Our Plant Incubator

Well I got the plant incubator done this past weekend, it turned out pretty good for a thrown together idea. Here is what I started with.This is a picture of a three shelf set, what I ended up using was a four shelf set as the three shelf one had curved shelves in the front and would have caused some major modifications to the Styrofoam.

I cut the Styrofoam to fit the back of the shelves then the sides, all were attached to the shelves with duct tape. In future designs I intend to come up with a more permanent solution possibly using screws and washers. But for now this will work. I cut another sheet to make the door and used about a half a roll of tape to hinge the thing. Again in the future I intend to frame out the door so I can hing it properly. But for now it will serve it's purpose for this season's garden.

It is just latched by two doubled pieces of tape with small screwdrivers jammed into the side for now, again, another design for closing it is rolling around in my head. The light is a grow light from Wal-Mart that cost around ten dollars, there is an outlet bar zip tied to one side that it plugs into. This weekend i am going to add another light for the second shelf. At the moment I don't have the light on as the seeds are not up yet.

we bought this little heater at Wally World for about seventeen bucks, it is wonderful as it has a thermostatic setup on it where you can set it for 65, 70, 75, or 80 degrees. I have it set for 70 degrees and when you open the door you get blasted with a wave of heat. This Incubator works great! The light and the wires from it as well as the heater are all zip tied in place.

This is the first tray of seeds that I put in it. You can see the .99 cent thermometer on the back wall, also from wally World. I have about 6 varieties of Tomato's, about five Varieties of Peppers, some Cabbage, Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts and God know what else started in this one.

More seeds started here. I later had to put some plastic over this one as the heater was sucking up all the moisture. there is some types of Romain started in here and some Squash as well.

Here it is all sealed up. I cut a vent in the bottom of the left side, it is about a three inch by three inch square, there is another one on the same side up top. It vents very well, the heater works great. I need to add one thing next weekend, I need to put a piece of plywood on half the shelf over the heater to protect it from any moisture dripping from the plants after they are up. I'll show you a better view of that after next weekend. It may be rudimentary but it works like a charm. 

Starting Plants For The Garden

Here is just an update of sorts, we have had our own kitchen garden ever since we moved north to Illinois and this year will be no different. I attempted to build a plastic room about the size of a large shower stall out in the garage to heat and start our garden plants in but I think that the plastic was way too thin because the small heater that runs us out of our computer/sewing room couldn't heat that plastic room higher than 30 degrees when the outside temp was 22. I took pictures of it but after it was determined to be a total failure I decided not to post them. Epic Fail!

Plan B was for me to build a couple of smaller desktop insulated boxes with a light inside along with a vent fan connected to an attic fan thermostat. My thoughts were that the florescent lights could heat the thing and grow the plants and the thermostatic fan could cool it down if it got too hot. I thought about something that I see at work and changed to plan C.

We go down to Florida from time to time and reload down there with frozen orange juice. sometimes on the same load we load "Cooler" juice that is not to be frozen so we have to buy these 4 x 8 sheets of 2 inch thick Styrofoam bulkheads to separate the freezer stuff in the nose of the trailer from the cooler stuff in the rear. Usually we toss this stuff in the trash first chance we get after unloading because it is in the way. But sometimes those trailers end up at our yard and have to be cleaned out. I called the boss yesterday to ask what they did with those panels, if they threw them out or saved them for future use? It just so happens that they have a few of them on hand in the warehouse and I am welcome to some of them.

Here is plan C. I have some stackable shelves out in the garage, you know the type that has black plastic shelves with gray or black plastic tubes in the corners to add more shelves? I have two sets of those in the garage and I plan to take whichever set has the most distance between shelves and encase it with these Styrofoam sheets on three sides and the top. I will then create an insulted front door or doors that can be opened to check the plants inside. We bought a heater that has its own thermostat so we can set it for 70 degrees inside so there won't be much of a need for a cooling fan. Walmart has encased under cabinet grow lights for about $20 or I could use the curly cue screw in types with some existing light fixtures I already have. At any rate there is going to be some seeds started for the Crimson Kitchen's, kitchen garden this weekend.

If I find that it gets too hot inside due to the weird winter we are having I have an attic fan thermostat up in the attic, all I need to do is make sure that it still works and find a small fan to vent to upper level of the plant incubator. I will take some pictures of this contraption as I'm making it so I will be able to post some later. These sheets of Styrofoam are a blessing, they cost around $20.00 if you had to buy them from the hardware store.  some of the plants that we are going to start are green peppers, yellow peppers, sweet red peppers, Jalapenos, Anaheim chili's, about 6 varieties of Tomato's, some Broccoli, cabbage, and whatever I might have forgot. If this incubator turns out the way I think it is, it should hold about 100 plants. This warm winter has me wanting to till the garden right now. I hope that it doesn't smack us in the face this March since it has been relatively calm so far. More late after I get this project started.

TIM