Low pH in the apartment system but growth is good

I checked out the system this week, and it seems to be doing well.  The brown algae in the water is slowly disappearing.  The veggies are growing well, though the strawberry seeds that I scattered in one pot don’t seem to be growing too quickly.  My friend hadn’t checked the chemicals recently, so I did while I was there.  The pH was very low (<6), but everything else looked ok.  The ammonia was 0.5ppm.  Nitrite was zero, and Nitrate was 160+ ppm.

I added 6 capfuls of API’s pH up.  I decided that I didn’t want to rely on my friend checking the pH and adjusting, so I added enough pH up to bump up the pH to around 7.  Normally I wouldn’t want to raise it more than 0.2 per day, but I didn’t want to risk losing the bacteria and have to re-cycle the system.  My friend added a little water the next day, and checked the pH.  It was about 7 – 7.2, which is ideal.  Hopefully this weekend I can visit for a few hours to clean the canister filter, and plan out new fish that we want to put in the fish tank.  We’d also like to mount some small lights that we have onto chains above the grow bed.  Another issue is that the water draining is somewhat loud, so I want to figure out a way to muffle the draining water.  Here’s some pictures and a video from my visit to the system.

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Soil pH A basic Idea

In some of my earlier articles I have mentioned about pH and the ideal pH for a particular plant. But many starters are not aware of this technicality. So I decided to demystify the jargon in this article.

Soil pH is the measure of how acidic or how alkaline your soil is. It is actually to measure the concentration Hydrogen ions in the solution. It is measured in a scale of 0 to 14. Where 0 being the most acidic and 14 is the most alkaline and 7 stands for neutral. To give you an example lemon juice can be of the range of 2 to 3 signifies very acidic where as baking soda can be of a pH of 8 to 9 which means it is very alkaline. The fresh clean drinking water is of pH 7.

This pH is calculated on the logarithm scale so a difference between one point is equal to 10 times acidity. i.e, the pH of 6 is 10 times more acidic than pH 7 and 10 times less acidic than pH 5.

Now you must be wandering about why pH is so important to your plant? Lets see why. The pH of the soil has a very big role in plant growth and its survival. Though it is not a nutrient, it controls the availability of the nutrients to the plant. So it does not matter how much nutrient you put into the soil, if it can not get absorbed by the plant it is of no use. For example a soil pH of 6 or more can inhibit the absorption of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium etc. where as a soil pH of 7.5 or more can reduce the amount of Iron, Zinc, Copper, Manganese. A soil pH of less than 4 can be full of toxic amount of Aluminum or Manganese.

Now the good news. The soil pH is not fixed. You can change it to your plant’s liking. The soil pH is dependent on your local climate. You can get the idea by looking at the plants in your locality. Generally it is found that in high rainfall areas the soil pH is acidic. Plant like blueberries flourish in these areas. Where as typically low rain fall areas in the world is generally contains alkaline soil. Plants like olive or pomegranate do well in those areas.

It is best to test your soil pH before you start planting. You can get the required instruments in your local garden shops. You can also contact any professional to do it for you.

If your soil is too acidic and you want to reduce the acidity and increase the pH, agricultural lime or dolomite can be a good option to be added with the soil. Generally agricultural lime is cheaper than dolomite. In case your soil is deprived of magnesium then add dolomite otherwise lime would be fine.

In case your soil is far more alkaline and you want to decrease the pH, add peat moss or compost. Adding these organic material can definitely beneficial than adding ammonium sulfate or other inorganic sulfates.

I hope this clears the doubts surrounding the pH and its effect. Do post your comments.

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Lions Mane Mushrooms

A few years ago, I became interested in mushroom cultivation.  Ive grown oyster mushrooms in the past, and I just harvested some Lions Mane mushrooms that I got for the holidays.  Ive heard some pretty cool things about these mushrooms.  Apparently they can increase you memory and mood.  Paul Stamets is a mushroom expert with some interesting thoughts about Lions Mane.  You may have seen his TED talk, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save The World.

I saw Paul give a talk about mushrooms at Burning Man this past year.  The talk was very interesting, and one of the things he mentioned was that Lions Mane promotes growth of cells in the brain.  He also mentioned that they taste like lobster when sauteed with butter.  I had to give it a try! 

I prepared the grow kit around December 27th, and I made a mushroom fruiting box a few days later.  The fruiting box is a large clear bin with holes drilled in it, and moist perlite at the bottom.  This keeps the humidity high so that I dont have to mist the bag as often.  I still fan out the box once or twice a day.

From Jan 15th-ish?

 I harvested on Jan 20th

I sauteed them up with some red onions and butter, and a little salt and pepper.  They were pretty tasty, though not my favorite.  I am excited to harvest another flush in a few weeks, and hopefully I can prepare the next batch a little better, and theyll taste more like lobster!

Heres Pauls website where I got the kit:

http://www.fungi.com/shop/mushroom-kits/indoor-mushroom-kits.html

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