too. The humidity is awesome in those greenhouses. Hoping that'll encourage the spinach plants to do something more than bore me. The rest of the grow box's humidity is right around 30%. I don't really think it matters a ton at this stage, but it's a cool tool to have. The humidity in my pants is 14% if you know what I mean. Anyway, that's pretty much all for today. Total head count of all the plants, including the cuttings is 167. That's a lot of monkeys.

~Grow monkey

Cleaning house

It was getting a tad bit crowded in Deutschland and it was time to move those Germans to a new home. But, there was no place to move them. So, I made a place.
Here's a shot of the final product. This took about 3 hours to assemble and cost around 46 bucks. It's 3 feet high and 4 feet across with holes drilled in the top for the fluorescent light chains. This makes it simple to raise the light as it grows. There is a fan out of frame behind the heater that blows hot air constantly to maintain temperatures. This is necessary because it's so damn cold in the house. That thing in the middle is a jiffy greenhouse thing that I'm going to modify later on into an ebb/flow hydroponic system for my cabbages. I figure I can fit about ten in there.

As far as the sprouts are concerned, Lazarus and Priscilla are kicking ass. They're both about an inch tall and loving the constant light. Only one spinach German has sprouted so far and six seeds are still in a wet napkin, challenging my patience.

John Doe is looking healthy, but Aloenzo is starting to brown. This is either because his precious bodily fluids are being used to form roots or he's dieing. A few days ago some rooted aloe vera 'pups' arrived at the house, so if Aloenzo ends up kicking the bucket, I might pull the ol switcharoo in an attempt to juke the results. I did some emergency surgery on Al, replacing that shitty dirt I got from some random houseplant with the miracle gro potting mix. Hopefully this will encourage him not to die. If it works, I will contact the AMA and demand they plant elderly people in Miracle Gro. Unless they're worth more dead than alive. In that case they should be planted in random house plant dirt.

I'll write up how I made my grow house in another post. It's relatively simple, but the materials were a bit more pricy than I expected. The 46 dollar figure includes a 4ft fluorescent fixture and 2-pack of bulbs, so really, the box itself clocked in around 30 bucks, which isn't too bad. I was shooting for 20, but oh well. I'm adding another fluorescent fixture today that will hang right next to the other one. This grow town's name is Chinatown because it will eventually be jammed full of Chinese Cabbages. I've informed the sprouts they are legally allowed only one seed.

~GrowMonkey

The °F 'n Problem

Well as patient as I've tried to have been, which isn't very patient at all, I always felt there was something amiss with the grow situation. Thought maybe trying to root the cuttings in fertilized potting soil could be it. Maybe the color of the compact fluorescent light or CFL was off... anyways, I couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I found the problem/solution...

It was the damn temperature! This never occurred to me. It's crazy hot in my room, but according to the thermometer, a mere 55 °F in Deutschland. "Hundekacke!" I yelped as I ran to find heat beams for my precious Germans.

After some monkeying around and a bit of modifications to the growing arrangement, the temp got up beyond 60 °F and is holding steady around 65 °F.

The plants listened. The modifications were done around 1am Wednesday morning and by 7am....
The first German to emerge from his birthing grave! A Chinese German no less. For this, he earned the name Lazarus.

John Doe is digging the light too. I swear he grew a quarter of an inch since the heat situation was rectified. Aloenzo is keeping quiet, but that's the part of his demeanor the ladies dig. Both of the fellas got watered because it's been awhile since their last drinks.

When I got home tonight, there were a few more Germans sprouting out of their graves. Headcount is at four.

So far the seed/german ratio race has Brussels Sprout in the lead with 10 out of 10 to go German, Chinese Cabbage with 7 out of 10 to German and Spinach with 4ish to German. I say 4ish, because the root business was in no way busting through those shells. The best of the four had a couple 2mm roots pertruding out and it was difficult to tell what the hell was going on with the majority of those guys. I've read germinating spinach is difficult, so this was somewhat expected. If these guys keep giving me trouble, I'm shoving them in the fridge and trying out what I found here.

Around a week into it, the monkeys are finally showing signs of growth :)

P.S.- No matter what temperature you think a room is, thermometers are smarter than you.

~Grow Monkey

Lady in the House

Oh plants. No sprouts to speak of today. Just a lot of buried Germans, still contemplating their emergence.

This German's name is Priscilla. She enjoys long walks on the beach and good listeners. Like her counterparts, she is an Aquarius and underage, so don't go getting any ideas.

I finally got motivated enough to french press some coffee. Tastes great. Had an idea and now there's another side experiment to see how coffee affects the growth of Brussels sprout. Root for Tweeks!

Me and the gang listened to some mantras today to focus our minds on achieving great things. Here's a link to what we listened to- http://snurl.com/bnajh - The Ganesh Mantra (Obstacle Breaker) and there's links from there to others. If you start to get mantra fever, Youtube has all sorts of playlists comprised of folks chanting mantras and whatnot. Everyone knows plants have tiny ears all over their bodies which is why their leaves are waxy (there are no q-tips small enough for plants mini-ears). Also, I think the overpopulation problems in India may be a sideeffect of mantras' ability to encourage rapid growth and that's what I'm looking for here with these fellas. Grow monkeys grow!

Till tomorrow,

~Grow Monkey

Population Explosion

Did a bit o the ol research with the internet and found some guy talking about how he's had success growing Aloe Vera from leaf cuttings. So IT IS POSSIBLE! Tough nugget to swallow is that you have to wait 3 weeks for it to callous and before there's any chance of roots showing up, so Aloenzo is off the hook for now. John's beginning to straighten out because of the light position change, so he's off the hook for now as well..

So, hold on to your hats, because a lot happened last night. The Brussels sprout that had previously turned into paper mache because of poor moisture conditions (caused by evil dehumidifying elves who snuck in whilst I slept and vampired them) sprung back into life, leaving in its wake seven stout little Germans! Now you know why they call them "Brussels" sprout and not "French layabout" sprout. So they were good to go onward to the next phase of life along with the Chinese Cabbage... But what else? Oh, the spinach! Hell if a couple of those screwballs weren't showing promise themselves. Decided to stick the two crapping out roots and a couple other prospects in jiffy peat discs along with their vegetable kindred. The jiffy was a lucky grab from a local store after I'd stuck three Brussels and three Chinese in miracle gro potting mix/plastic cups. Now there's some side experiment race happening between Jiffy & Miracle Gro for quickest seedling formator. Who will win? Only time decide...

The picture above shows a collage of processes. Starting in the upper left hand corner, that's the stuff I snagged from the local plant place to facillitate my Frankenstonian experiments. Upper right shows how you jiffy those peat discs into peat masterpieces. I used my secret formula of a giant mixing bowl and water (don't tell it's secret). Lower-left is the post-planted spinach and Chinese Germans side-by-side but the labels are unreadable so really that could be anything growing there. Maybe it's all a big lie?! But, alas, it's not. And finally, home to many a German is the Deutschland with Führer Aloenzo at the helm.

So that's the news for now. Seeds are growing great. John's straightening out and Aloenzo is less misunderstood.

~Grow Monkey

The Germans are Coming!

Impatient as always, I decided to check those seeds for activity today. It's been about 40 hours since they've been Kleenex'd.
Those fuzzy white dots used to be like those fuzzy black dots and lifeless. We officially have Germans! The Kleenex containing Brussels sprout seeds dried out so they got the ol' hydration and nothing in that camp has yet to do anything spectacular. The spinach has remained wet and has also remained dormant as of today. The winner here is the Chinese cabbage. After 40 hours of hanging out in wet tissue town, the seeds are beginning to take the hint and get growing. GROW MONKEY GROW!!!
Turned the lights off last night so I could sleep. They stayed off for about 12 hours or so, not counting natural light coming through the window. Temperature wise, my bedroom door is pretty much always shut with the heater on high to keep the temp above 40f or whatever cold ass temperature it is in this house.
Modified the setup a bit by putting that sanitary lampkin on a stack of math books and Burpee's seed starter book. Finally getting some use out of those tomes. Hopefully this will straighten Mr. Doe out. He was getting a bit crooked. Transplanted him last night to a clear cup and noticed there wasn't much rooting going on. Plant is awfully green and the clear cup will show off any roots that do decide to form. Re potted the African violet with new dirt. That dirt was crazy wet and it was difficult shaking it off the roots without breaking roots off. That plant is probably a lost cause.
Aloenzo is hanging in there. Not sure what his plans are yet, but I'll keep jacking him with the light machines until he wiggles out some life. He's still green as hell so there's no signs of death perse, but there's no real signs of life either. Total coma business on that front.
There's John being all crooked. The new light position should straighten him up a bit. As far as roots go, right now he can go to hell.

Today's moral is: "If you want something to happen quickly, look to the Chinese" One of these projects will have to involve a germination race between the Chinese and the Mexicans to once and for all see who is more productive.

~Grow Monkey

New Friends

I watered the cuttings yesterday. The mystery houseplant is leaning towards the lampkin now, getting its light on so to speak. The aloe is doing it's aloe thing which is nothing. They both got their water and both seem out to bore me to death.

New Additions:
Got some seeds at Kmart. Brussels sprout (Brassica oleracea), Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa), and Spinach (Espinaca Hibrida Hoja Pequena). I threw ten seeds from each packet in some kleenex, folded it up, stuck it in see-through plastic cups, and wetted them thoroughly with tap water. It's been about 24 hours and none have germinated yet. The clear cups gave me an idea to transplant the mystery plant so I'm gonna. I don't really care about this plant and those seeds are less of a concern now. They're all just something for me to mess around with while I wait for my triumphant aloe to grow triumphantly large and produce lots of healy juices for hippies too cheap to buy neosporin.

There's a pic of the seeds in my ultra-hi tech germinarium. Apparently, "germinarium" is too high-tech a word for blogger.com to handle. They say it's a misspelling. Misspell this!

Here's a picture of the mystery plant upclose. Notice how it doesn't realize it's about to get transplanted even though it totally is. The second pic is of the whole setup. Two 23w CFLs are going 24 hours a day. You can see the african violet with all the leaves picked off that were affected by root rot. Dad said I should transplant that and I figure, what the hell, so I'm gonna. The mother aloe plant is loving the light. It's got some new spear shooting out the top center.

I decided to name the two plants. They mystery plant is John Doe and the aloe is Aloenzo. Hopefully having names will inspire them to register for social security cards.

Updates tomorrow after transplanting with some photo pictures.

~Grow Monkey

Project numero uno (Translated: My first exciting grow project)

Here's the scoop. I get home and there's all sorts of plants that need some lovin. So like Shaft, I see the need and fill it with need sauce.

Project 1:

Question: Can you grow aloe from a cutting?
Answer: I dunno. Let's try.

Heard some bullshit online that you need to start aloe from a pup. Whatever the hell a 'pup' is. I've never seen any dog kick some aloe out its belly, but whatever it's probably some term horticulturists use to lord over us average folk. All I know is that aloe looks sorta cactus-y so it should do something like a cactus should. Really technical, I know, but it's not about terms/jargon here... it's about the experience!

I took a cutting from an aloe plant. It's about a foot long. Shoved it in some dirt with little water. I've read that you don't want too much water or the plant won't have to 'work' to get it. Root formation is the plants way of getting off its ass and surviving. But they do it all slow and this blog is a way for me to keep busy while they get around to it.

There's another cutting that had already started to root that's under the same lights. One light is a lamp with a shade, the other is my sanitary lampkin. They were both planted yesterday, the mystery cutting in some miracle grow potting soil and the aloe in some dirt that was in some other plant in the living room. Both in two inch wide peat pots. Both light sources are compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), 1600 lumens a pop. Picked a two-pack up at Home Depot for six bucks, whoopdee doo. They will be left on 24 hours a day to promote growth, make it impossible to sleep, and ruin the electric bill.


This is a picture from yesterday. This is the initial setup with a incadecent light in the lamp.


Here's one from today. You can see it got a bit more cluttered, but those other plants aren't doing any harm because they're being watched by me Jesus and the feds. The mother aloe plant is in there looking at it's body part. You can see my sanitary lampkin doing its job with a cfl jammed in its head. I have no idea what that other cutting is. Its some houseplant mystery. It had roots already though so screw it, lets make it bigger! Hopefully it won't grow up and attack me Little-Shop-of-Horrors-style.

By the way, I chain smoke and I think this will help those guys grow. My reasoning is, if smoking causes cancer and cancer is cell growth and plants have cells, then logically, plants will grow faster around me. Take that health monkeys!


That's about it for now. I'll try to do daily updates, with pictures and stuff, but I'm not making any promises.

~Grow Monkey

Introductions

Hey. My name is Mike and I'll be your grow monkey this evening. So let's put on some pants and get started!