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.
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Vertical farm and compost update

This week, the tower farm is continuing to grow. I had to add about half a gallon of water to top of, the green onions are growing like crazy in the bottom of the tower. the rest keeps growing at its rate, except the parsley that is kind of stagnant.
On the nutrient side, I have just brewed some compost tea using 2 cups and 1/4 of worm compost in 1 quart of water, and nitrite and nitrate still read below the detection level in the compost tea , however, in the system, the level of nitrate is increasing. I did add 4 mL of ammonia last week, and again this week, but I think next week I will not add any, and see what happens. I recall that during December, I was adding 1 mL everyday of ammonia and it didnt seem to increase nitrates at all, I am starting to think that the compost tea brings some nitrogen in the system, but not in the form of ammonia, nitrite or nitrate, but that the system processes it into nitrate. Also, there is a little pick of nitrite.

For the compost, I now have a bucket set up for the school project, I have added a bag of 8 quarts of storebought compost to the bucket. The bucket was filled with paper and a bit of food scraps, and for the last 3 weeks, I have added the solids from the compost tea. I added storebought compost so there is enough finished compost for the class project when it starts. When I digged though to make a separation with compost on one side and "composting in progress" on the other side, there was quite a few worms in the bucket. I also added for good measure a couple of large handfull of partially composted material from my wormcrate - which contains adult worms and probably cocoons, and mixed it with the storebought compost. Of course i hydrated it as it was fairly dry out of the bag. My worm crate produced some more finished compost and it was incredibly fluffy and non sticky this time around,

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My brand new aquaponics vertical farm

A little less than a year ago, I moved to New York to  join my Kochana who took a new job there earlier that summer. We moved from a college town in central Illinois. That meant that we had to say goodbye to sweet and tasty tomatoes, zucchinis and other garden deliciousness. We now leave as many New Yorkers in an apartment, with no balcony, and no access to a small backyard or a rooftop to start a garden...
After starting earlier this year a vermicompost bin - my partner suggested I do so - I though she may not mid if I would start to grow something with this compost that I can now start to harvest.... Since there is neither a backyard or a rooftop, the idea to renew a past experience (from very very long time ago - high school more precisely) of aquapomics ( actually my high school attempt was hydroponics).
So there is my design : a triangular 3 feet tower with a slit on one side made of a thin plywood recovered from an old cabinet that we trashed a few weeks ago,  a small filing store-box find by the neighboring trash for the tank (made of PE), polyester fluffy filling from an old comforter,  food grade PE tube, a small aquarium pump found in the neighborhood, and because that free pump was not strong enought an actual fishpound pumps, found on Craigslist for 20$.

I build the tower itself in slightly over an hour of sawing and nailing it together, and cutting the slit in the "face".

 The joints where waterproofed using silicone caulking, and the exterior was covered with a white water based paint. I then washed the inside of the tower with some soap and a brush and flowed a lot of water. I rinsed the polyester fluffy material , rolled it, folded it and stuffed it in the tower.

Yesterday, I washed the "tank" and cut a triangular section on the top, reinforced the top with a couple of pieces of wood (from a veggie crate) and made a support for the back of the tower with some more wood.

I also made a notch for the power cords, and the irrigation tubing. After another wash, I put the pumps in (the fish tank one to constantly move water and oxygenate it) and the fish pound one to pump the water to the top of the tower. At the tower end of the irrigation tube, I have put a tee wrapped tightly in polyester to help spreading around the water.
It was now time to fill the tank with water, (3.5 gallons of water) close the tank, set the tower on it, and hope for the best. I plugged the pump, and it worked !!! After a few minutes though I noticed that some of the water was running fro the lid. After taking the time to observe it, I noticed how the lid is slightly rounded , witch was leading some of the water " the wrong way". I took my heat gun, heated the PE and bent it so it prevents the water to go "the wrong way". Reassembled everything, and magic happened, no water running off !
After letting it running for a couple of hours, I took some of my newly made "vermicompost" (5 handfull or so) and steeped it in 1/2 gallon of water from the tank for a couple of minutes, filtered it and added it to the top of the tower. I am hoping that this will be able to provide nutrients for the plants and provide the famous "beneficial microorganism". I let it run for another hour and then planted half of my not-so-good-looking parsley and basil growing in a pot by the window, as well as 3 salvaged green onions. I then place my tower by the window.
Later last night, I decided to give the tower some "aesthetic" touch, and named it ch fermette a New York" (the little farm of New York)....

Now hopping the plants dont die, and then Ill grow some chards or some salad over the winter.

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Cycling the vertical farm

It has been a week that the "farm" is up and running. The "system" is for now in the phase of "cycling". Thats how the pros call it. It means that when a new aquaponic system is started up, beneficial micro-organisms need to set their homes in the "System". This process occurs naturally as microbes from the air settle in the system and process ammonia produced by the fish and the food leftover. Alternatively, the  system can be seeded by a mixture of nitrifying bacteria. I hope that adding "vermiwash" and a few worm cocoons and babies will accelerate this start-up of the system by bringing the beneficial micro-organisms from day one, and nutrients for the plants in the system. Basically, to cycle ones system, one just needs to wait, and see if ammonia gets converted into nitrate, using a kit of reagents that change color depending on concentration.

Overall the micro-organisms that we want are the ones that will take up ammonia to oxidize it into nitrate in 2 steps (NH3 -> NO2->NO3). In order to verify that these microorganisms are doing their job, one needs to check that the nitrogen that had been introduced gets transformed into NO3. NO3 or nitrate is the most plant available form of nitrogen that plants can use, and it also is the least toxic form of inorganic nitrogen for the fish. Ammonia is toxic to fish at low concentration (above 0.06 ppm). The intermediary of the the transformation from ammonia to nitrate is nitrite (read again, nitr-i-te) which is the most toxic of the 3 forms of nitrogen. Overall, plants can use both ammonia and nitrate for their needs, but use nitrate more efficiently overall, witch is the reason why the system needs to be enriched in the beneficial bacterium. Once the system is "cycled"  ammonia can be detoxified by the bacteria and used by the plants to maintain a good environment for the fish. Ammonia use by plants varies depending on what type of plant and the soil conditions. Also, higher range of ammonia may be toxic to some plants. For instance in this study, barley show toxicity signs at 170 ppm of ammonia.

A quick Internet search will teach you that there are 2 ways of cycling either by using sacrificial fish - as ammonia may reach toxic levels before the system reaches the equilibrium, or without fish, using some other source of nitrogen (store bought pure ammonia, fish food ...). Some would advise to plant right away, some do not mention it. As I do not feel ready to sacrifice fishies,  I decided to go for "fishless cycling", where a source of nitrogen is added. I also decided to plant some things (3 green onions, parley, basil) as roots support nitification by providing a favorable environment for the bacteria.
The source of nitrogen : my compost (has the advantage to be free, to bring a lot of plant nutrients, and should contain a lot of beneficial bacteria.The problem of compost, is that it it not a liquid. people who are compost "fans" often talk and write about compost tea, but it is a somewhat involved process, and need the addition of store bought things (molasses, seaweed extract ect..). another way to extract soluble nutrients and some beneficial micro-organisms from compost is to steep the compost briefly and filter the solids out (or pouring a large quantity of water over the compost and recover the liquid that pools at the bottom): some call that a "compost wash" or "vermiwhash" if the compost is worm compost. Ive done my version of vermiwash by taking a handfull of the compost form the bottom of my worm bin, adding about half a liter of water to it, shaking it for a bit, and staining it. I then added that liquid in the "system".
2 of the green onion did not make it though the week, but i think it has more to do with the "help" of the cat who chewed the tips of the leaves, and only the biggest of the green onion survived the "pruning". The basil has now a few new leaves, and the parsley too.  The basil and parsley where split from the scrawny ones growing in a small pot. They had yellowed leaves and do not grow well in the pot. Ive seeded there last fall, in storebought poting soil that became exhausted of nutrients rather quickly I think. I added also 2 aragula seeds that already germinated (a couple of days ago) and the roots and lower stem of a few green onion to see if the revive (the 3 planted at first was an experiment where Ive put them in wetted shredded paper, and they all started to grow).
To come back to cycling, the goal, it to have a "system" that will be able to process ammonia very quickly so the fish do not intoxicate themselves in their own ammonia. The tell tell signs of a system that is ready to accommodate fish is that the nitrogen introduced is being transformed in nitrate, and is accompanied with a decrease of the pH (nitrification produces protons, hence decreasing pH). This requires to be able to measure ammonia and nitrate. So i got my hands on a fish testing kit. The one I found (thank you craigslist again) contain 2 types of pH indicators, and a set of chemicals to evaluate the amount of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. By comparing the color of the reaction with the water from the system to a chart, one can estimate how much there is.
I got very surprised when my first ammonium test came back very dark (10) so i diluted 1/2 and then 1/5 the water from the system, to have a color that was somewhat in the middle of the range. (these kind of tests are more precise in the middle of the range rather than at the top as it may "saturate"). I ended up estimating that there could be something like 20 to 40 ppm of ammonium in the water from my system. I did not really expect that, as ammonia is toxic to worms, I was expecting a low amount of ammonia in the vermiwash (that i did not test yet) - or rather in my system. And then I remembered that i added eggshells to increase the very acidic pH of my tap water. I probably introduced quite a bit of protein this way, that had - and maybe will- released ammonia. While all aquaponics website recommend an ammonia concentration below 2ppm during cycling, I am not too worried about it, as long as my plant grow (and they do) they will use the available nitrogen and slowly reduce the concentration of ammonia. Also, it seems that nitrifying bacteria can leave and do thier job at these concentrations, or at least in compost.
One problem with evaluating the concentration, i that id need to trust that my eyes judge the color intensity reliably and repeatably every day since i dont have a spectrophotometer at home ... After a bit of thinking, i though that since my phone has a camera, it probably could be use in some way as an approximation of a spectrophotometer more reliable than my eyes. I have found that there are apps that give the RGB value of colors in images, and this website : http://www.ourresearch.net/api-test-kit-values.html . Basically, when you enter the RGB value of the given test, it can assign the closest standard from the test kit to it. So now this is how I proceed : I take a picture

, crop the image to have a portion of the tube,

 use the app to get the RGB value and go to the website.

 The app gives the "dominant" color and a list of other colors present in lower "quantity". I decided to use the 4 most present colors to get a better estimate to the value, and I average it. Sometimes, the website assigns a value that makes no sense to the eye, so I ignore these values. I also made a "device" from a couple of pieces of wood, a desk light, a piece of cardboard and some white paint, to try to control for differences in lighting that most likely would affect the reading.
 The device

I set the telephone on the black line.

Its been a few days (4) that i am checking ammonia, nitrite and nitrate (as well as pH). The pH has now stabilized just below 8, the eggsheld have been removed last week. The NH3 seems to progressively increase (most likely, protein from the egg that where disolved gets degraded) from 12 ppm to 18 ppm - but this might be due that my "approximation" of a spectrophotometer is not good enough and that the variation corresponds to lighting differences or that RGB values are not god surrogates for optical densities, or else ... aI will try to see if I could use imageJ, a free software develloped for image analysis and used by countless scientists. Nitrite has made its apparition yesterday, and seem to have increased today. Nitrate are absent.
Aquaponics websites usually say that it take 4 to 6 weeks (or more) before the system is cycled, during this time, nitrite will appear and increase as the first set of bacteria start to work, but then will go back to a low level as the bacteria responsible for the second step (nitrite to nitrate) bloom. They call that the nitrite spike. Then the nitrate level will steadily increase. Once the nitrite is back down to a not detectable level, it is possible to introduce the fish without danger of killing it (or much less).
In conclsion, it seem that my "system" may be starting to cycle, as nitrite has appeared.

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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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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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