Changing the lighting, Part two

The harness was partically completed with three walls and ceiling surrounding the grow area on the platform. The final wall needed to move away and back to allow me to move the platform and harvest.  I realized it needed to move back and forth. Ideally guide it in place, like a curtain going backward or forward, instead of up or down.

This curtain didn't need to weigh anything.  It was Mylar curtain, connected via staples to a scrap piece of plywood 3 inches wide and 55 inches long that ran along the top of the curtain and the length of the platform.  It took me a few weeks to work out a design that would allow me to move the curtain.  I also had to move the platform away while working on the area to put in the curtain.

Inside view of wire mounted plywood strip

Long support beams where available far beyond the edge of the platform and harness. I drilled 3 wide holes located in the wood, and wide notches for the angle bar.  I then stapled the Mylar to the plywood, while the plywood was on the floor.  Holes for 5 eye sockets were drilled into the support beams, and I twisted electrical wires to one side of sockets, fed the wire through the holes in the wood, and connected the wires to the other set of sockets.  As shown in the attached photo, I put a wire between the cross-beams and fastened it another wire.  When done, I could move the curtain by simply sliding the plywood top over the guide wires.  It was work to make a simple job in the long run.  Below is a video that shows the wood for the curtain working.

The last job for October was to install a fan.  I found a wall mounted fan in a hydroponics store close to my work.  It was small, high quality and more expensive, but would address an important problem with the farm overall:  The lack of air flow stifled the growth of the plants compared to my planting last winter.  The problem with the new design was the lack of location to place a normal, inexpensive fan.

Fan on wall-mount sub-wall

I realized a long time ago I needed to install a fan, but have been unable to find a wall-mounted unit. I planned to install something off the house's load bearing support, running down the center of the house and right next to the planting area.  The fan that was purchased needed a hanging wall to be built from the support beam for installation.  This required me to move the platform again, and pull aside the mylar curtain hanging from the support.  I built plywood assembly to support a new wall less than two feet wide, more than wide enough to hold the fan, and provide stronger support for weigh and vibration.  The fan mount was placed to provide adequate clearance of fan height. One that was completed, I bolted the wall to the support, After the wall was in place, I dropped the curtain and made a slice to connect the fan to the mount, and tested the fan,  the airflow was fine, and the plywood seem to reduce movement of the mylar behind the fan.  I connected the fan to the same timer of the lamp, understanding that will impact the cost of electricity. Below is a short video showing the fan working in the grow area.

It was October 31st when the installation of the fan completed the construction for the area, going forward would  focus on the planting and harvest.

Changing the lighting, Part one

Front of house with Grow light on at night

During the month of September, it became apparent that I needed to move the growing system.  After going through a full round of planting, I realized that a lot of energy from of the grow light was going outside through the adjacent windows, this was very noticeable at night.  The bush just outside the window shifted its leaves to point towards the grow light instead of south to the Sun. The original goal was to use the grow light to supplement outdoor light through the windows, as days got shorter in the fall, the grow light spread out the windows, creating an orange glow through the night.  The more I worked in enclosing the grow area from the rest of the basement, the brighter the lighting that went out the window, almost like a blub in the cone of a flashlight.  Also, during last winter's planting, the container that was closest to the window grew the least, the cold or winter was definitely slowing its growth, and unless the system is moved, the same issue would happen again.

New insulation sheets added over 2x4 outdoor wall struts

Moving the platform wasn't a small effort, but it wasn’t hard. The wooden framework moved easily on wheels, and had been moved regularly during harvesting and repair.  The issue was the lighting and mylar curtains.  The entire growing system was actually two pieces, one is the platform and the hardness.  The platform was the dirt and water on a wooden assembly with wheels, the harness is lighting, curtains and fans mounted to the celings and walls.  There was one alternate location for the platform in the basement that made sense, to complete the work required the area to be prepared as a harness, and some construction supplies were required.  I purchased a roll of reflective mylar and some sheets of insulation, two inches thick.  The insulation was installed on the wall behind where the mylar would be mounted a few weeks before the move.  The work only took a few minutes and a dozen nails.

At this time, I also had mites in many of the containers. Reviewing the watering from prior years, it was also apparent I was over watering.  Watering needed only a half-hour a day, and the setting for watering had it running for hours. Over watering caused mold and moss growing in the containers. I was looking at replanting over half the containers in the near future, but it was more important to complete the move first and replant as a follow-on step.

New location for Framework with
Mylar on two walls & ceiling

The move was completed on October 10, the same weekend I harvested tomatoes and peppers from the outdoor garden for a final time.  The preparation work required moving a table and boxes stored in the basement in the garage during the transition.  Once the work area was cleared, i nailed a 1x3 piece of wood to the top of the new sheet of insulation shown in the picture.  This would be used to fasten Mylar instead of insulation. The Mylar was slowly rolled out and stapled across the back wall and the load-bearing support beam of the house, creating a solid reflective curtain over two sides for the planting framework. 

I did a different approach for the ceiling, I stapled the more mylar to old cardboard presentation chart I had for the first harness, using a step ladder and used roof tacks to nail the mylar and cardboard to underlying support beams.  Timing and order of work was important, Installing the mylar took less than a half hour. With the prior harness the mylar was installed around the light mounting and assembly, which was problematic and frustrating. By installing the mylar first, it as a simple installation over a flat surface.

The next step was to move the mounting used for the grow light from its current location.  The light had been connected to the ceiling three different ways over the past year.  First was using 4 eyebolts connected to two floor joists.  This was effective, but did not allow adjustments to the angle and location. The next step was to use angle iron to cross multiple joists, providing flexibility in a 90 degree angle compared to the eye bolts.  The angle iron provided a variable range in one direction.  When I expanded the garden to a second tray last year, I purchased two 6 foot lengths, allowing a greater length in same direction.

The grow light is extremely delicate.  A replacement light bulb is $50 and that is handled separately.  The rest is a hunk of sheet metal shaped like a 3D extended trapezoid with 30 pound weight and cord on one end.  I've moved it alone but prefer help.

After the light is placed far away, I took down the extended rails and mounted them over the reflective mylar.  I had to make estimates to find the cross-beams, and nails are used to punch through the mylar and find the location of the beams.  I drilled holes for 4 inch bolts used to hold the beam to the ceiling, the same ones used in the original installation last year.

I reused another presentation board to finish the ceiling above where the platform would stand, and used the other half for starting the top of a curtain parallel to the load bearing support.  The curtain bottom was well under the planter height.  This created a 3 wall reflective curtain around the planter. Finally the light is installed with a small 5 inch fan blowing down on the light's transformer to distribute the heat and provide limited circulation.  I ran the cables over the cardboard to a local power strip.  At the time the light was running 12 hours a day.  My little power meter cold me I was paying $5.16 per month running the light.  I updated it to 18 hours a day.

I moved the platform in place and activated the light. One side of the assembly was still completely exposed, and that would need to wait for another day.

Growing platform in new location with grow light and mylar in place for 3 walls.

Different Harvests

For later weekends in August, I spent little time maintain the garden. I would check the water level every few days, and use a watering can to add 2 or 4 gallons.  Most weekends I had some small harvests, usually a bowl or two.  I even gave a lettuce plants to my mother.  With experience I found that there was different types of harvesting for basement gardens, like the selective, the pruning and the final harvest.  One of these are the types typically used in your outdoor garden.

Most outdoor gardeners want each plant to thrive and grow, harvests are made to keep the plants alive.  In an indoor garden, the less plants in an enclosed planter, the bigger the remaining plants can grow.  When lettuce is grown indoors, the leaves are not harvested, it is the entire plant.  The harvested plant’s root system should be pulled out of the planter.  Finally, additional dirt is added to fill the planter and provide additional nutrients for remaining plants.

Only harvest the amount needed.  How much of the vegetable is needed for the meal?  If the need is only enough for a few sandwiches, this would be a selective harvest. Pick the largest of the plants, and don’t take out chunks.  The selection should be distributed across the container, making space for adjacent plants.

When harvesting enough for a side dish, that’s a pruning harvest. The goal is to harvest a significant chunk of the plants in one container, and have the remaining plants to recover, expand and grow.

Then there is the final harvest.  This is when all the plants from one planter are harvested. There are other harvests earlier, but this should be a large harvest to turn the planter space around faster for the next harvest. Additional work after a final harvest is needed to plant the next vegetable.

There is also a Grand Harvest, which is when you are harvesting for a special side dish, typically for a party.  For a family gathering in February 2011, I had grown a full container of Swiss Chard that I rarely touched.  The leaves were huge, and a tall 20 gallon pot was filled.  I was able to steam enough for 6 adult Swiss Chard lovers, and even had leftovers. Harvested basement vegetables shelf life is pretty high, especially if refrigerate in vegetable bags available at supermarkets.  The bags are reusable.

It doesn’t take more than a few pinches of seeds to plant an entire container, and usually takes a month until the first harvest of any leafy vegetable such as lettuce, spinach or Swiss Chard.  The first few harvests can be early harvests of “baby” plants, where it might take many plants to make a meal.  When planning this approach, the distance between seeds when planting is closer than recommended, increasing additional plants in each planter by a factor of two or three.  Early pruning harvests of baby plants makes recommended space for the remaining plants. Additional dirt should be added to the planter after any pruning harvest.

Basement Farm Framework: Version 2, Part III

Basement Garden 8/5 - just before vacation
Note Beans sprouting

When we got back from our vacation, I heard a gutteral cry from behind the basement door.  It turns out the oldest cat, Patches, was in the basement.  We had a neighbor house sit and take care of the pets while we were gone, but I didn’t warn them that Patches will sneak down to the basement to spend time.  The way this cat was complaining, I guessed she may have been there for a few days.

Later when I checked the framework, it turned out that the cat created a “nest” in one of the planters closest to the window and under the grow light, so she could sun herself uninterrupted.  One of the lettuce planters had half the lettuce pushed down, and a newly planted Swiss Chard container had seedlings pressed into the dirt, covered with cat hairs.

Aside from that, the other 6 planters where growing well.  The Beans were going nuts.  I left with seedlings barely breaking ground and came back to six inch plants!  I underestimated the growth rate and size of beans, and realized I need to move things around in a few weeks.  The Swiss Chard planting looks like it was recovering from the squirrels, and one container of lettuce was ready for the first harvest.  I measured that under 2 gallons of water was used during the time we were gone, leaving plenty left in the 5 gallon pail.

Basement Garden 8/11 - back from vacation,
Note size of bean plants

Chuck and I arranged time to work on the watering via eMail while on vacation.  He showed up early on one of my last vacation days to give me a hand. I had already done some some carpentry work on the frame to support the 5 gallon water container, that’s 8.6 pounds.  I found a twenty gallon tank, but I needed to reinforce the framework to cover the additional weight. The 20 gallon reservour would weigh 170 pounds, a significant increase for the overall frame load.  Additional support would need to be in place before I purchased the reservour.

We wheeled the platform out of the basement, manuvered it down a two inch concrete lip to the garage.  Once we had it in the garage, we spent only 10-15 minutes removing the containers and disassembling the major components.  We had to put it on its side to install a 2x6 support beam under the location for the water tank, I also added a 7th pivot wheel under the beam, allowing the extra weight to rest directly over a ground support point.

We also reviewed my design for watering.  The upgrade would replace tubes tied to a 1x1 rectangular wooden frame with PVC pipes arragned as rectangles with large pre-drilled holes for the feeding pipes.  The original design two rectanges with a shared side, and 3-pipe corner PVC connectors with PVC holding it up to be over the planters.  I couldn’t feed the water tubing through the corner pieces, so T connectors were used instead, with the tubing going thouth the top of the T and support provided through the lower beams.  Each pipe had a T connection at each edge.  Three sides of each rectangle was a single pipe. The water feed came through the shared side, breaking two sides in half.  All together about 30 pieces of PVC pipe were cut. 20 of them used for support within a T connection, and under a foot in length.  Chuck couldn’t stay long that day, but his input in the design was helpful. The work on the watering system took much longer than expected, well into the night.  I completed test drips of the new water system.  All the drips were working fine, The new pump was driving water with regular dripping at all end-points. In a few additional places there were small drips came from the connection between the small feeder tubes and the larger ones.  I didn’t want to fix it immediately, but watch to see how long it deteriorates over time.

After making calculations, I realized that each of the drips completed two gallons per hour, with eight drippers in the farm platform. That is 16 gallons per hour, even though the tank is 5 gallons.  That means each our the entire water would flow through the system over three times in one hour.  Thank goodness for closed cycle watering.  I run the system for 2-4 hours, twice a day.

The worked went until late at night.  After completing the drip test, I filled the trays with the planters.  I forgot about the two inch step between the garage and basement.  This wasn’t something I could lift, but used a small piece of scrap plywood to make a ramp.  Once I got the first set of whells up over the ridge, the rest came easy.  I didn’t even spill any water.

After putting the framework back in place, I examined the working system.  There was little planned maintenance work to be completed at this point, I still need to fill the water tank with two gallons a few times a week.  Even though the normal New England farmers were planning for their early fall harvests, I was now focused more on planting for a late fall and winter harvest.

Why I started growing vegetables in my basement after 9/11

When people ask you where you were on 9/11, most people over 25 years old can tell you what they were doing when they first heard about the airplane strikes in the World Trade Center.  Before 2001, September 11^th was the date to celebrate my lovely step daughter’s birthday.  On that day, the date took on a whole new meaning for our country.

I remember hearing about a plane hitting the world trade center while driving to a customer site in MetroWest. I was listening to NPR, and the 9 am news announced the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. While working at the customer site, I kept up to date by checking the Wall Street Journal web site.  I could access live feeds from web sites based in the vicinity. What many people don’t know is when the buildings went down, it was the ultimate testing of the capabilities built into the Internet. The Internet was designed to survive a nuclear attack.  It turns out that on September 11, 2001, one of the largest Network Access Points on the Internet was destroyed.  A NAP is a data center used to exchange binary traffic between providers, and typically has more weight in legal paperwork than the actual equipment used for traffic.  The NAP located in the World Trade Center was demolished, and the Internet barely hiccupped.

Within a few hours it became apparent the scope of the attack.  Few of the planes took off from Logan airport.  I knew those flights, and realized that there may be people I know on those planes.  The attack also changed the Technology industry. Companies didn’t want to spend money on new enterprise software solutions, or consultants, and Venture Capitalists started to shut down startups.  I was working at a startup as a Product Manager consultant, but within 45 days I was out of work.

I was in a transition point in my career.  I had a solid engineering background, but little recent hands-on experience.  I was working towards an MBA, but was a Semester short of graduating.  I decided to focus on finishing my degree while the terrorism and wars filled the news channels.  I got my degree the following spring, but couldn’t find a full-time job.  I continued to look for work.  Eventually the unemployment ran out, we were on food stamps.  Eating healthy isn’t easy on a limited budget.  Produce, especially during the winter is an expensive side dish. 

I needed to find a job with benefits and decided to take a job doing retail sales at a local computer store chain store in early 2003.  I worked there for over two and a half year until I was able to get another job within the High Technology Industry of Corporate America.  It was over five years after the terrorist attack when my career recovered.

The family did go through some hard times, and I realized the first thing that we couldn’t afford is good food, specifically fresh produce and vegetables.  While growing up, our family always had a vegetable garden, but we had too many trees in our property to grow a garden.  Separate from improvements in my career, we decided to spend some money on improving the house.  Part of that improvement was removal of a few trees to make room for a 3-season porch.  That also created a spot in the back yard to try growing a vegetable garden.  We started planting our first garden in 2009.

In the spring of 2010, I was laid off again.  Unfortunately, the technology industry has become a transitional career.  I had a great garden that year but realized my future plans were uncertain.  Unemployment would stop some time later winter, and based on the economy, I could not guarantee if I would have a job by then. 

That’s when I decided to start a basement farm.  I had containers, a tray from early planting, seeds, and could water the plants by hand. all I needed was a grow lamp.  I planted indoors throughout the fall, winter and into early spring.  Throughout that time I also had enough lettuce for salads on a regular basis.  I thought that if I could get something growing, it would be cheaper than purchasing produce in the middle of winter.  If our family ended up on foodstamps, whatever grew would help us eat healthy at a low price.

The commitment to grow a basement farm is like cooking, you mix the ingredients together and let the fire or heat do the rest.  Within a few minutes or hour you consume the results. The difference is with any framing it takes months to see the outcome.  I did a planting of Swiss Chard in early November, got a job in January, and had my family over for dinner in early February.  I harvested enough Swiss Chard (a favorite family dish) for 8 people with leftovers. I even had an occasional spinach harvest.  I kept it going to spring, when I moved the containers outdoors, then discovered squirrels got to the harvest of Swiss Chard before I did.

It seemed like an overall successful project.

Basement Farm Framework: Version 2, Part II

When I was a little kid, I remember playing and building elaborate designs using plastic brinks, tinker toys and erector sets.  During grade school and into Junior high. I drew spaceships and submarines.

Somebody told me once “You’d be a good engineer.”

I asked “What that?”

They responded, “People who design things.”

“Cool” I replied, and from that day forward knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. Engineers are multi-disiplinary problem solvers, mathematicians and physists.  In the late 70s and early 80s, the computer industry was exploding, and starved for engineers with backgrounds in computer technology. I have spent all of my career with computers.  Starting with punch cards with mainframes, computer terminals connected to Prime and DEC VAXes, Workstations, PCs, Servers, hardware, software, networking before and with the Internet.

Now I was facing new territory of engineering and exploration, having completed building a framework to grow vegatables 365 days a year, in my basement.  I would have about10 square feet of farmland to work, with no weeds, no critters.  I wouldn’t have to worry about frosts or torrential rains. I built the system within 12 square feet of large cabinet space in the basement, with wheels in case I need to move it.  I am looking forward to see what can grow.

The last weekend in July was planned to set up the water and complete the planting.  I had four planters in the outdoor garden with Swiss Card and Lettuce, one of each was planted indoors and outdoors.  The difference between indoor and ourdoor planting became less apparent during the month they shared outdoors in the garden.  Both Swiss Chard containers shared various squirrel bites.  There was also four containers that  were to be planted from scratch.  Two containers were planted with green and wax beans and two with more Swiss Chard and Lettuce.

There was now a need for enough dirt to fill containers, decided to use the dirt in the container used for growing potatoes. Most of the dirt from this container was used to fill the planters, adding a little fertilizer as well.  I got down six inches into the dirt before I found my first potato!  I took a few pictures to send to my wife, then started to find more and more potatoes!  Most of them where small finger-size, but there were quite a few that were serving-size.  I collected about five pounds of potatoes. The planting was around April 23rd, and the plants died in mid-July, only about 80 days later.  That was a lot of potatoes for such short time! I was definately going to try planting this again!

The other major task was to get the water system running, with the first focus on drainage.  Two rectangular plastic bottles and cut off the tops were used as drain funnels.  Each was superglued to a threaded PVC pipe junction. Two nails were put into the 2x4 under the hole of the tray, and made slices into the bottle sides so they could be mounted onto the nails.  Water would drain through the hole, be captured within the rectangular funnel below it, and down the hose to the 5 gallon drum.

The old water distribution system could be used to start. The the water system was tested before the planters were in place.  This effort was worthwhile.  The draning had issues since the water was “running back” under the tray before it dropped by gravity.  The stream was more dynamic than I expected.  I did a quick improvise by taking a milk carton safety ring and hot-glueing it around the drilled hole.  This created a ridge which kept water flowing down almost directly under the hole.

The water system worked fine when resting on the trays, but when resting on the planters, it didn’t work.  It turned out my old cheap water pump was significantly underpowered and couldn’t reach the greater height.  This required a lunch-time motorcycle ride to a hydroponics store in Foxbrough.  He recommended one with over twice the power. It was home and installed it in the weekend evening, I noticed a significant difference in water output with the new pump.  This allowed me to reduce the watering time.

There was a new level of urgency to make sure the system worked, hands-off.  Within a week the family was going to go on vacation from Saturday to Thursday night.  The system needed to worked unattended, and hopefully not spring a leak while we where gone.  I did some additional drainage redesign and had something I was comfortable with. The original idea for drainage, using nails to hold plastic funnels made from a rectangular drink bottle for each of the two trays, worked okay. But didn’t survive long.  I ended up making loops and hooks out of electrical wire to hold the drainage systems in place.  Also, the garden hoses where changed to regular tubing to significantly reduce weight.

Basement Farm: 8/5/11

I took the following picture before we left on vacation.  I was hoping nothing would happen to this little farm. I didn’t know what I would be coming home to, and I was hoping there wouldn’t be a tragic failure while we were gone.  Otherwise the system would just work, automated lighting and watering unatteneded for 5 days.  This is really a trial run. It should be able to do longer than that!