Let there be light

This is one of two grow tables Meg and I built for last year's seed starting. The materials were pretty cheap (wow, imagine that). We raided the dollar-wood bin for the lumber and I lifted the milk crates from my then place of employment. The lights were the pricey parts of the project; I think they were about $10.00 a piece (two for each table). The dimensions are 18"D x 48"W x 36"H (sans crates).

Where we have the tables stationed in our house has almost as much impact on the seeds as the actual table's construction. They are snug against a white wall with a radiator running beneath them. The wall color and its close proximity help to intensify the brightness and uniformity of the light (I guess). The milk crates and spaces between the bottom boards allow a good deal of airflow from the radiator to the bottom of our heat hungry seedlings. The heat isn't so hot that it dries everything out; this is an old house, the heat sucks at best. However, there is just enough warmth to get things going.

The lights aren't on just yet. We read somewhere that we should wait for the first couple of sprouts to emerge before we turn on the tubes (regular fluorescent). Once the lights are on, we'll lower the chains so they sit about an inch or two above the sprouts and raise them a bit at a time as the plants get taller.

Dollar Wood

At our local Home Depot there is a little thing Meg and I call "The Dollar Wood Bin." For those of you who aren't familiar with this blessed concept, it's all of the Depot's scrap and warped wood on the real cheap*. If you have a truck or a trailer (which we may get tomorrow) it's always a good idea to see what they've got in the bin just to stock up for future use. We like to raid the bin anytime we have a major project in the works. Some of our projects born of dollar wood are the chicken coop, the grow tables, and the rain harvester.

We've got two dollar wood projects currently in the drafting process. One is a shiny new addition to the chicken coop. We're hoping to add two new ladies to the brood this spring and the current housing would be a bit snug for five. The second project is also chicken related. As I mentioned in a post two days ago, we're going to put the birds to work in the garden before we plant. After they are finished we will set them out in the yard in a mobile pen. The reason they need to be in the rolling cage, as opposed to full free-range, is quite simple: our neighbor hates chickens and our chickens love to mess with her. We think it's funny, but our neighbor, being the shit she is, does not.


*We always recommend trying to salvage whatever scraps of wood that may be left over from past projects, but sometimes you need four foot boards and all the scrap pile's got is three footers.