Grow Lights

Growing Organic Plants Indoors: What To Know

By Salman Zafar | July 23, 2020 - 12:27 pm |July 23, 2020 Gardening, Green, Technology

Indoor plants are a welcome addition to any home. They help spruce up the atmosphere and bring literal life into the room. But sometimes it is difficult to grow these plants due to a variety of reasons, and one of the bigger reasons is the lighting. Throughout the year, the amount of light changes, and it is difficult to find a single spot in the house where a plant will always get sufficient light, due to the movement of the sun.

To solve this problem, grow lights were created, and have become increasingly more popular for home botanists. People have used different types of lights including fluorescent,incandescent,and LED’s(Light Emitting Diodes).

LED grow lights are quickly becoming the most common choice for growing plants indoors.

Why LED’s?

LED lights are the most common choice to go with because they are the most energy-efficient and have a wide variety of colors. The light color that works best for chlorophyll absorption, photosynthesis, and growth is a Violet-blue light in the 400-520 nanometer range. Red light(610-720) promotes flowering and budding.

LED growth lights produce a large spectrum of light, and the ones with the most complete spectrum will be the best ones to grow with. They also put off much less heat than the other options, making it possible for you to put the light closer to the plant in this case.

Types of LED Grow Lights

Standard Purple LED’s are the cheapest option for growing, which is their main selling point. They contain hundreds of small low wattage lights(3-5 watts per LED) composed of red and blue lights to emit a purple light.

COB lights(a.k.a Chip on board) lights have many hundreds of tiny lights to make up the one single small chip on the board. They emit a much stronger and brighter white light, which offers better light penetration than the purple LED’s.

Spread Style LED’s are another powerful light option, and are more specifically tailored to greenhouses with their “rack” style of lighting, which can cover a large area. They are one of the most efficient LED lights on the market, which also leads to them being a rather expensive option.

Plant position and light placement

The position of the plants and the lights should aim to mimic the natural position of outdoor plants.

Give each of the plants an even amount of space(unless it is a plant that may help seed another plant), and space the plants accordingly.
Use a level surface, and if possible, keep in a spot that is out of a cat’s reach(easier said than done, I know).
Hang the lights straight over top of the plants to mimic the sun, at about roughly 6-12 inches over(this distance can change depending on the plant type) Adjust the lights accordingly as the plants grow.
Make sure to test the lights out and confirm that all the plants are getting sufficient light. If you are looking to invest in more lights and more plants, testing out the amount of coverage that the lights have over a certain amount of plants may be the best way to determine how many more lights you should purchase.

How long should you leave the growth light on?

This again depends on the type of plant. Most flowering plants or vegetables grow optimally with a long summer day’s worth of light(12-16 hours), but remember that darkness is an important part of the cycle as well. Plants use the darkness to break down the energy that they produce during the day for growth and flowering, a process known as respiration.

To make sure that you do not exceed the recommended time to keep the lights on, you can set them up with timers. Once you set these timers up to go off at the appropriate time, it’s one less thing that can go wrong.

Conclusion

As stated multiple times, everything tends to be plant-specific, and even if you set something perfectly at first, the constantly changing plants will most likely require readjustment of the lights. Pay attention to the plants especially in the early stages to make sure they do not fall victim to LED burns or other complications from improper placement.

Summer Activity! Start an Indoor Garden!

By Salman Zafar | June 3, 2020 - 3:56 pm |June 17, 2020 Education, Gardening, Green, Home Improvements, Science

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If you’re worried about your kids losing academic skills over the summer, you might be searching for activities to keep them mentally stimulated. You might have already signed up for a summer reading program or researched some fun math activities. However, throwing in some hands-on science activities can also be fun and educational for kids!

Kids learn best when they’re actively engaged in an activity. If you’re looking for a fun hands-on science activity that you can start this summer and continue into the school year, consider growing your own indoor garden!

Benefits

Aside from providing a fun activity, there are additional benefits to starting an indoor garden.

Having plants around your house improves your air quality because they aid in air filtration.
If you opt for herbs, veggies, or fruits, you can use what you grow in your cooking
Plants are aesthetically pleasing
A garden will attract birds, bees, butterflies etc.
Taking care of plants can provide your child with a sense of responsibility

Gardening options

An indoor garden doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can make it as large or as little as you would like.

A small garden can be as simple as getting a few small pots and placing them in your windowsill. Even watching a single seed grow can provide some good educational talking points. If you opt for this option, you’ll want to make sure you choose a window that gets a good amount of sunlight.

If you want to take your indoor level to the next level, you can invest in an indoor garden box to put near your windows. These are raised boxes specifically designed for indoor gardening. Most gardening stores sell them, or you can build your own. A bonus of building your own is that you can build it at the perfect height for your tiny gardener!

If you have older children who already have a good understanding of gardening basics or if you’re living in a small space, you might want to consider a hydroponic system. Hydroponics involves growing plants using a nutrient-rich solution instead of soil. You can find a number of hydroponic kits to get started available online, or you can build your own system.

For hydroponic systems, the kind of water you use is very important. If your home gets hard water or water mixed with many additives, it may be worthwhile to filter the water through reverse osmosis(https://ro-systemreviews.com) before using it for your plants.

What you’ll need

Plants

Decide if you want to grow flowers, fruits, vegetables, or herbs. After you pick what you want to grow, decide if you want seeds or cuttings. Starting with seeds is a great option if you have kids because they’ll get to see the entire life cycle of a plant. Seeds also tend to be less expensive, which can be useful if some of your plants end up not making it.

Containers

You can use almost anything for a container as long as there is proper drainage. You can buy plastic or clay pots meant for gardening. These pots will have drainage holes at the bottom.

For a less expensive option, you can dig through your recycling bin for old milk cartons, butter containers, or egg cartons. Just make sure to punch holes in the bottom of your recycled container for drainage!

If you live in a house or apartment that doesn’t receive a lot of natural sunlight, you’ll either need to invest in plants that don’t need a lot of sunlight or invest in grow lights. Grow lights are a great option because they are specifically designed to provide indoor plants with the light they need. Even if you live in the darkest of homes, a grow light will have you saying “Look at our new indoor garden”!

Growing medium

You’ll, of course, need something for your plants to grow in. If you’re going with the traditional container or the garden box approach, you’ll want to invest in a quality potting mix. If going for the hydroponic approach, you’ll want to choose a medium that works well with your chosen system.

Child-size gardening tools

Your child will enjoy having their own tools to garden with! Invest in shovels, trowels, and watering cans that are the right size for your child.

Connecting it to learning

The best way to connect your new garden to learning is by taking your child’s lead. Children are naturally curious, so wait for your child to ask questions. You and your child can then research the questions together, either on the computer or at the library.

Possible topics you’ll explore together include why do plants need sunlight, what the life cycle of a plant is, and how can you tell if a plant is healthy.

Remember — keep it fun! The whole point of your new indoor garden is to allow your child to explore the world around them. A great indoor learning environment creates happy and healthy kids.

The Specifics of A Shipping Container Environment

By Salman Zafar | October 4, 2019 - 8:31 pm |January 5, 2020 Agriculture, Food, Green

Concept of Shipping Container Environment

This is the environment where old shipping boxes get used. They get planted crops and make sure that the food production would reach the market fresh and in the right order. There are many advantages to using such environment.

Advantages of Shipping Container Farming

A shipping container is an environment created to provide a complete farming experience and crop production system that aims to create a system that works all year round.

The yearly production is genuinely a pleasant experience as the countries can produce internally and importation of products as well as smuggling activities could be reduced.

The system uses an intelligent and super-efficient LED lights or grow lights that can substitute the sun’s rays. The entire container is equivalent to a farm that can produce up to two acres of crops.

The inside of the farm allows the produce to grow in an insulated environment that is around 40′ by 8′ by 9.5′. Most of the regions that would benefit from the farm system are the cold weather system countries. In these countries, producing food crops is a big problem. Shipping is also costly since importation is the only source of food.

With the use of farming containers, importation is cut down. The cost of using and maintaining a farming container is still cheaper by at least three times compared to the average consumption of most industrial food crop producers. It takes an average of kilowatts per hour of energy daily to maintain the farm. However, it is still more cost-effective to do it this way, especially for cold countries or those countries that have less agricultural lands available for them.

The price of obtaining a shipping container farm is not low. However, this price is worth the investment as the production is either increase or made possible. It is also more advantageous because it is less expensive to maintain a shipping container for him than one that is land-based or is naturally and agricultural land. On average, you should expect to spend around $50,000 to $85,000 to purchase one shipping container.

Some countries are considering requiring old shipping companies to donate or sell their old shipping containers to the governments in exchange for tax breaks. However, this policy is only a suggestion for most countries and is not yet get implemented.

Another great advantage of a shipping container for him is the fact that it is often compact. Because of its size or at least of its portability, there is a great advantage to it. It is easier to get transported from one place to another. It is also easier to have less footprint than using land-based crop production.

Zoning is also not a problem when it comes to containing her forms. Most of the companies that use this process can place their containers in both rural and urban areas. The reason behind this is the fact that there are no zoning laws against maintaining a repository in most areas.

Container farms also do not use new water. The creators of this modern technology got able to use recycled water to maintain the irrigation system within the container farms.

Vertical Growing: The Best Part of Container Farming

The best part of container farming is the fact that it uses a vertical system to grow the crops. Environmental sensors get used during the cycle of growth of the plants. These sensors allow for the farm system to control all of the essential factors in growing the crops.

The factors such as temperature, airflow, nutrient levels, humidity, as well as the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels get controlled.

The Future of Agriculture

Container farming can get considered as the future of agriculture. It provides for a modern and straightforward approach to crop production that reduces waste and cost for food suppliers. Importation could be a problem of the past for countries that are unable to produce their crops. However, since trade is a fundamental economic aspect of most countries, that will not fully illuminate the land-based agricultural production of crops.

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