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| I still need a home, I am a sweet little girl and love to be loved. |
Good evening from the mountain, I started on my
college classes today, got most of them done for the week save the live class
that I must attend at the early hour of eight o’clock in the morning. That means milking goats at around six
thirty, dressing gathering my things together and leaving by seven, just to
make it there on time. I am not looking forward to it.
I also still have paper work that has to be turned
in in order to retrieve my books and in order to get my classes paid for. America that land of endless paper work, it
is so bad sometimes, I think I should carry a little file cabinet with me where
ever I go. Tomorrow I must turn in paper
work that has been traded for other paper work; one group needs my taxes to be
from the government the other will not accept the governments copy and insists
on. What a mess it all is, then on top
of all that, they need me to give them the results of a test I did like two
years ago that they had a copy of, in short they lost their copy. I am less then pleased, but I just want to
finish this degree and be done with it.
I baked a cake today, just a little reward to myself
for making it this far, we are also having pot roast with fresh vegetables from
the garden, life is good when you can eat your own food.
I and Michael have been working hard to keep the
garden going and tonight I pulled more tomatoes off the vine. I went out and used organic fertilizer in
hopes to give the plants a small boost.
Hover with temps in the 100’s F there is very little hope the plants
will make it. I cannot give them enough
water to overcome the heat and bugs. So far
I will not be able to put up enough tomato sauce to get us through the winter
and no green beans. That means the winter
crops have to make, but in case this all goes bad, I have a backup plan. I have been buying a piece here and there for
the new hydroponics system that should help us make it through the winter with
fresh food.
I may have already told you about it, but if not
here goes. The base of the unit is a 20 gallon Rubbermaid tote, or other brand
tote, not clear, with a lid. You will
put the water and fertilizer in that, as well as the pots. The pots, I bought on Amazon and they are
hydroponic pots that measure 3 inches across.
I think I got 12 for fewer than six dollars. The next thing I needed was aquarium hose and
a two port aquarium pump, and two eight inch long bubble bars, got these at Walmart,
Ten dollars for the pump, under three for the hose and less than five for the
two bars. All I had left to get was the
clay pellets, like you would use for orchids, I ordered them from Amazon,
around ten dollars for enough to do two totes full of pots. Oh and the light, I use a very simple and
cheap full spectrum florescent bar light, it gives 120 watts of light for under
11 watts, at a cost of around twelve dollars.
Total cost for one unit is around forty seven dollars, not including
organic water based fertilizer and plants.
The first you must take the pots and trace six of
them on the top of lid, then cut the holes slightly smaller than the pots. This will allow the pots to set in the lid
and later in the water. The next set of course is to set the pots in the lid,
after this you will need to drill two holes just under the handle to run the aquarium
tubing through, so that you can add the two bubble blocks in to the bottom of
the tote. Once you have the hoses run connect
them to the aquarium pump. Fill tote with water and check to make sure that
once you turn the pump on you have bubbles.
These bubbles are a super important part of the whole process. Once you have bubble and all looks good,
close the lid, and add the amount of organic liquid fertilizer into the tote
which is now full of water and bubbling away.
Now it is time to add the pots and the plants, almost any plant will
grow this way; I will start with peppers and tomatoes as we use tons of
these. The next tote I will do with zucchini
and green beans and maybe I will add more latter. When you add the plants, be sure to gentle
wash off all the soil, then place the plants roots gentle in the pot, filling
in the space with the clay pellets. A
few things to think about, once you add water to the tote is will be really
hard to move, so place it were you want it first. I set the light around 8 inches from the
plants, moving them higher as the plants grow.
Well the sun is setting in the sky and I need to go
and get some other work done.
Be Blessed dear ones…
Shekhinah
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