The ponic system 3 months in!

Collard green BIIG

Tomato and pepper seedlings

It has now been 3 months that the ponic system has been build. In these first 3 months I have lost a few plants, but also harvested a few parsley leaves. This all time the system has run on compost tea and ammonia. The plants seem fine, but a few are not as green as one would expect, but it is indoor, in the middle of the winter, with some artificial lighting that may not be sufficient.

During the start up of the system, the pH decreased once nitrification was efficient, but the pH increased after that, since there was no source of additional ammonia. I therefore started to add some ammonia, which keeps the pH around 7 as it is alkaline. A few weeks ago I increase the amount of ammonia I add so in the last week, I didnt add any as ammonia was building up in the water. In consequence, the pH has dropped a bit.

I have started to measure leaf length and leaf number, and overall, leaf number has increased in each plant, leaf length has increased a bit, but has stopped for some. I suppose it reached its optimal length.

I guess things are "growing forward" and the 2 collard greens are getting quite sizable (at least bigger than I expected).

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Hydro Vermi ponic system building at the school has started!

The students working hard!

Yesterday was the first session with the students at the Bronx writing Academy!
A small group of student joined the apprenticeship that we offer about hydroponics. The overall goal of the apprenticeship its to have the student understand what local food can be, and why it is sustainable compared to foods coming from 1000s of miles away.
Other goals are for the student to

the build of the day

learn how plants grow, what do they need to grow, how one can grow plants without soil. After introducing a bit more about what aquaponics is and showing a couple of videos showing important points on how an hydroponic/aquaponic system works. Then I pulled out the tools and the material and we all go building!
This sessions there was 6 students, 4 worked with the school teacher that accompanies us, and 2 worked with me. Our objective for the day was to build the frame that will support the grow beds, and put it on legs. It didnt exactly work that way, we got to build the frames though! First I showed them how to mark the center of a piece of wood, how to bore a hole with a mechanical hand drill, and how to use auto-piercing screws. The group working with the teacher build on of the frames, the other students and I build a second one.

Since got a slow start, it was a bit too much to put the frame on legs, so we stopped there to do the weekly creative/journaling activity. Every week we will have 1 or 2 activities that the students can keep track of Yesterdays task was to draw or write something that the words "farm", "city", "food" and, "hydroponics" inspired them.

The programs organized by Citizen Schools are called apprenticeship, and they are organized around a 10 -12 week period of time: 9-10 weeks are dedicated to the apprenticeship and the preparation of the last week (week 10, 11 or 12). The last week is when the WOW! is "done" the WOW! can be pretty much anything: some apprenticeship lead to the making of a public announcement clip, other lead to the making of a product, other can be an event hosted by the school or my the volunteers with the community. We plant to have the WOW! just outside the school, quite literally in the street, and present the work they have done : building the system, and explaining how it works. I hope that we will be able to bring people from surrounding community garden/urban farms and people form the neighborhood at large.

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Hydro vermi Ponic Bronx Writing Academy

Since last fall, I have been volunteering for Citizen Schools as a Citizen Teacher (that how they call us volunteers). By the end of the fall semester, I proposed (because some student showed interest) an apprenticeship to learn about - build - and grow  hydroponically plants. Earlier this week was the first meeting to organize the apprenticeship and meet with the school teacher that will accompanying me (us if i find a another volunteer within the next few days).

*** If you are interested in volunteering - or know someone, let me know! even if you have little experience your help will be appreciated ****

Citizen Schools is a non profit dedicated in bringing educational opportunities to middle schools in low income neighbourhoods. For example, Wednesday night, Ive learned that the Bronx Writing Academy, the public school where I volunteer in Bronx, NY, have 92% of their student receiving free lunch because of the incredibly low income of their parents. Overall, the goal is to pull up these children who have reading skills 2 years below there more fortunate peers, which is not only due to the fact that 30% of them are English learners because another language is spoken at home (mostly Spanish, and to a lower extend Arabic and French). While the students have big hurdles to go over, they are motivated to learn. Last semester experience was awesome, we did the WOW! at NYU Langone Medical Center and they where impressive. Not only the students show a real interest in learning. Ok - They still are kids, some with behaviour problems- but that does not mean they dont want to learn. And its not anywhere else that once could hear "Mr. Benjamin, you are my favorite teacher !" Lol!
Next week will be the pitch - which consists in going around the school and pitching your apprenticeship for 3 minutes to the students, so they can choose one of the apprenticeships, I hope that the students that said to me "can we do that?" last semester will sign up!. After that, the apprenticeship will start ! - by the way the title (not official yet) is "A revolution : grow food in the city." During the first 3 weeks, after a brief introduction, we will build 2 systems. Each 
will be made of a 6 gallon food safe pail as the sump tank, a halfed 6 gallon pail as grow bed, and the grow media will be made of shredded water bottle (if I can collect enough of them). The system will be supported by a frame made of reclaimed wood from a futon sofa, and some pallet wood if necessary. We will also have on each a tower from BrightAgrotech in each. The only difference between the 2 systems will be the source of plant nutrients. One will be fed using a commercially available nutrient solution, following the instructions, the second will be fed with compost tea, and if necessary, ammonia. The compost tea will be made out of worm compost. The worm compost will come from another bucket with worms fed with coffee every week.

We hope that the kids will be able to learn about the science behind the systems, will learn a bit of the almost "scientific method" and, will be able to express their sensitive and artistic side if they desire. But more importantly, I hope that they will understand and learn that not all trash is to be discarded, but that a lot can be done to use garbage as a worthy resource to build things, grow food and ect ... 
Every week, the students will record info about plant growth, aspect and nutrient level. They will also fill a journal where they will write a few sentences about what they did, how did it go and how did that make them feel. In the last 2 weeks, we will prepare for the WOW! which will be taking the system outside and presenting - showing it to the community, other students and ect ... Also during these last 2 weeks, the students will go over their notes and prepare a blog post reflecting their experience during the apprenticeship. This post will be given to Green Thumb, the association without which the project may not have been as exiting. I also want to offer the students who want to express their artistic side a safe space to do so, I hope that if one want to write a narrative about our project, or a song, we will be able to publish it on Green thumbs blog, and more importantly to display it to the community.
At the end of the Wow! the students will be able to take their share of the food home if they want to, and their share of the composting worm (if the parents are ok!). The system will stay at the school - hoping to be used again and again !
The green thumb grant will be used to buy materials we cant get for free, the pumps, some tools, the commercial grow towers, and maybe for a trip at one of the New York City farms. A non-profit is behing created to be able to receive this check, I sent the paperwork to reserve the name "Chfermette", then in a few days I should be able to open a bank account and start buying the material we need. I guess The non-profit will also be able to receive donations, which would be used to build more systems for the school and teach sustainability and healthy habits in undeserved schools.

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General update the vertical ponic plants and nutrients the worm crate bucket and worm challenges

The star collard greens

I think it is time for a new update about my indoor gardening endeavor.

Green onion, longer leaves are "broken"

The verti-Ponic system plants seem to be doing quite fine, especially the collard greens and the green onions. The collard greens are putting on new leaves and really is looking bigger than it was a few weeks ago; but the largest leave does not seem to be growing anymore and younger leaves did not catch up with it yet. For the green onions, after loosing all but one in December, I was hesitant putting new one in, but I did anyway, and they have been growing and growing in the last 3 weeks however, 2 of them were found dying yesterday, but it seems that I "planted" them a bit too shallow.
For the parsley, it seems that its been a bit stagnant since I have harvested half of its leaves. I is growing longer leaves, but no new leaves, and a

The parsley

couple that dried off. Maybe half of the leaves was too many, or maybe the plants are too old (they were growing on a little pot for over a year before I transplanted them to the system). So I started a few seeds and I will replace them once the seeds are starting to grow a couple of real leaves. The tomato plant has lost a couple of leaves (they where progressively shrinking since I kind of messed them up 2 or 3 weeks ago), put the newest leaves seem to be doing well, and last night I could see that it seems that the terminal bud is about to put a new leaf out. Finally the Pepper seedling is growing slowly but surely, and has regularly put new leaves out.

The seedlings

 I started other seeds in the same time: kale, chard aragula, letuce and basil. 

On the least bright side, It seems that the green onion leave have tendency to break after they reach a length (maybe 6 inches), and I am wondering what it could be due to, my thinking is: most people how grow aquatically/hydroponically on a medium of some sort, grow in some sort of stones, of clay pellets, and stones or clay are made of some form of silica. So I added a bit of powdered pumice I had in my toolbox (pumice is a volcanic rock that can be used to polish some wood finishes). We will see if it helps with the newer leaves that are not broken. I might go to the store and buy diatomaceous earth which is another source of silicate.

Green: Ammonia, Purple: Nitrite, Red: Nitrate

On the nutrient side, It seemed to me in the last 2 weeks that there was some accumulation of nitrate, which made me think that possibly the compost tea was bringing some extra nitrogen in a sort of "slow release", so I stopped adding ammonia to the system to see if the level would be maintained, however, it did not stay up, and now nitrate have lowered to traces, as well as ammonia. On hind sight, I used a plastic milk bottle to "brew" the compost tea, and possibly there was some milk protein that found their way to the compost tea, and where progressively supplying ammonia and then nitrate. I keep increasing the amount of compost I use to make the compost tea, but no nitrate seem to be picking out on the test strips. I think I am going to keep adding some extra source of nitrogen since I will not add fish until the project with he class is over. 

 The worm composting is doing well, I have been adding the coffee grounds of the day in the bucket for the school since I "finished it up". What I mean is that I have drilled holes in the bottom, as well as on the side towards the top - near the lip of the lid, and glued some fine meshy fabric to prevent bugs to fly in, and added another bucket with 4 large holes near the bottom to collect fluids if they build up, and keep the whole thing aerated. The large holes are also covered with the same meshy fabric. The worm crate has now diverted a total on 25 kg of food scraps (over 50 lbs) and 6.5 kg (14 lbs) of dry paper and wood dust. It also produced 4.3 kg (over 9 lbs) of compost. In total, in the 5 months I have started composting in NYC, almost 30 kg (66 lbs) of food scraps and 8 kg (19 lbs) of paper and wood dust did not go to landfills (including the worm bucket for the school). And this for a very modest investment to buy 1/2 lbs of composting worm (11$). Also the last few times I harvested compost from it, it was incredibly nice and crumbly. I am not sure whether it means that the worm population is "mature" or if it has to do with changes in the bedding. In October, I started to add the compressed wood dust pellets that the cat didnt like too much, this is now over, so I will see if there is a change again later on towards a less crumbly texture.

The worm challenge is doing good, so far I have not added more "food" or bedding, since there is only 2 worms, I am sure it is going to take quite a while until I can add more safely. The 2 worms are alive, and i really think that the biggest is mature at this point. I also set u another one, in a sour cream pot (a little smaller that the other one), but this one is a "one worm challenge" where I added only one worm, an adult (so possibly fertilized). I have made this one just as the first one: brown paper bag for bedding, used cafe grounds for food, and some water from the ponic system to bring some beneficial microorganisms. I will set up one last one when possible (when I have an empty container I can use) for another one worm challenge, but with an immature worm in it. According to Bentley the composting guy, some species of composting worm can auto-fertilize. I am actually not exactly sure what kind of worms I have. I am supposed to have E Foetida (sold to me as: red wiggler) and European nightcrawlers (sold to me as: trout worms), but it seems to me that I have 3 types of worms: some are lighter in color and bigger (the Euros) and then some are small and dark red (E Foetida ?), but some also have a yellow tip, and actually, there are some who have their bands very visible (tiger worms ?). Anyway, this is the main reason why I am setting up one with a mature worm (which most likely is already be fertilized) so I can keep track and take a juvenile that for sure will not have been fertilized, and I can keep this other one as a comparison (juvenile VS adult).

The school project will get its own post very soon.

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