'Enlightening' trip

I was in Mumbai this past week. I got an opportunity therefore to explore a bit on SIKCO engineering. Mr Milton Sikder is the gentleman I met. Apart from delving in windmills, solar panel solutions, bio-gas plants and electrically powered bicycles they also manufacture LED based grow-lights for hydroponically grown plants. It was good learning and I intend to experiment a bit in the field now. The obvious gains are for places where sunlight is an issue. Also, plantation can be carried out in more environmentally controlled enclosures for exotic plants/ fruits. And of course, it is also known to affect the over-all yield, as the plants are free from the day-night cycle, where the genuine growth gets restricted to daylight hours.

The irony is, that I have to travel yet again tomorrow. So it's only next week now, that I can hope to pursue whatever additional I want to. This includes the innovation on the hydroponic raft I've mentioned earlier. Meanwhile, the plants in both gh1 and gh2 are doing great!

Here's the cucumber for starters. So far I've harvested 12 large sized cucumbers from the plant. 

The leafy greens of rucola, spinach and Swiss chard in the three raft systems have picked up well too.

I've also become a huge fan of the grow-bags. These individual havens of lush beauties provide a rich medium for their sole inhabitants. So the bell peppers, the sweet basil and the asparagus all display gleeful expressions nestled comfortably in their respective bags.

The taller plants in gh2 are also stable and seem to be getting an adequate amount of diffused sunlight through the translucent plastic sheets on top. Here's a view from my dining room's window overlooking the backyard.

 

And O! the winters are almost here. My morning run today, greeted me with the first whiffs of smoky

exhalations and a ground veiled thinly in mist. The evening sky was something else though.

Phew!

It wasn't easy. But it was worth it. The move of tall plants from gh1 to gh2 (the new high ceiling-ed structure) was quite a logistic challenge. For, it's not everyday that you displace your plants like that and in the bargain completely under-estimate the extent of planning required for an apparently mundane task. Here's the sequence and learning of what not to do, if you ever need to do what I needed to. 

Shankar and I snap all the strings supporting the cherry tomato to the frame of gh1. The plant sags. We begin to panic. We lift off the grow bed, foolishly trying and miserably failing in supporting the now wildly flailing many branches of the plant. We somehow step out of the green-house. Shankar is suddenly reminded he has a family...3 kids, a wife and a father-in-law. He mentions maybe we could use some help from them. I cry, yes. He vanishes...with me, precariously balancing the plant and the grow-bed, partly resting it on ground and also seeing nothing but for a green blur, with tomato smells & and leaves creeping under my collar, into my eyes and ears. The family returns on a run. By this time, some friendly (and inquisitive) creepy crawly has begun it's inspection of the insides of my right nostril. Tripping, sneezing, laughing and uttering urgent gibberish this caterpillar of humanity and plant moves towards gh2. We place the grow-bed on ground...I dislodge the bug from my nose...the family departs laughing. Shankar and I look at each other, not so amused. And definitely decided that that's not how, we'd move the balance two grow beds. Here's what we concluded. One...we'd need to tie a network of string at the ceiling of gh2 beforehand, as a ready and flexibly placed support-grid for the soon to arrive plants. Two...before detaching the plant from its support strings at gh1, the requisite manpower required for the transfer, needed to be in place. I also considered keeping a clothesline clip handy for personal safety, but dropped the idea. 

So, while we got the string support-grid in place at gh2, the cherry tomato rested thus...

Soon our strings were in place and so were our wits. And the cherry tomato stood tall, happily supported and it's leaves abundantly exposed to light and air.

We'd learnt our lesson well and we imbibed what we'd learnt to the T. The balance grow beds soon followed and gh2 now looks like a place that means business. 

Gh1 meanwhile, is back to looking like a beautiful haven for hydroponic hobbyists. 

Apart from the fact that the tall plants now have enough space to grow and breathe, it also gives me an opportunity to prune and shape them better. One gets a much clearer picture of what, how much and where all to snip, for the overall health of the plant. Also, one gets to see the produce that one never knew existed. For instance, I never new that the tomatoes that I'd planted later had already begun to fruit...or that the 7 feet tall chilly was already producing mouth watering lush upright bombs.

The next in line is the filling up of the gh1 with the improvised raft systems I'd earlier spoken of. Unfortunately, I need to travel this entire week. So, that'd need to wait. But I shall keep us all posted. Meanwhile, the cucumbers are consistently bringing a lot of cheer and crunch at home.

Stuff happening

For starters, both the vacant rafts are house-full again. It's the spinach and Swiss Chard that adorn the clean plastic underneath. So all the three rafts are fully-op. 

And then, as I'd written in the previous post, the plan to cover the backyard shed into an enclosed green-house like structure is fast turning into reality. And I really need to profoundly thank an old friend. I'd merely mentioned to him the fact that I was anxiously looking for shade-net and I didn't have a fortune to spend on it. The next evening...he called. An hour later, we met at a convenient RV and there it was, sitting snug in the boot of his car...all the shade net I needed. I asked him how...he just smiled and waved it away. Really, I don't know who and whom all to thank. And then there's Shankar, who got into action this morning. And kind courtesy him, the shade-net is more or less in place. It's a few more additions here and there and I'd be ready to shift the tall plants from the now dwarfed green house, to this taller cove.

And speaking of relocating the tall plants, I realise that gh1 (the original green-house, thus 1) would suddenly seem very bare and forlorn, post the move of the tall tomatoes and bell peppers and the chillies. To counter that, I intend to fill it up with more raft like units and possibly some more experimental stuff (more on that later).  I say, raft like units and not the original rafts (as seen in the first picture of this post), for a simple reason. Cost. And it was with this factor in mind that I made a few very basic purchases this Sunday, namely a tub and some thermocol (commercial name for polystyrene sheets). And here's how I put them to use. I would sheepishly overlook the fact, that it took me ages to get it right and only after being clumsily submersed in about a zillion snow-like thermoplastic granules, to get this to happen.

And as you might have guessed, I would soon try to plant freshly germinated greens in this INR 420/- worth genuinely DIY kit (add to that approx INR 300/- for the aeration pump and air-stone). It'd be interesting to see, if I succeed. For if I do, I'd do it in less than one third the cost of commercially available hydroponic rafts. 

The cucumbers meanwhile have gone crazy. Not knowing, if it was the right time to pluck I tried my luck with one of these.

And this green beauty didn't disappoint. The skin is very thin...the seeds aren't too many...extremely crunchy...very firm yet very juicy...not at all bitter at the extremities...so practically I ate the entire cucumber except for very thinly sliced ends. Well actually, there were a few accompaniments to the cucumber.

The bright looking chillies have managed to turn excitingly bitter, the cherry tomatoes sweet and the rocket leaves aptly pungent. My salad at lunch was good. Here's how...

And speaking of tomatoes, this weekend seemed like a bumper harvest from just two branches off the cherry-tomato 'tree'.

The chillies are also progressing well. And I completely surprised myself one morning, when while I anxiously searched for the bright looking upright beauties on the one chilly plant that still hadn't fruited, my eyes literally bumped into much darker chillies pointing earthwards. Like this...

juxtaposed with these...

I am a little concerned about the bell peppers though, for except that one baby capsicum (that's Oh so beautiful) nothing else has peeked out so far. But I'd be patient and hopeful, looking at this one...

And last but definitely not the least, I have to admit that this little chameleon has permanently adopted the asparagus support inside gh1 and courtesy this, he spends much more time with the plants than I do. I guess, he's welcome.

Astra castra numen lumen

It's taking it's time, but it's beginning to happen. Work on providing a higher ceiling to the plants that continue to grow in the now diminutive green house has started. The translucent plastic sheets (just two in number) have arrived.

And well, nothing new...the blessed presence that looks after my plants sent an angel along with. And till the time he hadn't arrived I was wondering how could the existing sheets take the weight of the person who'd climb up to swap the three existing yellow sheets (they're smaller) with the two freshly arrived translucent sheets (they're larger). 

But then Ayub...is Ayub. Here's why...

Done and dusted. No fear...just rapt concentration at what he did...no confusion, just plain results. I felt like doing such a lot for him. He just said, 'thank you, Sir' and left. Also left me lost for words. Why are people so good to me? And more importantly, am I so good to them?

What's also to be seen is, if the diffused light (through the plastic sheets) from the heavens at day time, matches the showers of blessings this whole experiment gets bestowed upon, almost constantly. 

"The stars my camp; the Lord my lamp", the plants seem to say.

Pictures speak

I was out. I've returned. Shaken...and now stirred into action. The fruits of which, are unbeknownst and presently beyond that bend called future. 

But then, there are fruits and there are fruits. The ones in the green house for instance carry on regardless. Consistently there...abundantly joy giving. The cucumber has shown a sudden interest in growing well. 

And so have the chillies and the capsicum.

The zesty verve in the little greenhouse is positively because of the cherry tomatoes. They are colourful...many in number and above all, are lustily succulent and delicately delectable.

Meanwhile, I'm so happy to announce that all the spinach and Swiss chard seeds I'd sown for germination have sprung out in hope. I'm sure that by sometime next week, all of these shall go into the two presently empty rafts.

And isn't 'hope' such a buoyant word?