Fake Ice cubes
You don’t know what you might need to know until you know you need to know it.
Several years ago while we were doing sets and props for a startup theater we needed ice cubes that would not melt. Until that moment I did not know, that I would need to know, how to make fake ice.
Fertilizer Needed
I really like drip irrigation. I also really like fertilizer injectors for the drip irrigation (fertigation). One of the issues I have is knowing how much to use. I like to use water soluble fertilizers such as Miracle Gro, Schultz, and Jack’s. The problem is that these are usually used to mix a gallon at a time, or used in a hose end sprayer. They don’t have any kind of directions for making concentrate to inject into an irrigation system. So I never really know how much fertilizer I am giving my plants.
On the site of JR Peters, makers of Jack’s soluble fertilizer, which I really like, I found this Fertilizer Calculator. It’s a start, and gets you some better information, but I wanted to be able to calculate how much fertilizer I needed for a given amount of water, the concentration of fertilizer in a mix of concentrate, and the gallons of concentrate you can make for a certain package size. I found another site, Greenhouse Product News, which had an article explaining the calculation for given inputs of fertilizer. That article, and more specifically, the downloadable article, gave much better info for calculating fertilizer needed in an injector system.
I took the formulas here and created this spreadsheet for calculating the amount of fertilizer needed, the concentrate, and the gallons.
Fertilizer Concentration Calculator
To use, you simply add a fertilizer type, or if the one you are using is listed, enter the fertilizer analysis, desired concentration and ratio, and you will be given the amount of fertilizer needed. The other tabs will give you concentration of the fertilizer given the amount and ratio used,
Fertilizer Concentration
and the number of gallons of concentrate for a given desired concentration and ratio.
Gallons of Concentrate
I hope you find this useful, and if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments.
One of the biggest problems we have had over the years is keeping track of the things we grow. For the most part, it’s easy to tell a tomato plant from a zucchini plant, but when starting seeds, it’s important to keep track of what you planted and where. As the seedlings grow, it becomes easier to tell what kind of plant it is, but if you plant multiple varieties, this becomes more difficult.
For most of my drip irrigation setups, I use the Dig 1 Pint Proportional Fertilizer Injector I get from Drip Depot.
House Front Drip Setup
Years ago I went flower shopping for the very first time, best friend in tow. It was the nursery section of Builder’s Square and I had $20 burning a hole in my pocket. Flower money, which was also a first. My new home had a row of established lilacs bordering the grassland beyond and I wanted a pretty little flower bed underneath them. Suddenly my “friend” shouts out, “Hey they named a flower after you!” I was like, “Really?” Her reply, “Impatient!” Funny girl, but I bought them. This started my love of these little flowers and every year after that I planted them under my lilacs.
This post will be an instructional post for how I install drip tape irrigation in raised beds. There are many ways you can do this, I find this method to be effective for me.
I use mainly Irritec Perma-Loc drip irrigation tubing, drip tape, and fittings. I get them from Drip Depot. They have very decent pricing, and the best selection for all of your irrigation needs that I have found.
Why is it called “Aisle of Shame”? My guess is because you go there for groceries and can come home with a chainsaw. I’m not ashamed of the things that I get from that aisle. In fact I went back specifically to get more and ended up also getting milk.
Aldi’s was my go to and then it fell off the radar but it is back with a vengeance and I’m remembering all the things I love about that store. This year it’s been all about the garden and the finds have been awesome.
The new garden area we created this year is really doing well. But it has added a lot of manual watering to our days. In the new garden area, we have about twenty grow bags of pumpkins and winter squash, 25 bags of summer squash, 4 tomato plants, a 4 foot by 8 foot raised bed of corn, a 2 foot by 8 foot raised bed of sweet potatoes, and in the greenhouse there are 5 watermelon plants, 8 cantaloupes a zucchini, and a couple of tomatoes.
Corn, squash, and pumpkins by the greenhouse
This has made life a lot easier, a little more complicated sometimes, and overall an investment worth making.
I’ve never had great success growing melons. Sam was the first person to grow an actual watermelon here. From a seed that was in a piece of melon from the grocery store. He was excited about it and asked if he could plant it. Bill and I said sure and he plopped it in the ground right in front of the house. As the summer wore on that little seed just kept growing into a beautiful plant and then formed an actual melon which we enjoyed that fall. Not in a million years did I expect that. I have attempted to grow them every year. I have carefully tended to them, I’ve started them directly in the ground, I’ve started them in the house, I’ve put them in tilled gardens, I’ve put them in low raised beds, I’ve put them in low raised beds and then stapled wire over them to keep critters out, I’ve put them in tall raised beds, I’ve tried them in multiple different locations and I’ve tried many different kinds of seeds. From time to time I’ve gotten small melons with little taste but nothing has even been as good as that random seed that Sam planted. So what have I learned?
