Update of the vertical teaponic system and the compost tea experiment

The parsley and the small collard greens

  Things seem to be going well in the vertical farm, expept the parlsey, I made the mistake of plugging the extra light for the all day on friday, and when i came back in the evening, a couple of the leaves looked dried up ... Also, It overall seem to not be as green anymore- I though maybe not enough light- but it could be also anot enough nitrate. But today there is a new leaf growing on it, so it probably will be good. 

The green onions are growing nicely and this growth has attracted the lovely kitty who palyed with it. have transferred poted plants on the window seal so the cat does not have acess to it anymore. 

Given the nice growth of the collard greens (and green onions) I decided to count the number of leaves and the size of the biggest leaf just for the heck of it. The longest green onion leaf is just below 11 inches (30 cm) long, the longest collard greens is 2 inches (6 cm), and the parsley is 7 inches (17.7cm). Each of the 4 green onion has 3 leaves, the parsley has 9 leaves, and the biggest collard green has 9 leaves. I took a few pictures of the plants to get an idea of the progression. 

The small collard greens - pulled out to show the small roots growing out of the stem.

 The bigger collard greens, with plenty of leaves growing from it.

A view of the whole teaponic system. 

On the tea" side of the things, this week using 1.5 cups of worm compost for 2 cups of water, it seems that I got some traces of nitrates. Given the color of the tea, I really have to give a try at the stips style tests. But see the picture below, it when from a dark brown to a  "redder" dark brown after the incubation. I think it could be the apparition of some of the red of the API kit that changed the color this way, indicating that therre is some sufficient nitrate to change the color. I will get a set of test strips for next weeks tea and update.

The systems ammonia keeps showing traces (what i add) but it does not accumulate - showing that is really is cycle. Also Nitrate do not seem to accumulate either, they have been indetectable since thier "diseaperance "from the water a few weeks back, after the system had fully cycled.

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The vertical farms update compost tea a valid nitrogen source

Collard green is getting huge (kind of)

 The vertical farm is growing along, I am not sure if it is the days starting to get longer, or my experimenting with the compost tea, but here is what is happening: the collard greens and green onions have grown quite a lost since last update. Especially the collard greens, I might have a mini-salad or something soon.

On the other hand, the parsley is still not doing much, and the pepper seedling that was growing has lost its first leaves and last cleaning I broke the first true leaf, so only 2 true leaves are still on it. Not sure if it is because I have treated the poor thing roughly or if its not liking it in there any-more....

Between below is the same collard greens on feb 16th

On the nutrients side, nitrates have started to increase again - since I add a mL of ammonia everyday (or almost). Last post about the system, Dr. Ruteledge (google + user) advised me to check out Dr. Tims video, suggesting that maybe the tests are not detecting nitrates because they are to high and "burnout" the reagents before it has time to react and produce the desired colour. So I diluted the water before testing it, and there is no trace of nitrite, a bit of ammonia (my system is 3 gallon and I add 1 mL of household ammonia everyday or almost).

I also did again the compost tea "experiment" last week end, but making sure I dilute the "sample" to test it. I actually decided to test non diluted and diluted using the test strips. The dilution 1:5 actually is light in color, so when ill decide to do the "timed experiement" again, I will use the test in drops.

THE COMPOST TEA EXPERIMENT !      From top to bottom: just after adding compost
compost tea after 10 min
compost tea after 10 mindiluted 1:5

compost tea after  1H
compost tea after  1H diluted 1:5

compost tea after  2H
compost tea after  2Hdiluted 4:15

Compost tea after 4H
Compost tea after 4H diluted 1:5

That is is the tap water used for the tea.

Compost tea after 6H
Compost tea after 6H diluted 1:5

Compost tea next morning (~15H)
Compost tea after ~15H diluted 1:5

So, what to make of that ? still dont know, all I know, is that sometimes between 2 and 6 hours, nitrate decrease, and nitrate as well. Given that the dilution 1:5 always look "lower" in color than the non diluted one. This time next morning there was still some amount of both, but clearly lower. In the pictures, it seems that maybe nitrite are decreasing later than nitrates, but given that these test are not very precise, it is difficult to really conclude. Maybe I should sneak in a lab and make measurement there in a more rigorous manner ... If anyone sees a spectrophotometer that need to be discarded give it to me ! lol.
 

The compost tea: 1 quart of water (left out to dechlorinate with an airstone), about 3.5 cups of worm compost and also 1/8th tsp of diatomeous earth and 1/8th of epsom salts, no sugar added.

I added some diatomeous earth because my try of adding some pumice seemed to improve the green onion, and epsom salt because I added some when I set up the system, and I though it was long ago ... not very scientific ... sorry ;-)

One last thing, the school project is about to start, this week, I will "pitch" the project to the students - I hope the couple of students that inspired the project will sign up! If you want to support my project with the school, but that you cant volunteer, you can give a donation to Chfermette see the donation button on the top right corner. Any donation will be used to finance a trip to one of NYC rooftop farms or to insure the continuation of the project after the end of the spring semester. Also, I am in the process of making it a non profit.
Please If you enjoy the blog content, comment and/or subscribe.

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Cycling is definitly over No Ammonia no nitrites And Compost Tea

Cycling is definitely over ammonia and nitrites are undetectable.  Nitrates have been decreasing progressively. Nitrites peaked and totally disappeared very quickly. Also, the intresting thinkg is how the pH decreased until the nitrite peak was over, and then started to increase again. I think it is because there are pieces of eggshells trapped in polyester is the tower.

Last weekend, I did the first of the monthly maintenance check up. I took the system apart to rinse the pump, I removed the profiler that was in it, there was a worm cocoon and a fat worm in it, they both were returned to the tower. The water has an interesting reddish tint, but didnt have any distinctive smell to it. Not sure where that color is from, but  could be natural coloration occurring because of the vermiwash and compost tea. It also could be that the wood I leaching out something. When I built the tower, I remember that the wood was giving away some lightly coloured water. maybe the plastic wrap I have put on the walls has gaps and some of what is in the wood is leaching out. I may need to rethink the cover of the wood, maybe using a double layer of plastic wrap would be better. 

 

The tee, with old socks to filter particles

After cleaning up the pump, I also decided to mess with the water pipe. It is a flexible poly tubing, and was pinched at the level of the tower. Also, the green onion getting soft may be due to over-watering, so I needed to reduce the flow from the pump. I had a couple of tees and a small valve. I used one of the tee and the valve to divert some of the flow from the pump and return it to the reservoir, the other one to play the role of an elbow and avoid the pipe to kink. I covered the ends with nylon sock to play a filters role, and added a short length of tubing on the "top end" to avoid splashing things around. In the process I kind of messed up the 3 pepper seedlings. It seem that maybe one will survive, the other will definitely not.

Compost tea version 2.0

After that, I added 2 cups of compost tea, brewed for 24h. Oxygenated using the aquarium pump. The tea was "brewed" using worm casting (1.5 teaspoon), seaweed (1/8 teaspoon) and same of brown sugar. After 24h there was no foam on the top (Internet tends to say there should be a lot). I filtered the "tea" measure the nitrate and ammonia (traces) and sprayed some on the leaves (according to compost tea aficionados it is great to fight diseases and so-on), and dumped the rest in the reservoir. I also added 2mL of this house plant fertilizer that we have laying around. I keep checking ammonia and nitrate on a daily basis and the compost tea does not seem to change much of these. There seem to have a slight increase of ammonia, but the plant fertilizer contains both ammonia and nitrate (ammonium nitrate and other nitrate source). I kept adding 2 ml of fertilizer everyday since. I decided that I will add much more  of all the ingredients and get molasses ( instead of brown sugar) the next batch, which I prepared yesterday: 1 hipping table spoon of worm compost, one teaspoon of seaweed, and one teaspoon of molasses.  This version has some foam on the top, indicating that there is life in it. Last night I added another teaspoon of molasses, as tonight the foaming has greatly reduced. It "brewed" for 48h, the colour is yellow-brown, its smells good (like the molasses, with some earthy smell mixed to it) has a little bit of foam on the top, but does not have a significant amount of ammonia or nitrates. I also sprayed some on the leaves and dumped the remaining in the tank. To avoid risk of overflow, I removed about 2 cups from the reservoir. The water is still brown-redish, and still does not have any particular smell to it.

The "growlight"

 I also made a "growlight" out of a power strip, a couple on plug-light-bulb-sockets and 2 23W CFL (5000k "bright daylight"), since the days are seriously shortening. On Tuesday night however, some of the parley looked strange : a few leaves were wilted, and theses leaves, where the closest to the lights. I decided to use only one light, and to put it on the timer with the pump. The wilted leaves did not recover, but no more of these appeared.

some wilted leaves on the lower parley plant.

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Compost Tea update brewing seem to consume the nitrates!

Last week when I tested the compost tea, There was a quite high reading of nitrite and nitrate. The interesting thing is, Even if I gradually increase how much compost I add for the tea, i didnt see it increasing progressively. One thing was quite different though: we had a guest at home, so i got to brewing the tea only on Sunday late in the evening, and let it brew only for about 2 hours. So it got me thinking: what if, there is some nitrate at detectable level in the compost, but that it is used in some way by the living organisms during the brewing process ?

Yesterday, I set my compost tea to brew, with a timer on the side for 1h, 2h and then the next morning (about 12h from the set up time). I also "sacrificed" a strip to measure the water - molasses mixture before adding the compost to get a baseline. Here are the results: 

Time	GH	KH	Ph	NO2-	NO3-
0	30	80	6	0	0
1	180	120	7.5	10	200
2	180	120	7.5	10	200
12	180	120	7.5	0	0

So It seems that my tap water was slightly acidic (at that time) and does not contain significant amounts of nitrates. An hour and 2h after adding the compost to the mixture it does not seem to be different, but by 12 hours all nitrite and nitrates are gone. I cant measure how much ammonia there is - as I have only drop type tests for ammonia and the compost tea is pretty dark. Obviously, and as expected, the GH and KH increase a lot by addition of the compost.
So where does this nitrogen go ?
If nitrates are consumed by denitrification, my pH should increase to some extend. Denitrification is the biological process in which bacteria and fungus are transforming N03- into N2. This process consumes H+ ions [http://www.umich.edu/~lehnert/denitrification.html], which should raise the pH. Most hobby website would mention that denitrification is an anaerobic process, but in fact, some organisms can function in both aerobic and anaerobic modes [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00408378], but is less efficient in aerobic environment. The pH seems stable, so I would want to say that this is not happening, but possibly the amount of change would not be reflected in the strips measurements. I cant test that without an actual lab. Also I have aeration going in the tea, which should slow down the process if occuring.
My hope Is that bacterial activity is fixing nitrogen into their proteins, which would keep the nitrogen in the system. Some bacteria are able to use N03- as a nitrogen source for their protein synthesis [http://www.bashanfoundation.org/cyli/cylisporocarps.pdf].

Conclusions for me at this point : I will brew my compost teat only for an hour or so from now on. Also, I will not add systematically molasses as there will not be a focus on increasing bacterial life.

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Molasses based fertiliser using seaweed emulsion or worm juice castings tea

We have seen some great growth lately after applying molasses based liquid fertilisers so thought I would share how we have been mixing it up.. Will be moving onto a worn "juice"/wee & worm casting tea once the seaweed emulsion runs out..



Have a great one all..
: )»

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Why I wont get fish for now and compost tea experiment

The farm from above

Its been over a month and half now that I have set up the tower farm. In the process of cycling, I have discovered that eggshell can release ammonia (I should have guessed right ?), that pH drops quickly once the beneficial bacteria are established, and that the pH climbs back up in absence of new ammonia. I have also lost my green onion and basil.

The farm from bellow

pH has decreased then increased since no new ammonia was added

Since the system has "cycled", I have hesitated in what fish to get. I will not get fish for now. Why that ? After all the point aquaponics it to get fish to right ?
The reason is that I decided to have an apprenticeship about aquaponics with  Citizen Schools and while discussing with the Citizen Schools people, the fish seemed to be a down side for my plan, so I ruthlessly removed the fish from the picture.

Citizen schools is an association that brings professionals to teach after hours classes (apprenticeships and other programs) to selected middle schools in NYC. Only schools that have 85% of student who are eligible for free or reduced lunch due to their parents low income. Since the fall semester I have been volunteering there for an apprenticeship where we teach our students about heart health. Anyway, A few weeks back I proposed to have an apprenticeship where we would build an aquaponic system with the students and learn about the basic science behind it. So after discussion with the school staff I settled for an "other"ponic system, instead.


Since my all point about starting the system was not only to grow some food at home, but also on a sustainable manner, hydroponic seems like a bad alternative to aquaponics. From the sustainability point of view, hydroponic seems a bit difficult given the need to do full water change, and the need for concentrated fertilizers. An Internet search for compost tea tends to make one inclined to believe that compost tea is the panacea for organic gardening, because of beneficial microbes and a balanced NPK. This is why I have been experimenting with compost tea.

The farm has cycled, and nitrate dropped to 0

I have been making compost tea in the last 3 week ends, increasing the amount of worm compost each week. After "brewing" the tea, I measure the amounts of nitrate and ammonia. So far, I was not able to have a nitrate (or ammonia) level above the detection limit. last week end, I have "brewed" a compost tea using 1/4 of a cup of worm compost, 1 table spoon of molasseses (unsulfured) and shredded seaweeds in 2 cups of water, brewed it for a day and half. After a days and half, it still smelled like molasseses (I like that smell).  I also added some of this greengrow plant food, very diluted. Because I have just seen the nitrates dropping, I decided to add some ammonia source, I though about eggshells, but the pH has increased to 7.4; so given the pka of 9 for calcium carbonate (witch is what eggshells are made of)  I am not sure it is a good idea. Instead I bough a 1/2 gallon bottle of ammonia at the dollars store and added one mL (a bit less than 1/4 of a teaspoon) of it on Monday and Tuesday ( gave ~ 1 ppm reading) nothing yesterday, and now ammonia is back to 0. I will keep adding 1ml everyday for now, until I figure out how to make a strong enough compost tea (if that is possible).
I am keeping track of my experiment hoping that I could make a sustainable "tea"ponic system for the school.

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Update on the vertical garden and compost tea experiment

It now has been almost 2 months that I built the vertical farm ! and things are going along pretty well ! I have some parsley growing, a few green onions, 2 collard green plants and swiss chard. The parsley that got burned by the light bulb that was too close almost made it, but I pulled it out to make space for the seedlings to come. A few weeks back Ive planted the core of 2 collard greens and one of a swiss chard, just to see, and last weekend when doing a bit of cleaning I pulled a bit on one of the collard greens and was happy to see a few tiny roots that where growing out of it ! The collards, swiss chard and onions are all "salvage" from the kitchen scraps.

I just seeded a few seeds last week end : Cilantro, Parsley, Roquette, Letuce (black seed simpson), Swiss chard, Summerlong basil, and Spinach. I hope to be able to plant all of that - to see how many plants I can put in there.

I have kept adding 2 mL of NH4OH to make sure that there is enough nitrogen. I have kept increasing the amount of compost I use to make the compost tea, so far I am at 1 cup - which is 240 mL - of worm compost for 2 cups (480 mL) of water. Depending on the volume in the tank I am either using "new" water, or water form the system, and "brew" it for about a day and a half. After that i measure if there is ammonia and nitrate in there. Given the coloration from the compost (of course filtered) its really difficult to tell, but so far, it does not seem that there is large amount of it. Possibly, the different compounds of the compost interfere with the kits reactions. I may get these strips to see if the results are different form the API kit I have. The systems water has some ammonia (the one i add) but no nitrite or nitrate accumulating. The Ph seem stable around 7 ish : the ammonium hydroxyl I add probably buffers the acidification due to nitrification, as well as the compost tea.
Also exiting things are happening at the school I volunteer, but there will be more about it in a little.

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