Spring Building

Spring Break! So much to do and only a week to get it all done!

Aside from everything else in my life (ie office work and school) to take care of, I spent the better part of this week doing more research on SIPs and taking care of my plants.

Repurposed storage bin from Salvation Army.
Cut up bottles and Zippy's take out container as watering
reservoir/air chamber.

As of right now, I have about three bins I purchased from Salvation Army that I'm converting into SIP containers.  I've recycled some old (and WASHED) bottles and zippys take out containers (those buggers are actually pretty thick...) to use as reservoirs and I'm hoping they work out.  Although, at the moment I don't really have anything big enough to transplant into them, but hopefully in a few days they'll be ready for their new homes.

This is the other SIP container I built.  It's basically the same set up for all of the bins, with a few differences based on what materials I could pull together to be recycled.  This one is filled with a potting mixture of coir, peat, perlite and some hydroton. Not sure how the media will perform, but it's light and fluffy, yet somehow pretty dense... There's a drainage hole on the side of the container facing the wooden board. I will turn it around once I put plants into it. Probably some Manoa lettuce.

Keeping with the SIPs, I also put together two new ones out of a gatorade bottle and a water bottle.  They were built with a bigger reservoir, so I had to put in a wick.  The container is filled with hydroton pellets.  The plant inside is catnip (nepeta cataria) that was sprouted in coir pellets.  The hydroton hasn't been able to wick up a lot of water over the past two or three days.  The top 1/3 stays pretty dry.  I've been watering the pellets a little every day. If the hydroton doesn't wick up more water in the next day or two I'm going to add some coir to the hydroton to help pull up more water.

SIP from water bottle

SIP from gatorade bottle

In other parts of the garden, my spearmint root cuttings have been sprouting and now I've got three little mints popping out of their containers.  They've been in a very shady spot so once they get a little bigger I'll stick them in a more lighted place.

Smartwater SIP with wick.
Bottom Layer hydroton.
Top layer coir, peat, perlite.
Chocolate mint cutting.
Hood removed for photo.

The chocolate mints have yet to be repotted, but I'm in the process of making SIP containers for each of them.  The two from Home Depot are doing pretty well, but are on their way to getting root bound, so I need to get them into new homes really soon.  The injured plantlet I purchased from the Urban Garden Center plant sale still looks really sad, but there's another node that grew, so I guess it's not doing too badly.  I took a cutting from it and stuck it in a smart water SIP and put a hood on it.  Supposedly, mint from cuttings is supposed to put on roots really fast (when they don't have roots already intact) so we'll see how that goes.

Chocolate Mints

Original Miracle Fruit.
May be suffering from overwatering.

In sadder news, my miracle fruit (synsepalum dulcificum) plants aren't doing too well.  Apparently, I didn't check the ones I bought from Lyon Arboretum very well because there was a black spot and mealy bug infestation on one of them.  Thankfully, the mealy bugs hadn't moved over to any of my other plants.  I tried to remove as many infected leaves as possible, but one of them ended up pretty bolo head... Hopefully it pulls through.  Two days after I pulled the leaves, I sprayed the plants with Safer 3-in-1, so hopefully it gets rid of any straggling mealy bugs and helps get rid of the black spot.  What's worse, my SIP experiment hasn't been going too well for my original plant.  The leaves started turning red/brown. I think I overwatered it.  I stopped giving it water, so I'm hoping it will dry out a little.  Once that happens, I'm going to give it a little fertilizer since it hasn't been fertilized once since I bought it about 9 months ago.

Miracle Fruit from Lyon Arboretum.
Was infected with Black Spot and Mealy Bugs.
Sprayed with Safer 3-in-1.

Other Miracle Fruit from Lyon Arboretum.
Was only infected with Black Spot.
Infected leaves were removed.
Sprayed with Safer 3-in-1 to prevent further outbreak.

Plant Growth Update and Visitors In My Garden

So, before I actually write about all the new things, I want to post all the stuff that happened before that I have pictures of.

-One of the thymes I had in an SIP somehow started to air layer on its own. Without media being on what I assume must have been a cut. Pretty weird to see, especially since it's only about a centimeter and a half above the media.

I "planted" a few Jade plant leaves from my parent's house.  One had roots already growing out of it even though it was just lying on concrete for a day or two. I have three, but I only took a photo of two of them.  They've actually all sprouted roots, but as I've read, they take ages to actually get anywhere so it'll probably be a good long while before they actually do much of anything....



I found a little guest in my garden. Two actually, but only one had started using one of my plants as an all you can buffet. I found some holes on my lemon verbena, but couldn't find the culprit. The next day I did some thorough checking and found a little caterpillar on the underside of one of the leaves.  It hadn't done too much damage, but since it's a transplant, I'm none to keen on having it devouring my entire plant for lunch. I picked a few leaves and stuck the little freeloader in an old jam jar. I know that sounds harsh, but I'm not so happy to share my lemon verbena since I haven't even gotten to try the darn thing yet myself... I will let it go once it either transforms or starts looking sick... away from my lemon verbena...

Rebirth of Green

So it's been a while since I've written anything and to sum up the the last month or two...

EXAMS
EXAMS
WORK
EXAMS
Stamp making.....

The stamp making was a very long research process and some very nice hands on learning.  I discovered the Ganoksin community, an amazing network of artists and crafts...people... from all over the world.  They've taught me loads about working with steel and fabricating my own handmade stamps.  So far though, I've made a heart and my own personal symbol. No pictures right now, since I'm not sure I've hardened and tempered them correctly.

Anyway, the jewelry making is going to be put on the back burner for now... Material are expensive and I'm trying to make sure my credit card bill doesn't put me into bankruptcy... That's what grad school is for.

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In the mean time, I've been revisiting my garden (it had been moonlighting as a dead plant museum. poor things...) and I must say, I am pretty impressed with mint... and myself. The only things to survive my attempts at urban container gardening were my Mint, Rosemary, Aloe, Thyme and Ti Leaf.  The Ti Leaf and Rosemary were barely hanging on (and I'm not even sure the Rosemary will make a recovery), but they've been repotted and I've got my fingers and toes crossed for them.  I must say though, I am utterly stunned by the hardiness of mint. I had not touched, repotted, or watered the thing in at least three months, but it was sending up runners and sprouting all over that pot.  I think a good 1/4 of the potting mix actually got washed out of the pot when we had that huge storm a few months back, but that thing was just kickin along... granted, it was pretty scraggly, but still. I'm sure that perseverance will bite me in the butt in the future, but hey, I like mint, so I'm just gonna keep my mouth shut for now.

So, to continue on from my tangent, I've been doing research into the plants I'm planning to collect and container gardening.

I repotted the Mint into a sprout cuttings, and potted up four root cuttings.





Repotted the Rosemary which was root bound (I clipped the roots a bit and whacked the branches back pretty hard).

Rosemary after being pruned. Needles were red before transplanting. Not sure why though.

I also repotted the ti leaf and aloe, both of which had roots poppin out the bottoms of their clay pots.





The Thyme was very woody from neglect, but because of all the rain they had started to put on some nice new growth.  I took as many cuttings as I could and stuck them in soda bottle SIPs (Sub-Irrigating Planters), which I had made ages ago to propagate Rosemary cuttings. There are three Thyme cuttings sitting in SIPs filled with coir.

Two of the thyme cuttings in SIPs. Usually have "green house" hood on, but kept off for photo.

I kinda mixed together my own potting mix from whatever I could scrounge together, which came out to about 1/3 coir, 1/3 potting soil, and 1/3 perlite.  Hopefully, it isn't too light of a medium for my plants to grow in.

I stopped by the Oahu Urban Garden Center for their Second Saturday sale.  Sadly, I got there too late, so there wasn't much to actually buy, but I did find a baby Chocolate Mint. Unfortunately, when I got home I discovered the stem was actually damaged, so I don't have much faith in it surviving.  Hopefully, if it does take a turn for the worst, I can propagate it from cuttings.



I also went by Home Depot to see what they had a voila! Two Chocolate Mints!! I was completely amazed!... and of course I bought both... sorry whoever else was looking for them...

Chocolate Mints! The sad little one in the black container is the one from the plant sale.

Mojito Mint

Lemon Verbena

In addition, I found a Mojito Mint (BIG plans for this one for before and after finals), and a Lemon Verbena.  Both of these plants were already pretty big, but they were the only ones I could find that weren't root bound and/or flowering.






And lastly, I stopped by Lyon Arboretum during my break between classes and purchased two new Miracle Berry plants (Synsepalum Dulcificum).  The one I had from before turned into a sad little house plant which wasn't growing at all, but a week in front of the window helped it put on some new growth (still thin and sad, but new growth all the same.  I'm going to run an experiment, so I potted the old one into an SIP made out of a 2 liter Coke bottle (coincidentally, it's the perfect size for the repotting).  The two new ones will be repotted sometime over the weekend. Still deciding if I'll put it into a clay pot or another homemade SIP. I'll probably run an experiment and do one and one.

Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum Dulcificum)
Left and Bottom from Lyon Arboretum
Right is previous houseplant in 2liter SIP

Phew, that's a lot of planting for a week. Except, I also put in some Catnip (nepeta cataria) in peat grow plugs.  It's been about three days and they've started to sprout! Hooray!

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Now for the researching.  The short bit is the list of plants I am planning to grow: Himalayan Strawberries, Chives, Oregano, Hawaiian Raspberry, Savory, and Lavender. I'm sure there are more, but I probably should end my zealousness while I can.

For those that don't know, Sub-Irrigating Planters, or SIPs, are planting systems that hold water below a plant and "wick" the water upwards into the growing medium.  This system has been tested and shown to be exponentially more efficient than top down watering. The plants draw water into their roots, and as the media "dries" water is drawn up into the medium to replace the "lost" water. It keeps the media evenly moist and waters the plant only as fast as it needs it.  This process also eliminates the substantial loss of water through evaporation brought on by over saturation at the media surface. That's actually my understanding of the process. A good resource is actually Inside Urban Garden, a blog that has taught me much and consumed many many hours of reading time and SIP production.  A more direct link to construction is this entry on the author's flickr: SIP Soda Bottle Construction

All this research has resulted in construction of about six plastic bottle SIPs made from 2 liter bottles, smartwater bottles and and any other evenly shaped plastic bottle I can find.

Well, that's all for now.  Pictures of the plants to come. (Updated March 25th with pictures)

Rings and Sun Jars

So today finally came! Today was my chance to attend Katharine's This Ring Thing class at Kaimuki Bead It! It was awesome and I had soo much fun! Then again, I enjoy Katharine's classes... Either way, I had a great time and I came out with some pretty neat rings... and a lot of extra material to play with... hehe.

So first up for this post are my two rings.  The first is just a simple flat wire ring with some lettered stamping.

The second is a plain band of the flat silver wire with a sterling silver key charm soldered onto it... It's a "key ring"... hehe.. yah... I went there...

I need to get better lighting when I take my pictures cuz this really ain't cutting it...

Next up is the sun jar I put together a few days ago.  I dismantled one of the garden lights I bought in a six pack and used the "guts".  I sawed through the plastic baseboard, but kept the battery holder intact.  There's even a convenient on/off switch. Sadly, the wiring ran through all layers of the light, so before I could remove all of the casing, i had to desolder the vast majority of the wiring.  Once that was done though, it was a lot of fun to change whatever I wanted. Though, the only thing I really changed was switching out the white LED for a blue one.  Anyway, I won't go into any more detail than that, but the bottle I used was a cheap one I found at Ross. It's not my first... or even 5th choice, but it was all I could find at 8:30 PM on a Thursday...

 List of modifications;
1) Rounded light diffuser.
2) Smaller jar or bigger diffuser.
3) Better spray job on the frosting spray. (you can't see it from this picture, but it's actually really uneven and wavy.

Anyway, that's all for now! I have to work on a gift for my sister and fix up the one for my brother.

busy busy

Let's see, I guess I'll just keep this short, even though it's been a while.  I've been rather busy lately... School's started up again so that's a whole load of things to take care of... on top of that there's work and I keep finding more things to involve myself with. It's been fun though so I'm not complaining.  Aside from all that normal stuff though, I'm very excited that this weekend I'll finally be attending the Bead It class for ring making. I believe it's called "This Ring Thing". I'm not so jazzed about the name, but I get the marketing behind it... Real excited for this one since I get to work with Katharine again! In the mean time though, I've been practicing making a sailor's chain, otherwise known as a pinched loop chain.  I've been practicing the technique in copper to save myself the drain of.. you know... buying silver... It looks ok as copper, but I'm using silver solder so it looks kinda odd.  Oh well, once things get settled, I'll put out this puppy in silver and have me a new bracelet (or necklace. haven't decided yet... Although I guess I could attach it to something... like a pocket watch... and go steam punk with it...)

On the tinkerer/maker side of things, I've been obsessed with fabricating my own sun jars! I found a few instructables and I've been hooked. It took me a while to track down all of the components (and despite how much it chapped my ass, I finally got around to paying for a soldering iron... and desoldering tool... from radioshack... I know, probably not the best I could have done, but hey I'm on a budget and they worked just fine...) I spent the better part of the night getting the last few materials I needed and about 3 hours actually making my first one.  I started with a solar powered garden light I got in a six pack from Lowes, but the things are so darn bulky I had to dismantle about 10 screws and some excess copper and plastic.  I do have some plans for that copper, so don't worry. I don't think I can repurpose the plastic since I had to saw through parts of it, but hey, I tried... Anyway, I had to desolder then resolder about 18 times to get everything out of the case and then make sure all the connections worked alright. Massive pain in my... hand... but it warmed me up for replacing the LED.  I had picked up an assorted pack of yellow, red, green and what may be white LEDs (must test these later as they could end up being blue, purple or shooting out rainbows for all I know...), two UV LEDs, and a single blue LED, so I soldered on the blue one just to see if I could do it. Wouldn't you know it, the damn thing actually worked when I was done.  Of course, I had to test it with an actual battery since the rechargeable one hadn't been left in the sun, but that's a worry for later.  Anyway, I hot glued everything into a frosted (with spray paint glass frost) plastic canister with metal and plastic seal and voila! First home made sun jar! It's drying outside right now so I'll have to check it tomorrow once i let it charge up a bit.  Hopefully I didn't damage the solar panel... Guess we'll just have see.

Anyway, that's about it for the day.  I have so many other things I want to build/make/solder/construct/redesign that my brain feels like it's going to bust!

Next on my list of projects:
-silver rings
-sailor's chain in silver
-figaro style silver bracelet
-assorted colors of sun jars and different colored designs
-steampunk-ing some USB flash drives
AND FINALLY (I know, when the hell am I going to study??? O_o")
-start casting resin!

P.S. Pictures to come once I've got a few more sun jars going (and have them charged...)

Rain and Fire

So this weather has been doing some weird things to my plants.  It was raining so hard the past few days that it made the soil jump out of the pots.  When the weather stabilizes, I'll add more soil to the pots.  Hopefully they aren't in shock or anything.

On the bright side, I splurged a little and bout a few new tools.  I now have a steel and nylon hammering block, a pair of  pretty good quality cutting pliers, a small chasing hammer (ball-peen), a junk pair of flat pliers (for picking up fired objects to quench) and a short length of 12 gauge sterling silver wire.  Let me tell you, even with a discount, that wire was expensive.  I'm all for buying local, but ouch. I got so anxious, I ran home and soldered together a few rings just for fun.  They don't look very good, but it sure took the edge off of my craving to work with metal again.  I showed my friend Matt how the general process works, but I guess coordination with a torch isn't a natural thing for everyone. In my "down time" while we were talking, I tried my hand at "forging" a short piece of silver wire.  Earlier that day, I had talked to Amanda, one of the girls who works at Bead It, and she said I could give it a try if I wanted a thicker banded ring. It was actually pretty fun, but because I was working with such a short length of wire, I slammed my fingers one too many times.  What resulted was a slightly thicker band than I had achieved with my 12 gauge wire, but very very thin.  I would post pictures, but I can't find the charger for my camera, and I don't get very good definition with my phone.

While running around on the internet, I came across Bead Gallery Honolulu, a shop near Ward. I really want to check it out. As much as I love Bead It and the people there, I am dying to make as many connections as I can and of course, find new stuff to play with.  In my browsing, I also came across firemountaingems.com. It has tons of supplies and tools and at really good prices.  It gets even cheaper if you buy massive quantities of stuff, but how many sets of files do I really need? I haven't ordered anything yet, but once Christmas passes, I may go a bit nuts on ordering materials.

New Equipment

Although I should have been studying for my finals, I stopped by Bead It! Kaimuki on the way home from work.  I'm so happy to finally have had the chance to use that 25% off coupon I got in the mail. I picked up a hand torch, bench block, solder block and metal ring mandrel and I ended up only spending $100. I know that's still a lot of money, but still, 25% off is a sweet deal.