lax updates, State machines and rain,rain,rain

Apologies for the lack of posts and updates, alas, I have been rather busy of late.

Work has been busy, between a product release scheduled for 2 weeks and getting the .Net Micro framework to talk to a gprs modem with AT commands (ok, that is geek for saying I am trying to get a very small computer, kinda like a small ipod, to talk to that thing in a cell phone that lets you go online.) Hectic, but fun.

On the green side, things have been rather uneventfull. It has been raining, a lot, every day in fact for the last 2 weeks. Typical African weather, hot clear mornings, come 3 pm, clouds then rain and cold.

The Green peppers are growing, slowly, but growing. The new chilli’s are coming along. I bought a little fish tank full spectrum light to augment my aeroponic setup in the kitchen, and I have had them under there for a few days and looking good.

The aeroponic setup has been a little disappointing from a rooting/cloning perspective. Most of the cutting I made have died. But it has been spectacular with the orchids!! We have revived and regrown 3 to the point where they can be replanted outside, and 2 more cuttings are showing new buds. Yay, in cost terms,that about covers the cost of the setup, so happy days.

I put some sweet basil into my lettuce raft, and that is working nicely. They are about twice the size of their brother and sisters in the pot plants. Me thinks I might make a dedicated basil raft. I have notice though, that basil does not like the the one plant food I have. It does have enough potassium, and they go down hill really fast. Strange that because the green peppers love that food.

The Tomatos are going well. The second plant is now way bigger than the first, and it’s full of flowers, so a good crop from that one will be had. The sick one is much better and is spreading out again. the 2 fruits have grown and it will be a toss up bewtween them and the green bpeeper as to which one will be the first fruit to get harvested from my system .

I have some photo’s but please excuse the quality, the battery was dying and it was raining….

Till next time.

 

Congratulations Mr Farmer, it’s a …..umm, Green Pepper?

Well Sunday here again, another week, another month. There are already Christmas decorations out. But luckily for me Christmas has come early. It is small green and looks like a pepper. Ergo, if it floats lie wood and weighs the same as a duck, it must be a witch !!  Therefore I present to you the first of fruit from the DFT tubes :

Me thinks its a greenie

 I was rather hoping that the majority of the plants in the tubes would be chilli. However, having now got a semi positive ID on what a green pepper looks like, I would say that the majority are the 0 scoville scale variety. None the less, good job all round.

I am also happy that the bushes are positively teaming with fruit set, half the flowers have dropped, and of most of those are setting up nicely.

Even more surprising after I discovered a rather big oversight on my part. The reservoir was almost on empty. so empty that the pump the pumps were almost running dry.

Now, this is a rather strange occurrence, as it is a 110 litre tank, and we have had a few weeks of light rain. The last thing I expected was an empty tank. Obviously now, the PH in the tank was waaay off, down to almost 5. The plants in the gutter had some serious nutrient/acid burn, but the chilli/peppers were rocking.

the miracle of nature/science

So,I performed and unscheduled water, umm, refill I suppose, and all is well on the hydro front. I pondered this development last night , and concluded that the gutter it either holding too much water, or, it is allowing for more evaporation.

Seeing that we have had rain and mild weather, if it is evaporation, we might be in poo come the real summer.

I have put some 90% shade cloth over it now, but I really need to make up a cover of some kind. I will save that for next weekend. (gutter on the far left)

 

More good news, The hot as a penthouse centerfolds big toe chilli’s have decided to join us. Most have geminated now. Unfortunately I only have 1 Bhut jolokia up. I have planted another seed in the trays, and have set up on it a container and am trying to germinate him inside, so we will see, har,har,har. I is excite!!

grow baby grow!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other than that, the only real news is that the tomato is recovering, new leaves have formed and the fruit are growing.  The second tomato bush has got big and is flowering too, so all is well on the lycopene front.

I will leave you with some more photo’s of the progress, and say salaaaaam. I must go and do some work. Busy playing with a GPRS cell phone module, trying to code it to send SMS’s and stuff .

Me thinks its a greenie

hmm, yes.

grow baby grow!!

soon…. eish

the miracle of nature/science :)