Pre-planting thoughts

Peas Shoot

So I have two days to come up with my planting strategy. I have decided that I will be growing baby lettuce mixes, with edible flowers, and shoots. The perfect trio for a mind blowing salad mix that the chefs will love! I will be growing about 250 lettuce plants per 4' x 4' table. I ordered my favorite spicy mustard mesclun mix from FedCo seed company. I grew this in the past and had great success selling it at the farmers markets.I will also plant a classic lettuce mix, spinach, and arugula.



 



Borage



Chive





  



My edible flowers will consist of nasturtiums, purple garlic chive cone flowers, and possibly some borage outside. Im thinking sunflower and pea shoots. I need to pick a third but haven't yet. I really need to focus on timing out the rotation so I can completely utilize my two tables. The plan is to have a weekly rotational harvest indoors and out. This way I can send out a weekly fax with what I have available. So tonight I will sit down and think numbers and space. Im sure I wont get this perfect right from the start. It will probably take at least a couple rotations to get the timing worked out, but at least there is a goal in mind.





Nasturtium







Building the hydroponic table

Growing in water is somewhat new to me. I am a soils girl at heart. However that being said, there are many advantages to hydroponics indoor growing. My yields will be more stable, I can control watering, light exposure and feeding with a timer, much easier to control and treat diseases and pest control is virtually non-existent. That stability, consistency and predictability will make it much easier to please customers.

I am starting out with two 4' X 4' flood tables which I made the stands for myself. I'm so proud. It felt amazing using the drill and saw. I used 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe with side outlet elbows for joints. I purchased L brackets to secure the elbows to the pipe for added security. My table height is 3' in order to allow room for my 100 gallon water reservoir. In total with flood trays and stand I have about $160. invested in each table. The trays were $90. each. Which, I'm sure could be found online for less. My lights are just normal fluorescent 4' two bulb fixtures. I am using 8 of these per table, with one cool and one warm bulb per fixture.