I made an indoor grow system for under $40 dollars!

New Plants, Container Gardening, and the UNCA Garden Crew

I just finished creating and seeding 9 or 10 self-watering recycled plant containers.  They're sitting now, outside, wrapped in plastic bags to maintain their temperature.  I built two and a half flats with reused and dumpstered wood that hold the seedlings out off the porch and in the sunlight.  I'll post pictures soon but I don't know where a working camera is at the moment.  I seeded Black Simpson lettuce, Cherry Belle radishes, Evergreen Bunching onions, Arugula, French Breakfast radishes, and Early Top beets, and a few others.  The goal is to have these outside year-round, and hopefully the plastic bags will keep in enough heat at night for now.  Eventually, I want to build a cold frame over them, but it definitely ain't winter yet.

I also want to turn my house into a jungle of container plants--some rare, some small trees, some flowers.  Coffee plants produce a pound of coffee beans a year after 3-4 years growing from seed.  I also want to grow more herbs for homemade teas.  I've been looking into LED grow lights--the 14W arrays have a comparable output to a silver halide lamp, but last for 10-15 years, operate extremely cool, and are 100% recyclable.

The garden at Amanthus's and Zac's is doing well--we planted and trellised Royal Blue beans, squash, a few late peppers, and left more room for seedlings coming up.  Once again, the seedlings shot up in only 2 days, most of them already developing vigorous roots and shoots.  A new bed is in the works now that Zac is back from learning how to make better sourdough in San Francisco for two weeks.  The mosquitos in the back are a menace when working at sundown, but we're working on some herbal remedies for them.

The UNCA garden crew is an idea that came to me for a new club to start when I go back to school this fall for Environmental Science with a concentration in Ecology.  It looks like I'll be going for another four years, but that's OK--I've finally found what I really love to do and learn about.  The garden crew would be a collection of people who are interested in gardening, self-sufficiency, and recycling.  Here are some of the ideas I've come up with: 

-Raised bed gardens
--School-wide thermophilic composting (in this way you can compost meat, dairy, and even human waste). We can also compost newspaper and paper waste from offices and students around the school.
--Weekly or monthly newspaper/zine outlining current and future projects, also featuring articles on local and organic food and techniques for growing.
--Free seedlings in recycled containers to give away to students, emphasizing plants that can be grown in dorms and windowsills.
--Rainwater catchment systems
--Garden dinners where fresh food from the school garden and local farms entices people to come to hear local farmers or experts in their field talk about their practices.
--Edible landscape featuring placards that educate passers-by on when to pick the fruit/greens, as another means of passively showing people the difference between fresh local food and the flaccid produce you'd buy in a grocery store.

I've already got the support of at least two faculty members as well as two incoming freshmen students.  About 30 people have joined the group on Facebook and hopefully that many people (or more) will come to our first meeting!

Alrighty, just wanted to give you guys a bit of an update.  School starts the 19th!

I'm gonna sleep now...zzz....

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