I'm back. Sadly just for a day...of which the productive hours were at most two. And this post would talk of those two hours worth of action.
But, first things first. Pictures of the cucumber plant duly 'Kratky-ised'.
But, first things first. Pictures of the cucumber plant duly 'Kratky-ised'.
And then of the skeletal green house...I hope to do something about giving it muscle and tissue in the coming week.
So, as I've mentioned before, the day you expect you'd get sometime off (because you're not well for instance, and hope to be excused for the day) and would use it at leisure to do what you want, happens to be the day you land up attending one of the longest meetings at your place of work (precisely from 09:45 am till 03:25 pm). The two hours finally began.
The first hour or so was devoted to the preparation of Grow Bed No 2 and transplanting five plants:
1. Yellow Capsicum.
2. Red Capsicum.
3. Chilli (Hybrid Hot Pepper).
4. Cherry Tomato.
5. Tomato Suhyana.
In addition the Grow Bed No 1 also had the following additions:
1. Corainder Imported.
2. Chilli Jwala Pariksha.
3. Chilli Vasudha (Hybrid).
Here's how it looks now.
The next hour was devoted to setting up the NFT (nutrient film technique) or the Raft System. Where in a trough is filled up (to a certain level) with nutrient rich RO water. This is covered with a plate with 12 holes, through which correctly sized net pots rest snug. The base of the net pots just about touches the nutrient rich water below. The seedlings so far nesting in the grow plugs are now transplanted- implying, simply placed along with the grow plugs into the netted pots. An aquarium air pump is used to aerate the water in the trough. As a result, an efficient constantly aerated nutrient rich medium is ever-available to the root-system of the plants atop. I hope my plants find it all conducive. There's a catch to what I've done though...and I'm well within my rights to advise, "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME".
Actually, 'inside your home' is more like it. Ideally the NFT system should also be happily residing inside the green house. But my skeletal structure neither has the protection of a poly-film/ shade-net so far, nor an electrical plug point to feed the air pump. So for now, the system rests by a window inside the house that gets adequate sunlight for at least a few hours. To be on the safe side, I've let the lights of the room switched on too, for what it'd be worth (God forgive me for the next two days for this national wastage). So the entire system for the moment is a series of 'jugaads'. Don't believe that's a word!? Google for a book called:
Jugaad Innovation: A Frugal and Flexible Approach to Innovation for the 21st Century
Navi Radjou (Author), Jaideep Prabhu (Author), Simone Ahuja (Author)
Here's how it all looks.
Incidentally, I'm not the only one who's wanting the artificial light inside the room to aid photosynthesis to the plants. While my method is more wishful and completely bereft of technology, there's an amazing revolution currently on in Japan. If interested, visit the links below to see what Japanese plant physiologist Shigeharu Shimamura, is doing with his start-up through Mirai Inc.
(This information through my very dear friend Tom)
Hope to see a lot more of you all, next week.
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