January 20, 2012 journal

Today I began soaking seeds for Early Wonder beets, as the chard in the photo is just about ready to harvest. At the market today chard and beet greens were being sold for $2.49 per bunch. It seems a decent price, except, the size of the "bunch" was so small you need a bunch for each individual serving. It is well worth the effort to grow either of these greens.

The chard grew exceptionally well under the LED, so I will dedicate the light and system to chard and beets.

Not to belabor the subject of LEDs, however, the Giant Marconi pepper plant being grown under the six band flower series LED is producing buds already. It is five weeks from the time I started the seeds, and we all know how long it takes just for a pepper seed to germinate.

This is really the first actual test of my revised homebuilt AutoPot, and so far it is working perfectly. I will remove the first four or five buds to allow the plant to put its energy into growing before I allow any flowers to form. So far, so good, but what can possible go wrong, as Ava has Sprout keeping an eye on things.