Growing 100 Heads of Lettuce in My Room
What is up Steemit Community!
A while back I posted a blog about building a geothermal greenhouse. In that blog I touched on how I grew food in my room. Well, this blog I will go into full detail about it.
Intro
In my final semester of college I worked on a project about hydroponic produce with LED lights. It got me super excited about the prospect of growing local food. Very few things get me really excited and agriculture really does. You can say its a perfect match, I knew I had to jump right in and do it for myself.
After doing a couple hundred hours of research (I'm not exaggerating) I decided on growing cucumbers in my closet and building a tower to grow lettuce. I had nowhere to put these, so, naturally they went into my room
The Design
I no longer have the design for the lettuce tower but it was really simple. It is a bunch of 2'x4's screwed together with NFT gullies sitting on top with the strip LED lighting over head. A nutrient tank sits below the plants. A pump would send nutrient water to the top and the water would travel down channels, thus watering and feeding the plants at the same time. When the water reaches the other side of the gully it drops down a PVC pipe and flows down the lower level. At the end of that gully l it would drain back to the nutrient tank. The water pump would recirculate nutrient water all day long, it is buffet of food for the plants.
The cucumbers were inside my closet. I grew them in a kit that I bought at the local hydro store, but it is still the same idea as I described above. I used a LED grow light that might have the been the world's best at that time.
The photo below is what the bottom level looks like. You can see where the water exits the gully into a PVC pipe that flows back to the nutrient reservoir.
The Results
The lettuce tower was a smashing success. In picture above you can see several types of lettuce, kale, swiss chard and arugula. It was my first time growing any of those foods and it was a great experience. The lettuce was crisp and great tasting. I know a lot of people say hydroponically grown produces tastes like cardboard. I have not had the experience. All the food I've grown tastes much better than what you get at the store, or Whole Foods for that matter.
The lettuce tower has 120 spaces to grow lettuce. In the same space it is possible to double the lettuce capacity by adding 2 more levels. This would bring the total amount of lettuce to 240 heads of lettuce growing at the same time. It is possible to put another lettuce tower on the other side of the room. If that were to happen, a grand total of 480 heads of lettuce could be grown inside that room each month.
The cucumber plants grew big and tall but had disappointing results. Roughly 10 cucumbers were harvested from the 4 plants over a 120 day period. I was expecting to harvest roughly 80 to 100 cucumbers in that time span. I am not sure why they did not produce. It could be a variety of things but I have grown cucumbers from the same seed pack outdoors with a lot of success.
What I Want to do Next
With the lettuce tower being such a success it makes me wonder if I can grow all my food needs in of my room. The average American needs about an acre to support their diet. My room is roughly 112 square feet (includes the closet).
The lettuce tower takes up about 30 square feet. On the floor under the lettuce tower I can grow a lot of wheat grass really fast in a about a week, you can see a video about it here. The idea is to feed chickens (they would be outside) with the wheat grass. I could eat the eggs that they lay and I could also eat the chicken! I would need about 8 chickens to support my self. This would be a space requirement of roughly 20 feet. Since the chickens would be outside I would have to mark off 20 square feet in my room and not use it for anything.
So far I have used 30 sq ft for the lettuce tower; 20 sq ft for the chickens and my bed takes up about 18 square feet. There would be about 32 square feet left to grow other kinds of food. I would grow a lot tomatoes, bell peppers and I would try cucumbers again.
What do you think Steemit! Should I try it?
Another great post Steve! I'm looking forward to future posts of yours!
Upvoted for ORIGINAL CONTENT!
Come on people. Support this guy.
Thanks for the kind words!
Wow, impressive! I like your setup, we have an NFT system in the greenhouse that I will be posting on soon! Are those seedless cucumbers? If not you may be a pollination issue.
Yes, they are seedless cucumbers. They are called Socrates and Picolino. I grew two of each.
I grow the Socrates myself, have you tried pulling the first three or four sets of fruit to give the vine some time to grow early?
I've grown them with really good results outside. I don't know why it didn't work in the closet. I think it might have to do with the nutrients. I was using General Hydroponics in the closet and for the outdoor Cucumbers I used Chem-gro.
The problem with your cucumbers is probably inadequate pollination -- no bees/insects flying around your room (I hope). :-) You're lucky there was enough air movement to get even a few cucumbers. You can hand pollinate, most likely, with a small, soft paintbrush; a little web-surfing will give you the details. Great project; good luck!
You will have to try it on Mars
A lot of great ideas. I never considered using LED lights as grow lights. Simple, cost effective and looks like it works great. Very nice! As far as for your ideas of expansion...I say GO FOR IT. Growing your own food is always a big plus in my book!
Nice setup and use of limited space.
Thanks
Ever consider incorporating an aquarium?
I've looked into Aquaponics and I really like the idea. It is another layer of complexity because you have to understand fish. For example if you add too much citric acid to lower the PH of the water you will kill all the fish.
Try it, with the exception of enslaving and killing chickens.