Solar water pump

China is often used as a warning exemple in the ongoing debate about our sick environment. That's why I think it's fun to post this vid. It's from the chinese company Greenbaba (I suspect the name translates as "Daddy Green"*), and shows a test of a solar water pump. Greenbaba specialises in solar gadgets and their website has a quite good facts section on solar energy.

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*Mandarin is a language with few phonemes (sound units) and lots of morphemes (meaning units). I haven't found the chinese signs for the company, so I can't be 100% sure that "baba" stands for "daddy".

The kitchen window

I thought I had more spices, but when I looked into my seed 'library' the only things that aren't already growing are dill and lemon thyme. Eventhough I'll plant a new thyme (tastes good in the spice oil) it feels a bit bland. Will I need to do some online shopping at Impecta again? Normally I would rejoice at the thought, but now I want to keep my wallet in a tight grip*.

Hmmmm, I have some ramson stuffed away. That'll be the plan; I'll plant ramson and lemon thyme when I've tidied away the dead plants. Some of the living needs bigger pots and I'll position them better - right now everything is cramped to make room for plants now dead or moved to other places. The entire garden will be given a two week daily shower with clean water - there's an undefined pest here that I want to clean away.

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*I try to keep my inner shopper in check, but she manages to escape all too often.

Window for basil and tomatoes

Well, the result of artsy ambitions; you can't see the plants. But admit that the backlight is pretty cool...



Here's a amatuerish picture where you actually can see the motif. This is my son's window. I've already managed to do a few things, I've removed the deadest (I would compare that adjective in swedish too, at least when I talk about plants) herbs and flowers, and given the strawberries a facelift and a healthy shower. Now I only have to empty the pots and sterilize them before I put fresh plants on the sill. The son ordered basil as well as tomatoes, and he wanted the strawberries to stay. Perhaps he wanted some more too, I'm embarrassly absentminded in this respect. We'll probably do some negotiations when it's time to sow, I have a big collection of seeds and I'm not afraid to use it.

In the distant future I wish for another growlight in here, and perhaps another aquaponic system. My hubby, who is both more experienced and have his feet firmly planted on the ground, have pointed out that any fish tank that fits into the shelvingunit beside the window will be pretty small. And I know that... but I can still dream, right?

Autumn and new plans

This week are going to be a sad one here at Indoor Gardener. I intend to show how my windows looks after a period of neglect. It's for a good cause though, I'm planning the new gardens at the same time.

Perhaps a bit cowardly I open with the window that looks the best. There are some serious amounts of tomatoes ripening there. The plants needs to be watered twice a day (I have a feeling I've been through this before...), and every time I rattle the flowers a bit. It's said to make the plant set more fruits, and the method seems to work. The chard is doing well too, I'll probably make chard gravy for our chicken tomorrow.

I need to do two things here. The cuttings in the front row needs to be planted in soil, and the selfwatering container needs mending. The son poured a spade of soil in the water pipe when he helped me sow the seeds, and the pipe has been plugged ever since. I do suspect I need to clean the clay pebbles in the bottom section once I get around to disassemble the container. Right now the chard seems to do well with ordinary from-the-top watering, so I'm in no hurry. But I'll probably stick to growing tomatoes and chard in this window.


If we take a look at the upper section things do worse. There are as many dead plants as there are living. The common purslane looks pretty scrubby after several dry periods. The pots are too small for this place; it's a window facing south that gets hot as soon as the sun comes out. I should have watered thrice a day, but not even I are that dedicated.

So, what am I to do with this place once I've cleaned out the wiltering bodies? One or two stevias will probably live here, since stevia loves light. Perhaps I'll add a basil to them. The leaf amaranth had sturdy culinary qualities I like, so I'll probably sow some in a container too. I'm more uncertain about what to do with the iceplants. They grow well, but I don't like the taste; they taste like bland tea made from old tennis shoes. Perhaps it's better to use the plant in mixes so I'll save it long enough to try it out with the purslane and some smoked pork loin. Whatever I sow I'll put them in selfwatering containers. The soil and the roots don't do as well as in terra cotta pots, but at least the plants will have water.

My dream is to build a aquaponic system here. It'll be a complicated one; normally the plantbox is placed above the fishtank to make the clean water pour from the plants to the fishes through gravity. Here I'll probably need two pumps; one to get the dirty water to the top level windowsill, and one to pump the clean water back into the tank. And I need to figure out where to put the tank. The most obvious place is in the shelving unit, but will the indoor hubby and the books allow a massive relocation?

Cats and roombas

Yes, we do own a roomba. One of our best purchases, cleans better than we do. To cats, though, it's something of a mystery. Here we have a brave couple facing the selfmoving vacuum for their first time.



Wise cats overcome their fear and make the vaccum (or in this case a scooba) their slave. Pitty that the robot isn't as easily controlled as humans are...

Growing potatoes indoors all the year around

See! It works!

Strange tastes...

It has to be something wrong with me. I like chard and spinach, especially chard...

Onion

Our weekly ration of organic vegetables was delivered today. We've been waiting for onions, and 'they' turned out to be one humungous bulb (yes, that's a tennis ball of normal size in the picture). How impractical. I'm not a friend of leaving onion halves on a plate in the fridge, so the only thing I can use this for is a gigantic chili con carne, or perhaps a large onion and cheese pie.

This reminds me that I've seen aquaponic gardeners growing onions in their systems. I still have hopes for growing roots of various kinds indoors! Preferable roots of a more reasonable size.

To have or not to have...

I went down to my allotment this Sunday and concluded that I had lost the battle against the weeds. As you may recall I planned to keep the garden low maintenance by weeding the beds a little each day.

Heh.

Glorious hopes in the beginning of a season. In the wake of autumn I'm getting doubts weather I should keep the allotment or not. It's fun to grow stuff there, but the beds steals times from my indoor gardens. Right now neither are getting the attention needed.

However, I hesitate. It's hard to abandon the plans I had for raised bed gardening, with the beds painted red with white corners (the most common colour scheme for houses in Sweden). On the other hand I have plans for my indoor gardens with the same amount of wackyness and interesting results.

Decisions, decisions... I'll tell you tomorrow what I've decided.

I think.

Maybe.

Or...

Yes.

Chocozombie

I'm trying to cut down on hot cocoa. After two days of only one monster cuppa per day I'm shuffeling greyfaced around the house groaning

"Choooocolaaaaate, choooooocolaaaaaaate!"

It's possible to water house plants meanwhile, as long as you don't chew the soil because it's brown.

Beware of the wrath of swedish old ladies...

You have to admire the guy with the camera who reacts to the ruckus behind him. My tip to the yuppie in the cab; next time you encounter an old lady asleep(!) at the zebra crossing, a friendly call will work much better! Old time favourite vid that I now realise is shot in Sweden - little old swedish ladies rules!

Mulching your Garden with Newspaper and Cocoa

I knew it! I've finally found a way to combine gardening and chocolate!

The tomato window again

My current pride. Tomatoes and chard. Fits the available space and will be delicious when cooked. Yum!

Wow!

I'm starting to get the hang of this! Still everything isn't fixed, and I'm working hard to streamline the methods, but I know what I need and how I am to put things together. If I'm lucky this next year will be filled with building the systems and adjusting them.

If I'm lucky - life has a habit of throwing in surprises in the last minute, and then the real work starts.

I want to exchange my homemade vermicompost for one or two Can-O-Worms, and add a bokashi set to that to be able to handle meat and fish too. An unexpected bonus is that I can buy bokashis in Sweden, joy! I'm about to construct and put up an automatic irrigation set for those plants not growing in self watering containers. Right now a few days of extra work elsewhere means that I leave them without water. In one window I'm planning a aquaponics system, with 'normal' pet fishes. Tilapia is popular in this connection since the fish gives a lot of food on a cramped space, but the water needs to be warmed for it to thrive, so in the beginning I have to stay content with this alternative. The Indoor Gardener Hubby, who is an engineer and former chairman of the local aquarium association, will have a lot to do this autumn.

Speaking of surprises. I just googled "Can O Worms" on german websites and the first hit was a site with worms conserved in tin cans. I hope they are sold to fishermen, but one never knows - worms are protein too...

Environmental friendly ponderings

The worms thrive in their compost, but find it a bit small. I wonder if this is a good reason for travelling to Great Britain and buy a Can O' Worms? But if I go there to buy something that makes me more environmental friendly it feels pretty stupid to go by air (saving on the pennies while wasting on the pounds so to say*). Going by train adds considerable to travel time, and this means I "have" to stay longer at the destination. The question is how am I going to justify that, considering the added cost of lodging and so forth.

Yes, I know it's simple to order one online and get it sent home by post, but that's not as fun.

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*For some reason a translation of this simile felt more natural in brittish currency, but since I know I have a lot of american readers I can't resist making a conversion
"saving on cents while wasting on the dollars". There. And I didn't even need an online converter ;)

Wooden management

You may have noticed that I'm not updating daily as I used to. It's because I'm reading up on podcasting and projecting two podcasts. I'll return to the content of these, right now I'm just happy to be able to exercise my project management skills, which is the reason I posted this vid. It truly catches the life of a project manager.

Light, please!

When someone is hinting like this you have to take action. My stevia "Steve" was placed in the darkest corner of the darkest window I use. As you can see he's gone far to make clear that he wanted change. The plant have reached from one corner to another, becoming entangled with chives, sage and basil in the process. In the meantime I've been busy with other things.

I'm still busy with other things, but you can't ignore a plea for too long. Today I cut down Steve completely and put what's left of him in the sunniest window available. The tops of the branches were put in a glas of water to be used as cuttings. Putting them directly into soil works better, but I had to budget my strength and opted for the lightweight alternative. The rest of the branches were stripped of leaves, and I put the leaves in a netbag to dry them for further experiments.

Now, when I had gained speed I used the excess basil to make a litre of spicy oil, using basil (surprise), a fresh chilifruit, garlic and olive oil. This oil is great to use when making baked root vegetables, and has become the saving recipe when I need to trim my herb garden. We will eat yummy root vegetables until October.

Now I can lean back and enjoy the nice sight of oil jars in a kitchen that is twice as bright as before. Wow!

How to get rid of fruit flies

One of the fun things with blogging is the commentaries you get (hint, hint :) ). Whitney sent a link to the blogpost of last day. It's an article about getting rid of fruitflies, which means some of it won't bite on fungus gnats, but the text gives valuable hints on how to think, and some tips works for everything. In addition I know irritating a fruit fly population can get once it's established in your home, so I do think this is a link for everyone.

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies

Dark-winged fungus gnats

Vermicompost with flytrap in their natural environment (I didn't use the flash due to low battery when I took this photo - I haven't soften it to make vermicomposting romantic ;) ).

Bummer! The other week I tried to show my son the worms in the vermicompost - of course with the evil plan to introduce him to recycling and the circle of life. I mean: worms seems to be an important part of boys' childhood, he could hardly find them repulsive.

And he was ok with the worms. It was the CLOUD of fungus gnats he didn't like. He found himself some important thing to do in another room, and I was left alone with the composting chore. I was warned that vermicompost would bring out flies, and now I could see the result of not putting up fly-traps in time.

The gnats thrive among my plants too, and I've added a hunting session to my daily routine. Every gnat I find is killed on the spot. This wont make my home completely free from the pest, I'm aiming for a substantial decimation of the population. I don't want to use pesticides, we live here ourselves and I feel sick every time I step into a room where spray has been used. Nemablom, an insecticide containing nematodes, is under consideration, but I won't use it untill I know if this kind eats other larvae and worms too. If they infect worms they're not much use in a vermicompost...

There are a few advantages. Crushed fungus gnats (which I think sometimes are refered to as fruitflies even in english language - this is a common mixup in Sweden at least) smells good. Some smells faintly of musk, others like sea- and lemon scented cleaning agents. This sometimes work the other way around, I know elders that can't stand the smell of modern cleaning agents since they associate it with fungus gnats. For my own part I focus on the positive side - and wash my hands afterwards.

Rain - Madonna

I've just returned inside after three hours of work in grey and cold rain. That weather looks so much better on video, but my chard is growing so I'm happy anyway.