Corn starts

I planted corn starts a week ago and put them under a row cover. Despite a few frosty nights, they survived and are growing. So, We'll plant another bed of vegetables today.

With a row cover, mid-march seems to be a good planting date.

Baby Goats!

Our baby Nigoras were born yesterday afternoon. they spent the night in the barn, with a small electric heater keeping them warm. They are doing well today. The mother needs to be sheared.

Grow Light Informations

Photosynthesis does not use all the Sun's light, but only the extremes of the visible spectrum, blue and red. The center of the spectrum, green, is reflected by the plants, which gives them their color. The blue wavelength promoted leaf growth, while the red, stem growth. For starts, leaf growth is what matters, since the seedlings are exhausting the seed food reserve to grow leaves and produce photosynthesis.
The light spectrum of the grow light is therefore important. I made some research on the lights I bough.


There isn't enough energy in the short wavelengths. The grow light setup currently has 2 tubes, and will soon have 6 tubes in a 3x2 setup, with ~ 2-3 inches separation between each fixture. That gap is enough to fit a line of blue LEDs in between and gives a useful boost.

Here are the full specifications on the Ecolux lights used in my setup:

• Part#=49893
• Initial lumens=1900
• Color temperature=3100K
• Color rendering index=90

Next step will be the design of the LED lights.

Grow Light Setup, Finally!

Today I got a grow light setup installed in the garage. I used two GE Ecolux T12 tubes, and a 4Ft 2-light shop light fixture. It is barely wide enough for the trays, and I may have to add a second fixture. The shelf is wide enough to set the trays lengthwise, so by setting three 2-light fixtures (6 tubes), I could have 4 to 5 trays in there. Each tube is 40W, so that would suck 240W. We will see how the single fixture works with those spindly beans first, if they survive, then I may go for a 6-tube setup. For now I use a timer, and will keep the lights on during the day, but with a 6-light fixture, I would use a light sensor to turn the lights off when daylight is strong enough.
This is my first grow light setup, and it is exciting!

Looking online in the "medicinal" industry, I see numbers between 1500 and 3000 lumens/sqft for indoor only plants. In this setup, the starts are next to a South facing window, and get a boost in lumen and spectrum a few hours every day.
A seedling tray is 1.4sqft, and therefore needs between 2000 and 4000 lumens.
Each fluorescent tube is 1900 lumens. The growing setup must have between 1 and 2 tubes per tray. The current setup is on the low side. A setup with 3 fixtures, 6 tubes, for 4 trays, would be adequate.
If the current setup gives satisfying results, then I will install a 6-tube setup with 4 trays.

Goat Health & Hay

We just passed through a tough cold spell for the goats, with the snow covering the pasture for more than a week. This is the condition that made the goats sick last winter. This time, one of our goats got a mild case of diarrhea again (the Nubian), but seems to be OK. The goats are liking the home made hay, but I did not harvest enough of it. I would need two to three time the amount I collected. Still, some money has been saved harvesting that hay. As the weather is warming, the goats should need less hay soon. Good because I am running out.

Another Loss in the Corral

While feeding the chickens this morning, I found a dead hen. Since the body was complete, I doubt it was killed by a predator. This is the second hen to dies this winter. Those hens are 3 years old, so this may not be too surprising.

Grounding issues

Some weird problem with one of my showers in our house. There is a 50mV to 60mV DC voltage on the showerhead, while the pipe it connects to is properly grounded (a teflon tape appears to isolate the showerhead from the pipe). It is DC, not AC, like the house mains electrical. It is a low voltage (1/1000th of normal AC voltage at the outlets) but is enough to produce some twiching when touched. When all the breakers are off, there is still ~ 15-30mV residual voltage. When the breakers are back on, but the phone wires are disconnected in the phone interface box, there is a ~ 15mV residual DC voltage on the showerhead. When both main electrical and phone are disconnected, there is still a residual DC voltage of 15 - 30mV. There is never any AC voltage. The hot water pipe is grounded to the cold water pipe at the water heater. All voltages were measured with the negative of the voltmeter connected to earth (round prong of a 3-prong outlet). Our wireline phone has a constant humming sound which is very annoying (symptomatic of a bad ground). We actually discontinued the service due to poor audio quality. I am thinking the house has a weak grounding rod, maybe due to corrosion. A google search points to other people experiencing such problems. The recommended solution is to separate the phone interface box ground from the house AC mains ground, although I was told that codes require a common ground, which I tend to agree with, a good ground should have 0 potential on it.