The Lay of the "Land" in the BathroomFarm

Because most seedlings rebounded nicely with light therapy, I decided to plant the first of my crops in the BathroomFarm and move forward with the sowing of the next seeds. This is just the beginning. Unlike many of my projects, that have a beginning and end, this will be perpetually in a state of evolution. In keeping the project very simple and low cost, I used common materials. The proceeds from my Quality Junk sale financed the purchase of potting soil from my neighborhood dollar store. I collected some sticks on the way home to use as plant supports.

The first containers I used to plant my BathroomFarm were containers I already had and some I made by upcycling food containers. It doesn't matter how pretty the wall looks in the beginning because as I add more

plants and everything grows, The foliage will obscure the containers. It was more important to start the project with what's on hand than to agonize over aesthetics at first. The biggest goal is to make a productive garden at the least expense.

The garden grows up along the whole wall using as much space as possible. I set two pots of cucumbers on top of my "garden shed" made from second hand shelves covered with upcycled bedsheet. I put sticks in the pots to keep the vines under control until they reach the wall and can grow up the twine I laced around nails. Upcycled milk cartons have tomatoes planted in them. There are peppers growing upside down and green onions and green beans planted in the tops of the large beverage containers on the lower left of the wall. A tomato plant that was planted upside down did die but I had suspected that I damaged it during transplanting. I certain of it now.

I have a lage pot on the floor on the left of the BathroomFarm. I upcycled a display easel by lacing twine around its legs to make a right angle trellis

for the Minnesota Midget Melons planted in it. I also planted green peppers, tomatoes, and heirloom lettuces in this pot. Because it's a very large container, I embedded a quart size bottle with the bottom cut out during planting. When I water this container, I fill the bottle to channel water into the lower part of the pot efficiently.

There are two other areas I am making use of for the BathroomFarm. I replaced the ceiling light bulb with a grow light and hung two baskets planted with spinach and Swiss chard leafy greens and suspended them next to the light fixture. There is a fan wired into the circuit which is on when the ceiling light is on so it gives a little extra ventilation in the Bathroomfarm which is good. I am also using the window ledge next to my desk as a seed starting area. I left the grow light in the clamp lamp that I suspended there for reviving my seedlings when I first started moving in. The next crops I planted are terra cotta pots with oregano, chives, parsley and cilantro. I also started yogurt cups with collards, zucchini and chilis!

So far the only problem encountered is that the lights are interfering with our cordless Internet phone! If I don't answer it right away, it's because I'm turning off the grow lights and lying to my crops about having a solar eclipse!

Let There Be Light in the BathroomFarm!

The make or break point of the BathroomFarm is adequate artificial light for indoor vegetable growing. Although the bathroom has two large south facing windows the light is still inadequate because the room is also shaded by our carriage house next door and the many trees in the south yard. My first impression of lighting options made me think the project was going to be aborted before it had begun. There were no out of the box options that fit my needs:

1. The equipment must be inexpensive to acquire. Most commercially available grow lights are designed for use in marijuana growing. In fact most of the lights are actually illustrated doing exactly that. Needless to say the prices of most lights are better suited to the budgets of persons growing crops worth thousands of dollars per pound as opposed to a few dollars per pound.
2. The lights must be full spectrum. Plants use the wavelengths of light they need which varies depending on the stage of growth they are in. Early in their life, plants need light in the blue range to develop foliage and later want red spectrum light to facilitate fruiting. Most lights are either/or. Because the idea for the BathroomFarm is to have a continuously producing garden, I will need full spectrum all the time and the plants in various stages of their life cycles can get what they need. I am not planting a crop and harvesting the crop. I am planting/harvesting all of the time.
3. The equipment must be simple. I just want to plug it in and turn it on. No extra this or that stuff like ballasts and inverters just yet. I have enough to learn about growing a garden without becoming an electrical engineer first.
4. It has to use as little electricity as possible and produce as little heat as possible. The electricity part is a no-brainer because the path to sustainability is NOT through the obscene use of resources especially the natural ones. The heat part is for personal security because law enforcement regularly flies over cities looking for hot spots in buildings which indicate indoor growing rooms. In their narrow minds the only plants grown indoors are the illegal ones. This is especially important in Indiana where citizens have essentially lost the 4th Right and police can break down doors and come on in without warrant or probable cause! This BathroomFarmer is all about drama avoidance!
5. The lights have to be suitable for vertical growing. They have to focus perfectly on the plants on the wall and not interfere with getting close enough to the wall to tend the crops.
6. Because this was starting to look a lot like a do-it-myself project, I didn't want to buy any special tools or acquire any special skills to accomplish it.

The Gro-Lux bulbs pictured above (and listed for sale in my BathroomFarmer Shop in the sidebar) were ideal for the project. I was able to acquire all of the materials for about $90! I made this myself with few construction worker skills and no electrical skills. I designed my "floor lamp" which would focus on the wall and be easy to slide out of the way. My landlord took me to Home Depot on Post Road on the Eastside of Indianapolis. I took my June trip in a fossil carbon powered passenger vehicle to a hardware store as opposed to a grocery store. I want to say that my shopping experience was great there, too. A sales associate named Mike C. accompanied me around the store and helped me find exactly everything on the list I made from the Home Depot website. I was treated with a lot of respect and felt like my project deserved good attention even though it is a little unusual!

The first step was the hardest and the most hazardous. I set a 2 x 4 vertically in a bucket of Quikrete to make the base of the lamp. You HAVE to protect your eyes, mouth and nose, and hands when you use this material. I watched videos on the company website to learn how to use it first. I made the lamp inside of my Bathroom. I scooped the mix out of the bag to avoid dust and because I couldn't pick up the 80-pound bag! Going slowly, I mixed a small amount in the big bucket and put the board in. I used the edge of my desk to make sure it was straight. Then, in a small bucket I mixed little batches and filled the big bucket the

rest of the way up. I left it alone overnight and the Quikrete perfectly cured so I could move it. In addition to taking personal safety precautions while using Quikrete, be really really careful about the amount of water you add. The company videos will show you what it looks like when mixed properly. Doing little odd sized batches required making visual decisions! Adding too much water prevents the concrete from setting properly!

I had a Martha Stewart moment and painted the board white with leftover paint I already had. I then decided where to attach clamp lamps to best benefit the arrangement I

was planning for my BathroomFarm. The lamps are not evenly spaced because there are areas on top of the shelving and on the floor which are included in the garden plan. Where I decided to put the clamp lamps was based on covering the surface

area and making use of the 80 degree beam spread AND maximizing the 875 lumens per bulb output. All things considered, that's a LOT for just 20 Watts of energy per bulb and a life of 10,000 hours. There is really good information on the bulb box about intensity of light needed for different plants including vegetables. Studying the space and considering my plans for crops helped me decide how to space my lamps. Farming is a little bit intuitive and BathroomFarming is not different in that respect.

I tipped the board over and supported it on top of a handy space heater to attach the clamp lamps by securely nailing them into position. They clamped on just fine

but I wanted them EXTRA secure to avoid popping off when the lamp is bumped or moved. Those bulbs are too precious to accidentally break. The bulbs themselves have a reflector so the reflector on the clamp lamp is doing nothing other than providing a socket for the bulb. I bought the cheapest solution for the clamp lamp AND took a bulb to the store to make sure it worked before buying. Mike C.

at Home Depot was very cool about it as was the store itself allowing me to bring merchandise I owned inside!

The last step was to thread the cords through the little space between the board and each clamp (for neatness), screw in the bulbs and stand it up. I used one extension cord on each side and plugged them both into a third extension cord and plugged it in. When upright and ON, I could then shift the reflectors around to focus light where it was needed and distribute that light evenly to emulate direct sunshine.

Less than $100. Sweet. EIEIO!

BathroomFarm 1.0: Preparation

My BathroomFarm started in November 2010 with an idea about growing a year-round vertical vegetable garden on a wall in my bathroom and has become a project with a life of its own. Since November, it has evolved into a global community with a presence on both Facebook and twitter. You are reading its first blog. There are also Tumblr blogs and a syndicated blog on thriftyandgreen.com in the works.

In review, it is not mysterious about why BathroomFarmer is so popular already. Many people are interested in growing their own food for quality and safety reasons. The idea of having fresh vegetables all year long is exciting. Being able to do this at a very low cost is even better!

I am going to briefly review here the major steps in getting to the point of planting my BathroomFarm. Although I read seed catalogs during the winter and was impressed with the infinite variety of specialty seeds for container growing, I decided on using mostly seeds commonly available at the grocery store. I did this because those seeds are available almost everywhere and they can be purchased with food stamps. Until now, vertical gardening has been luxury market priced. I want to make this option possible to anybody with a desire to do it regardless of their income level. For this reason, while planning the garden, I decided to make it mostly from upcycled and salvaged materials. As this project perpetuates in the future, I will add things more costly. For right now, I just want to prove it can be done for very little cash.

During April, I started seeds in toilet paper cores and dollar store dirt and put them on the

plant stand in the back hallway of the house to sprout. This was my only option since the room where the BathroomFarm would be was undergoing renovations because of serious water damage from a house fire several years ago. We had a rather cool and dreary spring. The seedlings did sprout but developed poorly because of lack of sunlight to warm the lead surface. By the time the weather took a turn for the better, the giant ginko tree outside the south windows, shaded the plant stand.

The make or break item for the BathroomFarmer project is the specialty lighting for indoor plant growing. I looked at thousands of options. Most indoor grow lights are designed to be suspended above a horizontal surface and are not appropriate for this project. Even if they were attached to the ceiling on one side and suspended in front of the wall, it would be difficult to approach the wall to tend the crops. Most of the lights are VERY expensive which is not surprising since the most common indoor growing operations are of the marijuana variety. The lighting I need for the BathroomFarm must be so economical, that it pays for itself with savings from food costs. Electrical costs also figured into this decision.

Since the lights are a significant expense, I had a FUNdraising Quality Junk sale to raise money for them to demonstrate that it is possible to accomplish the BathroomFarm even for persons with low income/no income. I sold things that I no longer want to obtain the things I need most. Lucky for me, I live in a neighborhood that does a group sale that 20,000 people come to each year. I want to emphasize that is my personal opportunity and everyone has some sort of opportunity if he truly wants to make a dream real. You have to be creative in your own way.

Assessing my budget after the yard sale, I settled on buying a quantity of these full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs I found on Amazon.com and designing an appropriate fixture for them which I needed to make myself from inexpensive and easy to obtain materials. I have listed these bulbs in the BathroomFarmer shop in the right sidebar. I was also able to acquire enough potting soil for the project from yard sale proceeds. The room was finished in mid-June and I have been moving into it ever since and assessing the situation. I am very fortunate to have a landlord who supports this project and, as a finishing touch to my space mounted parallel 2 x 4s on the wall and screwed a large sheet of particle board onto it! And painted it to match my walls! This gives me an easier to nail surface since the wall is plaster and tile behind it. It also keeps the plants away from the wall in the winter which gets cold because it's an exterior wall in an 1892 house.

Behold, the blank canvas soon to be my BathroomFarm! I will be posting more frequently at this point going forward during the physical build out of the vertical garden. It has taken longer than I had anticipated to actually plant the garden. That did bother me at first, but the indoor grow room is not subject to seasonal growing. My next blog post coming soon is about making the light fixture which I designed myself! It's not pretty, but I believe it will work perfectly for this space.

May Is Garden for Wildlife Month!

While my seedlings are sprouting to life, I am taking the opportunity to explore the great out of doors in Historic Woodruff Place as viewed through the watchful eyes of our wildlife friends! The actual real estate developed into Woodruff Place was once a dense forest appropriately named The Dark Woods. There are still remnant ancient trees in the neighborhood. I am proud to say that my neighbors are avid planters of new trees, too. Our canopy is so lush in places, there is no need to use an umbrella in light rain. I feel like I am living in a forest paradise!

Our own yard is springing into naturalized garden splendor as the spectacular bulb flower show fades. Although not so pretty to humans, this is paradise for wildlife. That's why we have owls in the yard. They find plenty of food from the creatures dining on the

plants as they find plenty of their own food. The best way to understand nature is to live closely to it. If you create a place that nature likes,

it will show up at your door!

Welcome to Fair Haven! This is my landlord's estate in Woodruff Place. Not only is my landlord known as a planter of trees, the unique development of his own real estate puts him on the cutting edge of modern landscaping design. He does have plenty of lawn in his 2 acre yard. And there are raised beds for flowers and

vegetables. The really fascinating gardens are the TWO National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habits in this yard! There is a woodland and a prairie in this yard! These are places for the wildlife to thrive and not for people to disturb.

This is the exterior view of the woodland adjacent to the south side of the house.

This is the view from the bedroom, too. Imagine waking up in a city with a view of wilderness! This area is left alone to evolve itself over time. For many years, I lived

in an apartment with a balcony in the back of this house and it was exactly like living

in a tree house!

Walking along a path in the woodland, I was quite impressed with how lush this garden had become in five years since I moved to the Test House. When you begin a wildlife habitat, it will continue to evolve itself.

Although it is possible to physically plant a habitat, my landlord prefers to designate an area and let it restore itself naturally. This fabulous squirrel house conveniently located in a black walnut tree, left, is one of the few human created additions to the woodland. This area was certified long before I moved to Woodruff Place

in 1989.

This is the exterior view of the prairie. It became a certified

habitat in the mid 1990's and I had the pleasure of watching the natural processes of ecological succession develop this

garden. It started as a lot left alone in the early '90's. Gradually, the plants took it over and I remember seeing the landlord and his wife carefully identifying the plants, birds and animals for the application for NWF certification.

Look at it today! There are no paths through this habitat and the only reason to enter it has been to remove trash people have dumped in there, which is rare. I found a spot on the edge of the prairie to take the photograph on the left so you can see the amazing

interior of a place left undisturbed by humans for two decades.

All of this in one yard in a city! Are you inspired? Don't worry if you don't have sprawling acres and years to wait to develop your own wildlife garden. National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitats can take infinite forms! Please click the link below to learn more and start the certification process. To celebrate their 75th anniversary, the NWF will plant a tree in YOUR honor just for certifying! It does not get greener than that!

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION CERTIFIED WILDLIFE HABITAT PROJECT HERE!

Just as my landlord has the patience to watch his woodland and prairie grow, I have to patience to watch my seedlings begin their life cycle. My green beans are being really ambitious and already have true leaves, so they have been transplanted into a hanging basket where they eventually grow when I move the garden

from the house plant stand into the bathroom in a few weeks.

Everything else has sprouted and is well on its way to forming real leaves. Until then, I have wrapped them back up in plastic to retain moisture and warmth. Because they are growing so ambitiously, I used twigs from the yard to elevate the plastic covering for more "head room".

The plants and I are moving along at the same pace. My job now is to finalize the planning of my vertical BathroomFarm... and to creatively raise money for proper lighting. It's a good thing my neighborhood has a legendary community yard sale! I'm getting my act together now for Quality Junk...Don't Miss This!

Seeds SOWN Sunday

The Bathroom Farm is becoming reality everyday and yesterday was the first step away from planning the vertical vegetable and herb garden in my bathroom and into the actual execution of the project. I truly believe that it is 100% possible to empower yourself by growing your own food and also believe that good results are attainable by anyone regardless of economic situation or skill level. After all, I am starting from nowhere with nothing and no clue! I do have, however, the willingness to learn and am fearless to fail forward until I make this work.I spent part of the winter reading about gardening and studying seed catalogs and websites. I decided the best way to proceed IS to make Bathroom Farming accessible to ALL.

In America,neighborhood food sources are vanishing every day especially in

urban areas where financial stress is increasing. Therefore, I decided to make the first version of my Bathroom Farm using grocery store seeds and materials commonly found around the house and neighborhood. I love all of the designer seeds available on the market through specialty garden shops. However, the seeds from the grocery store, as well as bedding plants, are produce department food items and are eligible items to be purchased with food stamps. I purchased the potting soil from my neighborhood dollar store within walking distance of my home. Everything else was upcycled, salvaged and repurposed from my very awesome personal collection of quality junk. Bathroom Farming affirms the idea of a food democracy.

I did buy a few varieties of seeds from fellow Etsy sellers because the grocery store selection was lacking some of

my favorite produce items. You see here Step #1: soaking some seeds for planting. I purchased these Minnesota Midget Melon seeds from WallFlowerStudio on Etsy. The California Wonder Pepper seeds came from Cubits on Etsy. These seeds required soaking for three hours before sowing. Seed packets have information about preparing and sowing seeds. It's a good idea to read them carefully!

In addition to the melons and peppers, I am also growing oregano, chives, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, sweet basil, cilantro, parsley,Swiss chard, spinach, carrots, lettuce,cucumbers and green beans!

Using a gardening tip from my

twitter friends @PLANETPALS, I decided to recycle

toilet paper roll cores for my seed starting tray. Eight half cores fit nicely into an aluminum bakery product pan. I put a layer of scrap cotton batting in the bottom of each pan to help keep the seedlings moist. Four of those pans fit perfectly side by side into a salvaged wicker tray. There was also room for a row of tiny terra cotta pots I needed for seeds that required being sown more deeply than 1/2"

I also started a larger terra cotta pot with cilantro because I have had good results from growing those seeds in pots in the past.

I taped labels on the outside of each container to

identify the contents before packing them into the plastic wrap lined tray and covering them with plastic wrap.

The seeds are resting peacefully now on the plant stand in the house! This house was built in 1892 and was not "electrified" until many years later. The architect who designed this building provided an ideal area designed exclusively for plants.

Looking down the side of the house, you see our 21st century ramp.

Looking above the ramp, you'll notice a pair of windows neither in line with the first floor windows nor the second floor windows. This is the location of the plant stand on the back stairway.

This is a large flat surface with two south facing windows and one east facing window. The windows have holes bored at their bottoms to allow air to circulate which prevents legginess in plants. The surface of the plant stand is a slab of lead. The lead prevents moisture from seeping into undesired places in the building and retains heat from the sunlight flooding in through the large windows during the day.

I am looking forward to learning more about the plants as they grow which will help in the design of the Bathroom Farm. It will not be long now before my room renovations are finished!

The Passing of Time on the BathroomFarm

Winter has come and gone and the changes in the seasons brings an awareness of the passing of the illusion of time. It was very cold and wintry when the renovations begun on the room I normally inhabit in this house. Things may seem to be moving along very slowly, but they are, in fact, moving at the perfect pace. Perhaps age has changed my perspective about time. I just see time as something that IS. I always believe that the time is exactly right and there is always plenty of it.

There are 20,000 flower bulbs planted in the .96 acre yard of the house and spring becomes an event to be savored. After an especially brutal winter, it was pure pleasure to see the crocuses leading the progression of blooming bulbs.

The natural cycles of the seasons and the changes in the plants truly fascinates me. I like to be aware that persons with outdoor gardens are starting seeds at the first signs of spring. Because my garden will be indoors, I do not feel the pressure to do anything but enjoy the season.

The main attraction of the spring flowers are the thousands of every imaginable variety of daffodil. The current property owner once owned a daffodil farm so there was an abundance of bulbs available to be planted. The flowers make me think of, exactly that, abundance. Rich and lavish abundance. There are many lessons to be learned from spring flowers. I love how they can endure the lingering winter

and rebound unscathed by the meteorological adversity.

And, rebound, they do! There were even some early bird tulips blooming a few days later. It's inspiring to see how easy nature forgives. It's inspiring how nature can transcend time and move forward in its own time. I feel no need to judge or be judged and simply relax and know that all things are well.

Everything we believe about time we have created ourselves. For more than 35 years, the owner of this house believed

that it was built in 1893. I recently found a recorded Test family member recollection that the house
was built in1892.

It was still very long ago and there have

been many chang

es to the real estate from the way it was originally envisioned by Charles E. Test.

I wonder what he'd think about

his manicured lawns reclaimed from wilderness being returned to a naturalized state with an amazing display of haphazardly planned flowers welcoming spring to Historic Woodruff Place.

Winter at the Bathroom Farm

Even though my Bathroom Farm is still very much in the planning stages, I am devoting daily activity to bring it into being. The first thing to consider is the space itself which is scheduled to be renovated beginning next week. I will gain needful electrical circuits and a more desirable wall paint. The room is now painted with semigloss paint which will be changed to flat paint to optimize specialty lighting to be installed later. You might think this is all wrong and that a shinier paint surface is better. What shininess does is create warm and cool spots and I am trying to avoid this. Even the snapshot of the bare wall in the Bathroom Farm post below supports this.

I am , therefore, in the process of moving out of the space this week. I will be relocating to another space and although I'm not moving out of this house, it is still moving and disruptive. The snow and the cold in Indiana makes planting season seem like an eternity away. It always does. That's why I have gotten into the habit of forcing paperwhite bulbs inside of the house. They counteract the void formed by removing holiday decorations and make the season seem less stark! It's also a great excuse for a field trip to my favorite local garden shop!

I choose my favorite "anything shops" by proximity to bus routes and lucky for me this one is on TWO of the routes that border my neighborhood, in an urban shopping development just a few miles away! There is also a drug store and grocery store there as well AND a hardware store also selling gardening supplies. Because I have walked my 'green' talk for quite sometime, I am very well acquainted with this corner.

Paperwhites are a real curiosity to people who are unfamiliar with them because I put them in a container with rocks and add water and they just grow. Like any bulb, everything they need for life is already self-contained and because they are essentially a one-time decorative plant, no dirt is required. A few years ago, I learned a cool little trick about growing them I want to share.

Their only drawback is sometimes they grow tall and leggy and can possibly topple a small or lightweight container with their top-heaviness once they bloom. By - get ready for this - adding alcohol (meaning booze) to the water, it is possible to stunt the growth of the stalks and produce a more compact plant! Seriously. This horticulture research was conducted by Cornell University and I tested it out myself on a few occasions and it works great!

CLICK HERE TO READ HOW TO 'PICKLE YOUR PAPERWHITES!'

My paperwhites are doing quite well as you can see! The gentleman in the photograph is Charles Test who built the 1893 Gothic mansion I live in. He was an industrialist who owned the National Automobile Company and was a great fan of science himself. Counter to the trend in home design of the Victorian era, he built this house with a science lab on the third floor instead of a ballroom! It is a rare residential feature indeed! To compensate for lack of social space, the first floor of the house is designed so the parlor, living room, courting room, dining room and foyer combine into a large space. Social space was absolutely necessary because the original residents valued hobnobbing with their peers highly.

In case you are intrigued by my neighborhood, I've included a link to The Magnificent Ambersons, the first book inspired by Woodruff Place, a town separate from Indianapolis until 1962. One of the minor themes in the book is the emergence and reluctant acceptance of the automobile. Many of the local tycoons building houses here were involved in the Indianapolis automobile industry which produced 2,500 makes and models of cars until it was eclipsed by Detroit. It is also interesting to note that the houses built by these automotive industrialists had the biggest and fanciest carriage houses in Woodruff Place. I wonder how much confidence they actually had in their products!

I have plenty of reading homework of my own this winter and I am starting with this seed catalog from Thompson and Morgan, an Indiana business! I love the selection of container varieties of all of my favorite vegetables. Their information on the habit and size of the plants is clear enough for me to design the wall pockets to suit my needs. I also plan to purchase some of my seeds from Etsy sellers and will pass information along as I learn. This path to increase my personal sustainabilty is a learning experience and it is my goal to inspire people to do the same.

In case you are wondering, the personal production of food is NOT prohibited by the Food Safety bill recently passed by the United States Senate. I received a gracious letter today from Senator Richard Lugar clarifying this. In other words, all systems are "go" with my Bathroom Farm!