Journal May 21, 2016- Cucumbers being hardened off.

The cucumbers for the greenhouse and garden are being hardened off in the greenhouse.  This year I will be growing Little Leaf in the greenhouse and Straight Eights outdoors.

Today I put together a fruiting chamber for the mushrooms.  It is simply a container with moist perlite on the bottom.  There is a glass jar with water in it and an airstone being fed by an aquarium pump.  The objective is to keep the humidity above 90% and the temperature in the mid 70s F.  For lighting I will be using a 6500K grow light, plus a blue LED grow light with a photoperiod of 16 hours.

The coyote continues to visit the trail camera on a regular basis now.  I don't know when it sleeps, as it is photographed late at night and during the day.

It has some competition in so far as a Fisher, also called by some a Fisher Cat, also drops by.  The Fisher. a member of the Martin family does not take fish, and is not a cat.  The Fisher has no enemies other than humans, so it goes about its business with a confident John Wayne swagger.

Now that I know these critters are hanging around the trail camera I never go there anymore without my friend Sam Colt.  There are several of them that the camera has captured, with this one being the largest so far.  It is plainly as large as a German Shepard, but I doubt it will come wagging its tail to lick hour hand.

Journal May 19, 2016 - Tomatoes Flowering and setting fruit

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are flowering and setting fruit, so they are taking in a lot of water.  Today I connected the waterlines to the large tank to automate the watering process.

Also, I planted the garden tomatoes, only this year I have covered the soil with black plastic to control weeds and retain warmth and moisture.  Can't wait to see how this works!

The first bloom of oyster mushrooms will be just about ready to pick in another day or so.

In just this short period of time mycelium is forming on the sterilized corrugated that I placed in the tissue culture vessel.  The book I received from the library says that as long as it is white, everything is OK, any other color and it is contaminated.  Sterilize, sterilize, and sterilize some more.

 I read that mycelium will continue to form as long as it has cellulose to consume, so I intend to transfer some of this batch to another vessel with sterilized corrugated and try to keep the process going.

The inoculated grain I purchased on eBay has been placed in used coffee grounds that I sterilized and vacuum sealed.  For the fruiting stage I am simply using a pastry container from the supermarket.

When we went for ice cream last night we asked the girl at the counter for used coffee grounds, so I have another batch to process.  At this rate the mushrooms will cost practically nothing at all to grow.

If this process works, no one will be more amazed than me!

Jounal May 15, 2016 - This and that

The annuals were placed in the ground yesterday, but they had already begun to bloom while still in the greenhouse.  It was so nice to see flowers after the long winter, that I could not resist urge to take a few photos.  From top to bottom: Zinnia Pulcino, Dwarf Dahlia and just a plain old Zinnia.

Needless to say it is frustrating to wake up each morning to find your garden dug up after you  have put so much effort into planting it.  The trail camera was put to use to find out just who the culprits were, and to no surprise it was squirrels.  I like animals as much as the next person, however, these critters are destructive and persistent; there is just no discouraging them.

 The fox family has kits to feed, so I am sure that they appreciated having the squirrels drop by for dinner. There has been no further damage since the culprits had their unfortunate accident while digging.

Last week while shopping at Home Depot my wife tossed a kit to grow mushrooms into the cart.  She says she has always wanted to try to grow mushrooms, so what the heck?  So far, the kit, seen on the right, has done nothing at all.  After doing some research online I decided to give growing them without a kit a try, so I purchased some mushrooms at the supermarket.

We watched a two part video on YouTube about growing them in used coffee grounds.  It said coffee shops will be glad to give  you their used grounds, and sure enough all  you have to do is ask.  They even provided the bags for God's sake!

The  video guy went through a lot of hoopla about getting mycelium to form on mushroom pieces on corrugated that he has supposedly pasteurized with hot water.  Yeah!

This person was stressing keeping a sterile environment, while rubbing his hands on everything and flopping things around on a table. Yeah sure!

This I could not believe: At the end of the second video there is a notice printed on top of the frame that says the process got contaminated and did not work.  Why the hell did he leave the whole video online?  No wonder it got contaminated the way he was tossing stuff around.

Anyway, I have no idea of whether this is going to work, but I decided to give it a try using the sterilization methods used in plant tissue culture.

Corrugated cardboard was cut into squares to fit a tissue culture vessel.

The pieces were soaked in water and the corrugated separated from the paper backing.

After sterilizing  the corrugated, containers and utensils under pressure, I placed small pieces of mushroom into a vessel between alternate layers of corrugated.  All of the above processes were carried out under a sterile hood.

The used coffee grounds have been sterilized and vacuum sealed to prevent contamination.  If, and when, mycelium forms on the mushroom pieces, I will place them into the coffee grounds, in a container sterilized with alcohol.

All parts of this experiment are being kept under cover, as sterile as possible, while waiting to see if  mycelium forms on the mushroom pieces.  I have no idea at all if this is going to work, but it should be interesting.

It would be nice if it did work, as mushrooms grow quickly, and once you have them going you can keep an endless supply coming along.

Journal April 21, 2016 - Tomatoe plants in the greenhouse

The tropic tomatoes have been planted in the auto-pots and placed in the greenhouse for the season.  The valves and water lines have not been installed, as I plan on top watering them for several days until they become acclimated.

Using the wheelbarrow, I mixed several batches of soil to up pot some olive and fig trees, now I ache all over from lugging the bags of ingredients around.  It seems I work harder at this hobby than I ever did when I was employed.

Tomorrow I will start the cucumber seeds for the greenhouse, so I will have to decide which variety I will grow.

This year I will use nylon netting to support the cucumbers in the greenhouse.  It should be much easier to deal with than the poly webbing.

Journal April 19, 2016 - Figs are budding.

I noticed this small nodule on the Brown Turkey fig tree this morning and it took a moment before I realized that it was a fig bud.  Upon further inspection I found several more forming on the tree.  Figs are far far easier to grow in a greenhouse than olives, I can attest to that.

Having said that, now that I have had some experienced with olives, and have become familar with their nuances,  I am more comfortable with them.  The tree in the photo is a Greek variety called Koroneiki, it fruits in a few years, is prolific, and makes a very good container variety.  There is an Arbosana tree next to it that is still flowering that may be even more prolific.

It appears as though I am going to have to up pot the tomatoes and annuals, as they are getting too big for 3" pots.  Planting in the garden is still a month away, so there is little choice but to transplant the garden seedlings.  In the next few days I plan on moving some of the olive trees outdoors for the summer,  placing some of the tomato plants in auto-pots in the greenhouse to begin the season.

The trail cam was used to identify the culprit digging up the garlic and onions.  

Having had enough of their destruction, I ordered a humane trap on eBay. In less than a week 14 of these destructive animals have been relocated  far far far away.  The sets have been undisturbed for the last several days, now that the population of varmits has been reduced.

Journal April 8, 2016 - Garden starts

Up until now the garden seedlings have been indoors under grow lights.  The next few days are forecast to be cool and cloudy, so I decided to begin the hardening off process by letting them spend several hours in the greenhouse.

Right now under cloudy skies the greenhouse temperature is 53 with the humidity at 66%.  To avoid damping off  I have been bottom watering the seedlings and keep them sort of on the dry side.   So far, everything looks fantastic.

Last night the temperature was below freezing, but using the mechanical timer set from 8 pm to 8 am the greenhouse remained a comfortable 54 degrees F.

Using Thermo Cube for greenhouse heater

In a previous post I mentioned purchasing a Thermo cube to control the heater for the greenhouse.  Up until recently it has not been cold enough to adequately test the unit, but that changed a few days ago.

Our weather has changed dramatically, with several inches of snow and temperatures well below freezing, both during the day and at night.  The plants were brought back indoors until the weather moderates, so with the greenhouse empty I decided to test the cube.

The Thermo cube was a dismal failure when it came to controlling the heater, while it seemed to work, somewhat, with a small LED light.  My thinking was that the resistance to the electrical current draw of the 1500 watt heater was causing a heat build up in the cube circumventing the thermostat.  When I spoke with one of their representatives, I was told that that was not possible, as the thermostat was bi-metal construction.  

We all know that when an electric appliance is working, the cord and outlet, even the circuit breaker, get warm.  How do they expect the heat caused by resistance within the cube not to affect the bi-metal thermostat?

The above photo shows the cube with just the LED lights which draw a watt, or less.  The temperature is in the thirties and the cube has the light turned on.  As seen in the photo there are two very accurate thermometers in proximity to the cube and circuit.

When the heater is plugged in, the grey cord on the left, the cube turns off in a minute or so, as you can see by the lights.  The test has been repeated several times over the last 24 hours with the results being the same.  Additionally, I have tested two different cubes with identical results.

If you have purchased a Thermo cube and intend to use it to control  greenhouse heating, beware, test it thoroughly before you trust  it.  These tests were conducted with four different heaters: 600 watts, 900 watts, 1300 watts, and 1500 watts.  The published rating on the device is 1800 watts, so all of the heaters were within the device's specifications.

This morning I will be returning the cubes for a refund and will go back to a simple mechanical timer and oil filled radiator for heating the greenhouse.  These have served me very well for a number of years now, so it just proves: Don't mess with success.