Andy Goodwin

This is the beginning of my 2009 indoor garden.  I have started tomatoes (Roma + Beefsteak), strawberries, oregeno, chives, basil, and cilantro.  I'm going to use the lessons learned of last year (maintenance/upkeep/trimming) to have a better garden this time.

I went to Home Depot and purchased some cinderblock and shelves, so now under the light is two tiers of shelving, one for the self contained hydroponic buckets and the other for all my herbs and anything else I wish to grow.

The picture shows progress after six days.  This year I've got a plastic moisture hood over the seedlings, as well as a heat pad underneath (to promote better root growth).

Has it already been a year?!

It's been some time since I've posted the progress on the tomato plants.  Unfortunately, the demands of work and life have prevented me from giving the time necessary to accurately document the growth, as well as take care of the tomato plants.

The plants ended up overgrowing the green/leaf/vegitation and the fruit wasn't the size I wanted.  These three were a first lesson in tomato growing.  This was a lot of fun for me, and there will be round two (which is already started).

After the jump - I will share what I did document in progress, and the link to the photostream on Flickr that has more detail.

The next post I'll show the beginnings of my next round of indoor gardening!

These are the tomato plants now after 3 weeks or so.  They've developed quite a bit since the simple seedlings that popped out of the rockwool.  With watering everyday and plenty of light, they have really grown strong.  The roots have completely enveloped the rockwool and they are ready for a bigger place.

I have to transplant/move them into bigger pots - and I have already done so.

I will be stating another seedling  run soon as well.

 

I have already used my camera to completely document all the steps I have taken, which I will be posting this weekend.

So far - I am very excited with the rapid rate of progress that I have in my garden, and I really can't wait to have tomatoes hanging off these plants.

Check back this weekend - for the full photo/instructionals/comments from a beginner.  Also - feel free to ask me questions, or leave comments on your thoughts!

While it may appear to the people that know me that I'm always into gadgets/computers/electronic stuff, I'm also fascinated by many other things outside of computers.  Last year I started getting more into cooking, watching the Food Network and trying things I watched on TV.  I've made some pretty great stuff (details I'll save for another blog post).

One of the things I learned is the tomatoes in the grocery stores are un-ripe, and given a chemical to treat them and make them red.  I feel cheated robbed like I'm missing out on the true taste of tomatoes.  I've also always wanted to grow my own tomatoes (after growing a bunch of stuff in my window), so I went nuts at a local hydroponic supply store.

I have a 400W grow light, reflector, hydroponic grow buckets, rockwool seed starting cubes, and I have started with tomato seeds.  I have 3 kinds of tomato seeds - beefsteak, roma, and a yellow one.

So, I have decided to go back to a blog (instead of the couch picture of me).  I've been wanting a better platform to post/share things, and while I'm a bit fanatical about wanting to code it all myself, it seems some things are better left to others.

I have chosen Movable Type over Wordpress (booooo, perl over PHP!?), but while I code PHP all day and really detest Perl (reasons belonging in another post), I rather like how Movable Type uses the database to publish static files.  Plus, the back-end interface is really snazzy!

As for this blog, I have a bunch of PHP code snippets, some lessons/things I've learned over the years, and just general geek info I want to share with the world.  Everybody has big goals for their little blog to be read by many - I just want to have a nice repository for all these snippets/things I've learned/hacked up in the past.

Stay tuned!