Buenas tardes, amigos.

I visited the systems both last Friday and today, and all looks well...or at least o.k. The healthy plants are very healthy, and the unhealthy plants are equally unhealthy. The position and quality of the lighting is an issue. I offer this breakdown of what is affecting the plants at the moment:

At the Good Neighbor's Mission, the plants on the highest tier do not receive enough light, and so are not growing at all or are dead by now. This is not an issue at Houghton-Jones because the ceiling is relatively low, and the florescent lights produce enough to help the top plants. In fact, those plants seem to be the healthiest at this point. Pictured here are a row or ruby lettuce thriving on the mid-levels and a row of the same seeds of ruby lettuce perishing at the highest level. Hopefully, Ed Meisel will be able to make his way downtown to elevate the mount of the lights to include the top row of plants in the sun-bathing activities sometime this week.

Plants with less leaf surface-area do not handle the intensity of the lights well. Cilantro and kale, especially, are prone to shriveling and drying under the intense rays of the shop-lights. One kale plant on the top row has done very well, while the rest never sprouted--our prodige kale sprout is pictured here. Again, raising the lights, I suspect, will diminish both of the lighting issues. In the second planting season, probably beginning in mid february, I will make a point to plant Kale and Cilantro on the bottom rows, away from the intensity of the lights.



Another issue is plants with slowly growing roots. Basil, for instance, does not develop deep roots at all as fast as lettuce. What has happened is the lights have dried out the rockwool, and the wicks have deteriorated before the roots of the plants reached the water. Since our whole operation has upgraded to nylon-rope wicks, I am hoping that this issue will not be a factor in Harvest II.

Brooke Pieschke, formerly known as Brooke Gomez, has started her internship with the Good Neighbor's Mission, and is in the process of making plans to beautify the classroom in which Captain Planet and Puck reside.

Be sure to eat your veggies,

Stu

Rebuilding After the New Year

Happy Inauguration Day-Eve!

In my last blog entry, I was yet unaware of the full magnitude of the Ph catastrophe of late November. The plants receive water through a wick system, in which strips of towel were used to pull the water from the bottom of the PVC tubing to the rockwool crib that houses the seeds. The higher level of dissolved solids in the water that resulted from adding chemicals to balance the violent Ph levels caused the wicks to deteriorate, and eventuall, the plants to dehydrate and die. So while I was frolicking in the Upper Peninsula eating apple sauce after getting my wisdom teeth removed, the plants were slowly withering away. I feel aweful about that...but not so aweful that it kept me from replanting the hydroponics system!

My residents and I mixed some new nutrient solution and replanted all but collards, because we were out of collard seeds. Since the community members are very fond of collards, I am going to buy some more seeds today to plant them. And when that is done, there will be much rejoicing.

At the Good Neighbor's Mission, there was no Ph catastrophe, so the plants are flourishing. The lettuce, especially, is quite large now. There are a few hiccups there, as well, however. The first being that the intensity of the lights is causing the plants in the middle of each row, directly in front of the light, to dry out a little and not be as healthy as the lucky sprouts at each end of the row. Another problem is that the plants on the top row of the system do not receive enough light due to where the lights are mounted.
I think a solution to this would be to add a vertical 2x4 board to mount the lights a foot or so higher. The last dilemma came from an error in mixing the nutrient solution, which resulted in cups of nutrient solution being added instead of teaspoons. This error was caught almost immediately, and very little of that solution reached the plant roots before new solution, with the correct amount of nutrients, was added. I will be going downtown today, and will be checking on the status of those plants to make sure I haven't poisoned them all and therefore subscribed them to the same fate as their counterparts at the Houghton-Jones Center. I very much hope that I have committed every error that could be committed, and that the runnings will be smooth from here on out.

Additionally, the hydroponics system that was installed in my dormitory complex at SVSU is now planted and operational. This system will be growing only basil plants as a part of a plot to make lots of pesto and sell it to raise money for Relay for Life. It seemed natural to name the system Basil. I also realized today that I have been somewhat sexist in my naming of the systems, so to counteract that I am going to construct a floating-system in my dorm room and name it Angie (with regards to the Rolling Stones ditty.) Basil will be maintained by college freshman and me. Half of the funding for Basil was provided by the Southest Community Council. I am a little concerned that there will not be enough light to successfully grow basil, as we have not installed grow lights. We will deal with that like most people deal with environmental crisis...as we are directly faced with consequences.

Happy New Year, Saginaw Urban Food Initiative

Thus begins the new year and my consistent journal documentation of the joint effort of the Saginaw Valley State University Department of Sociology, the Houghton-Jones Community Center, and the Good Neighbors Mission to explore new ways to provide affordable, healthful food to urban residents. It has been roughly two months since the four hydroponic systems were first installed at the two community centers, I have just returned from Christmas break, and the new year brings the real beginning of the project.
The last time I saw the plants, on December 11th, most of them were sprouting nicely while a few remained hidden in their rock-wool incubators. The sprouts only had to suffer a few stumbling points in their infancy. The ph levels in all four systems was noticably high, up to 7.8, and in correcting this I underestimated the potency of the ph-down solution, dropping the acidity levels in the Houghton-Jones systems to just above 3. In correcting this catastrophe, the parts-per-million was elevated from around 250 to over 600. Thus far, that does not appear to have had any adverse effects on our future fruits and vegitables. Additionally, while I was adding solution to all four systems, I unplugged the base chord from the outlet, which reset our kilowat-hours meter. This is minor, as we had recorded the total kw-hours before unplugging the meter, but it is something to be cautious of during future solution remixing. The final impediment to the program is the tragic death of our ph meter, which produced its last accurate readings in early December before displaying symptoms of old age and deterioration. Until we obtain a successor, we will use ph tape to record the acidity levels. This is equally as accurate, though less precise. For our purposes, it will suffice to know that the ph level is between 6 and 7.
We are submitting a proposal to present the findings of this research at a conference at Penn State in May of this year. I will be at La Universidad de Guadalajara Autonomo during the conferece, so should our proposal be accepted, Dr. Thomas will be presenting solo.

I have christened each hydroponic system with a more personable name than "system 1" or "system 4." At the Houghton Jones center reside Puck (Robin Goodfellow) and the Growinator. Stationed in the Good Neighbors Mission are Norman Bourlaug and Captain Planet. I am making laminated name-plates for each system, though we will not be smashing any bubbly over them to avoid intoxicating the plants. It is my hope that naming the systems in this manner will encourage community embracement of, perhaps even affection for, the systems. When I was in elementary school, my freinds and I all named our bikes, and I found that endowing one's property with a supposed personality inspires a person to care for it more earnestly.

We will be holding at least two workshops in Saginaw to provide the community members with training to use and maintain their hydroponic gardens. These workshops will address the large systems installed in the community buildings as well as potential smaller gardens that individuals may create for their homes. It is our hope that these workshops will initiate a higher level of community involvement.

I will be traveling into Saginaw to see how the plants are progressing this week. Until then, eat healthily and stay green.