January 1, 2012 journal

We are having an unusually mild winter so far, however, it is like waiting for the other shoe to fall, as I am sure it will not last. This afternoon, the temperature was 51 degrees F outdoors, and in the greenhouse the temperature was in the mid seventies.

The Giant Marconi seedling was ready to be transplanted and the perlite was in the greenhouse, so I mixed the media and performed the transplant in the greenhouse. It is amazing what a few hours of warm temperatures and bright sunshine did for my disposition.

The pepper seedling was planted in my homebuilt autopot, which was placed in the second tent, and I will be using a six band flower series 126 watt LED with a photoperiod of 14 hours. The light is positioned 14 inches above the plant, and at the plant level I recorded a reading in excess of 5,000 footcandles.

I have decided that going forward I will use EC as a unit of measurement for nutrients, rather than TDS, as EC is supposed to be more accurate. As I want to use a single reservoir to feed both the tomatoes and peppers, I chose an EC that will work for both, 2.7.

The bottom photo shows part of the harvest from the Balcony Hybrid tomato grow, so I will call that project a success. I am sure that there are still people who will say that LED lighting does not work, no matter how many examples like this they see. Then again, there are people who still doubt the Lunar landings.