So far so good.  Pretty soon we may be eating homegrown cucumbers by the tens if not hundreds!  And it starts with a flower and develops the fruit.  So pleased to see this part starting!  Do you see it?

The amazing thing about live plants as a product is that they turn out exactly what you need to make more of it!  Our first round black seeded simpson lettuce grown indoors has pretty well run it’s course.  The remaining plants have bolted, creating a more bitter flavor in the lettuce leaves.  But that doesn’t mean it is time to feed the plants to our chickens and worms!  Some of the lettuce plants I will allow to continue to grow and produce more seed for future crops.  God is amazing in his design work.

Perhaps the 1000 watt LED with it’s blue and red spectrum lights casting a very noticeable pink hue into the front of our subdivision was a little overkill.  That light was so bright I had to take one of those windshield reflectors from Dollar Tree and create a backstop for the light just so we could use the room that it is in.

It’s replacement is a much more streamline and reasonable brightness clocking in at 45 watts.  It is my hope that with this supplemental LED light and the natural daylight we can get in this western facing window, that’ll be all we need to grow fresh vegetables and herbs right in our front room.  We’ve been able to take down the light shield, and the pink hue is much less noticeable.  So long as we get continued growth, this was a great move (and the light only cost $28 shipped.

Psalm 119:105 (NIV) — Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Perhaps every experiment starts out with a certain level of enthusiasm.  The idea that perhaps I could fill a mason jar with fish waste water from my aquaponic tank, leave it alone under lights for 30+ days and then be able to eat homegrown lettuce or kale was no exception.

To the left is the kale plant grown in this experimental fashion.  To the right is the kale grown from the same saved seed as the other, but in soil under the same lights.  I think we have a clear winner.

Does this mean my kratky experiments are over?  Of course not!  I am pondering about buying some hydroponic nutrients and running a side-by-side experiment with the kratky method done the traditional way and one with this aquaponic water to see if it was a nutrient issue or another variable.  Fun! Fun! Fun!  Who says I shouldn’t play with my food?

Microgreen production has reached the point that I no longer want to use that manual sprayer, so I forked over the $6.27 for a pump action sprayer to be delivered to me from China via Amazon.  Patiently waiting the three or four weeks it takes to arrive, I’m so excited to implement this simple and relatively inexpensive efficiency tool.

I wash the China smell out of the sprayer.  I mix up a new batch of H2O2 (one half cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide in one gallon of water) to use as my sanitizing solution in the spray bottle.  I pump up the pressure, and ahhhhh that’s so good !!!

I set the hand held pump sprayer down on the shelf.  It rolls off.  Gravity takes hold and at an accelerating pace pulls my new tool to the ground and SNAP!  The tip breaks.  It still works a bit, but not well.  And it leaks.

10 minutes … 10 minutes is all I had with this tool.  My excitement is abated.  I fork over another $6.27 and begin my 3-4 week wait yet again.