Growing vegetables indoors

[Hugh Damright]

Someone mentioned insects ... I have never grown plants inside without a fungus gnat problem. The larva stage lives in the soil and eats the root hairs and will kill plants. There is a safe product called "bacillus thuringiensis israelensis", or "bti" for short, that works well, except that it has a short life span and none of the products seem to have an expiration date, so it's hard to know what you're getting. You can find it at Lowes and maybe Walmart as something called "mosquito dunks". Also it cannot freeze, so if you need to mail order it, don't wait until winter.  I'm told that a product called "scanmask" works better, but it's expensive.

[gunsmith]

next spring I'm planting green peppers

[never_retreat]

So I did some research (I know shocking) And started some lettuce about 3 weeks ago.

Large large white tray is a flood tray. There is a tub of nutrients underneath. 3 times a day a pump comes on and fills the tray up to the overflow. When the pump turns off the tray drains.

The black tray is a different setup called deep water culture. It is full of solution with an air stone in the bottom to keep it oxygenated.
The plants are growing in cubes of rock wool. I cut holes in a piece of foam board that is floating in the liquid with the plants stuck in.
These were were moved into this system today. I was told this is the quickest way to grow lettuce. We will see, its a test run for now.
The small tray is in the big one so it could be under the same lights for now.

Lights are 4 t8 fluorescents in 2 cheep home depot fixtures, 2 warm white and 2 cool white.
I also just planted 8 more seeds today, hopefully I can keep a constant flow of plants.

[zxcvbob]

I'll start my first pepper seeds this weekend if I don't get around to it during the week.  Tomato seeds get started in early April.  My big pepper plants that I dug up and potted in October are still alive and don't look too bad except they are covered with some kind of small insects.  I need to spray them with a systemic (probably use Cygonâ„¢ which I have an old bottle of that's labeled for use on vegetables)

I read something about "air root pruning" that looks interesting so I'm gonna try it.  The little pots are open at the bottom and sitting hardware cloth so air can circulate under.  When the roots emerge out the bottom, the tips die and the roots branch and form a compact root system.  So i'll use 3 ounce dixiecups a hole punched in the bottom and turned upside-down for pots.  I'll also use some standard 4-packs and 3" and 4" plastic pots just in case the dixiecup thing is a disaster.

[AJ Dual]

http://www.ledsupply.com/docs/reef-tank_diy-instructions.pdf

You could try adapting an idea like this to use just blue and red LED's as an experiment. I'd do it on the uber-cheap though, just epoxy them all to a big piece of scrap steel or something as a heat-sink instead of a big pricey block of aluminum. And not worry about all the fancy dimming options either that a saltwater reef tank would need since it need not be pretty, or fit inside an aquarium lid.