horticulture

[allan]

Looks awesome! Care to give us more details on how you made the lights?
I'm also in RSA, luckily I do have a yard of sorts, although it's mostly shaded. Got quite a few herbs outside that are doing alright. I used to grow outdoor strawberries in PA, only prob was the birds and monkeys always got more fruit than me. Wouldn't mind trying some indoor plants

Real simple.
Use RGB strip lights. You should get some at the China mall. About R60 per meter.
I used 5 meters of the stuff. They were cut in about 300mm pieces and soldered in parallel.
Every color is current limited by a 100 to a 200ohm pot that allows you to change the color temperature.
Power the light with a 450W PC power supply because its the cheapest form of a 12A 12V psu you can get. About R185.
Glue the assy together with Q-bond and use sash cord to hang it.

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I will disappoint the authorities with my choice of herbs. Its some real good origanum.

[qbert69]

So the light works great....

A little to great. I fried the tyme plant to its death. The origanum survived.
Had to lift it quite a bit away from it to be effective.

You mean Oregano???

I absolutely LOVE Oregano, especially with scrambled eggs!....I add equal parts of Oregano and Garlic Salt prior to scrambling eggs!...Sooo Delish!

Here's what you really need here!:

grow led chip | eBay

These are "Full Spectrum" LED's and you can even just get the LED chip!

The bigger ones such as this:

10pcs 10 Watt Full Spectrum LED Chip 380nm 840nm 900mA Plant Grow Lights New | eBay

you'd have to attach to an aluminum bar as a heatsink--could be a square aluminum tube with a fan at one end to blow through and cool the chip...in effect, make a "lightbar" with an integrated heatsink.

RGB is good, but the above lights also include more of the ultraviolet/infra-red spectrum.

Just remember, the color that the plant utilizes for growth and production are the colors that are NOT reflected...meaning the green in the LED that you have will be of little use since it is reflected by the leaves. The colors utilized are the blues and reds. The "Grow LEDs" are optimized in the color spectra for growth and production.

Good Luck and Let Me Know How it Goes!

[Iowatech]

I will disappoint the authorities with my choice of herbs. Its some real good origanum.

As at least some types of origanum are also known as oregano, and as oregano is a prime ingredient of really good pizza sauce, I am even more interested in the outcome of this.
(I'm also interested in the hue from the lights you find works best, which is more important.)
Keep us updated please!

[allan]

Those are better LEDs to use. But they are really expensive for 10W a piece.
R300 for 10W I pay R250 for 36W this way and its mounted on aluminum strips already.

There is a PC fan to get rid of the extra heat it produces otherwise they overheat.

The plants needs just a tad of green light looking at the recommended spectrum on wiki.
So they get turned up to take pictures otherwise the plants looks all purple.

I have Osram golden dragon LEDs that is 3W a piece with the proper aluminum prints.
Got them from a friend that builds proper aquarium lights but they need 24V as a supply.
Soldering surface mounted components by hand is a trick there is heat paste that needs to go on the back of the LED before it gets soldered to the print.
Plan is to use to PC supplies in series for that. Im not sure if that will work.

[qbert69]

Those are better LEDs to use. But they are really expensive for 10W a piece.
R300 for 10W I pay R250 for 36W this way and its mounted on aluminum strips already.

There is a PC fan to get rid of the extra heat it produces otherwise they overheat.

The plants needs just a tad of green light looking at the recommended spectrum on wiki.
So they get turned up to take pictures otherwise the plants looks all purple.

I have Osram golden dragon LEDs that is 3W a piece with the proper aluminum prints.
Got them from a friend that builds proper aquarium lights but they need 24V as a supply.
Soldering surface mounted components by hand is a trick there is heat paste that needs to go on the back of the LED before it gets soldered to the print.
Plan is to use to PC supplies in series for that. Im not sure if that will work.

For 24VDC from an ATX power supply, use the -12VDC for ground reference point and your +12VDC for your positive. That will give you 24VDC overall!

How to convert an ATX power supply to a lab bench power supply — Chris Shiplet

[allan]

For 24VDC from an ATX power supply, use the -12VDC for ground reference point and your +12VDC for your positive. That will give you 24VDC overall!

How to convert an ATX power supply to a lab bench power supply — Chris Shiplet

Only 0.5A supplied from the -12V and 12A + from the +12V. That would limit the 24V to 0.5A.

[allan]

So the light works better than expected. Now i will build an entire shelf with these strip lights.
Ordered some from ebay, hope it comes soon.



Plant1.jpg

The comfrey plant grows really quickly. Was a seedling 45 days ago.
The rosemary is growing from a cutting .


Tincture.jpg

The origanum it bushing out and the tincture is coming along.

[Iowatech]

Here's a picture of some of my current tomato plants (and probably also a stupid mulberry tree which hasn't had a single mulberry on it since I've been here). The chain link fence is the perimeter of my dog's area where she can come out and bark at apparently nothing when I'm not actually doing stuff with her. Border collies can be that way sometimes.
My lot is big enough, I really need to institute an actual garden.

IMG_20160913_152509924.jpg

[TheBlueOrleans]

I have approximately twelve shrubs in my backyard, (i haven't counted them because I didn't plant them and I didn't care until today) they appear to be some variant of Yew, whether Japanese or any other sort remains to be verified.
I also have a dog. Who likes to get into places she ought not. And nibble at things she damn well KNOWS she ought not.

My fear is that if these shrubs are in fact a Yew variant, I will not have a dog tomorrow.

I intend to remove them, be they Yew or no, and substitute the mulch bed with some topsoil and get some herbs or vegetables growing.
The majority of the area is shaded almost the entire day, if not all day, and one side gets full sun from about noon to early evening.

Any recommendations for partial sun or full sun plants to try?
(we are calling the vet at the moment, to see if there's anything that can be done for the dog. No abnormal symptoms yet, and it's been around two hours since the first report from a 7 year old that "the dog ate a berry off the bush".)

[allan]

Hope the dog is fine.
Busy researching urban foraging. Amazing how much stuff you can munch on in the garden.

Well new light kicked the old ones ass. At 40W giving 4000 lumen!!
Runs from mains so no PSU.
Well one more thing to make out of pallet wood.

Lighhhtt.jpg

2 warm white and 2 cool white. 10W a piece.