We are all here cause we love growing, it helps us in many ways and gives us peace and understanding of nature. Being able to grow, sustain and care for a plant is therapy in Itself, it gives you a sense of responsibility and they then rely on you to give them what they need. And your reward for this is your harvest or bloom, depending what you are growing. But this end result gives satisfaction beyond belief, your efforts rewarded with fruit or food or smoke. What ever you grow, the journey is the same benefits it brings to the grower are bountiful, from food to therapy to tranquility.
With recent coverage on climate change we are accelerating our research into indoor home food production. In particular we are looking for crops which are used in the common house hold,are quick and easy to grow while being educational and fun too.
In this thread we will post photos and results of food crops that we test.
The aim of these tests is to establish a variety of crops which can be grown on a shelf under 60w of invisible Sun LED lights per 2ft x 4ft footprint, the crops will fit into a 4 - 8 week schedule, and ideally would be staggered for a weekly supply of each crop.
We have so far tested lettuce, both ice berg and gem lettuce, the gem was far more resilient to mold over the ice berg in an open shelf environment and each 60w light harvested 23 lettuce over 6 weeks. If this was staggered you could harvest 3-4 lettuce per week under 60w of light along with potentially 3-4 more crops types under the same light.
Next up is radishes, we just harvested a test bunch which completed in 4-5 weeks from seed.
So we have just planted 400 seeds under 240w, this gives us 100 radishes per 60w, if there is an overall success across this test then we could be looking at 23 lettuce and 100 radishes spread over 6 week cycle. That's 3-4 lettuce and 16 radishes a week.
After radishes we will be looking at carrots and beetroots. If anyone can suggest any other crops that fit this agenda please fo let us know,