What the hell is this?

I found it yesterday when I was inspecting the unit when I got home. It seems to be some kind of fungal growth.

I cleared it out, but I’m wondering if it is because that grow tank has too much water flowing through it. I get that feeling from looking at them because one side looks dry on top while the other looks constantly wet. Take a look at this side by side comparison.

This is the kind of building I’m talking about….

It’s 3 acres of square footage on Park near 73rd in New York. It probably requires a fair amount of renovation, but for growing food I think they could be minimal compared to converting it to a fresh office space. The walls would get knocked down, new lights hung, etc etc, but for that price in NY that’s kind of a steal for a building this size.

The commercial lighting costs would be a fair amount more in a space like that. Right now, the average price for NY power is $0.16 per kilowatt hour. Compare that to Michigan with a $0.10 an hour and you can see why what would be grown in these areas would be very important.

My cousin Jessy, for those that don’t know her, just suggested that all the high end restaurants in NY would love to shop at a place like this because of the freshness and location.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to the kind of building I’m looking for, check out the business plan overview page to get a refresher. I’m adding this building to the

Water Hardness, growth and harvesting (a bit) updates

Water Hardness

As you can see, the hardness less looks like it’s slipped again a bit. I think it’s because of a lack of clam shells, probably because they have been eroded by the running water. This is what I was expecting, just not quite so soon. I added some more to the media bags.

Growth


Peas

As you can see from the above photo comparison, one of the peas in the net pot has been growing pretty well over the last two weeks. The other one just didn’t grow at all. I cracked it open to take a look and it looks like it just didn’t take.

I replaced it with just a seed in the gravel like I’ve done with the others. Here’s a photo of the area at Day One.

Lettuce – Scattered

I added some scattered lettuce seeds where I harvested lettuce before I left for a few days. Here’s a photo of the growth.

You can just see it’s head poking out, but it’s growing.

Lettuce – Roots

Max harvested some Bib lettuce the other day and left the roots in. I’m going to leave it for a few days and see if it starts to regrow. With little experience in how food is grown and the thought that most food is just ripped from the ground with modern industrial agriculture I’m hoping it grows back. Again, NFI what I’m doing.

Radishes

This is the photo of the net pot radishes. They’re growing a bit better than the ones I scattered, but I think that has to do with the depth of the scattered seeds. In any case, I planted on the 7th, it germinates in 4 – 7 days and then is harvested 22 days later. That’s based on the assumption that “days to harvest” does not include the germination period. That means I should be harvesting July 6th. Gotta put all this kind of stuff into a spreadsheet.

Spinach

I’m getting nothing out of the Spinach. I cracked open the net pots and there was nothing going on with the seeds. So I did the “poke finger into the rocks” and planted some seeds.

Ok, that should be it for now. I’m off to New Orleans in the AM or the Tall Convention happening this weekend. I’m excited though to see what the growth will look like come Sunday night.

Spreadsheet and Page Addition

Spreadsheet
I sat down again to do some work on the spreadsheet that I have been putting together to optimize the costs. I found another spreadsheet that has an average breakdown of the cost per kilowatt hour on a state by state basis. It’s pretty neat. I’ve set it up based on the equipment I’m using right now, but it’ll be easy enough to transfer that info over for evaluation when I need to figure out the costs for a larger operation. Below is a screenshot of the top part of it.

I you click on the image, you can see the cost to run the system at an industrial price in NY would be roughly $86 for the year. My next step is to figure out how much that cost means in terms of square footage and yield. I’ll be working on some estimates over the next few weeks as I plug in the estimated growth time for the plants. That obviously might differ from reality, but it’ll be a good estimate to start with.


Page Addition
If you check the top of the blog you’ll see I’ve added a page. It’s a Business Plan Overview of the business idea. Please take a look and add whatever comments you need to on the page.

I’ll be updating on water hardness tomorrow when I get back from my job interview. I missed a few days, but the fish seem happy and the plants are growing well.

And tomorrow I’m having lunch with Bill. Hopefully we can get the timer issue figured out and the 8 hours of operation that are actually listed in the screencap above can become true as opposed to wishful thinking.