Category Archives: Urban Farming

Gurobo Farm Update Apr 22

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In light of today being Earth Day I think I will do another Gurobo farm update with some pictures and what not. But first I want to add a little something to my wish/Bday want list, a sos solar oven.

A few months back I got all saving energy crazy. I tried to make my own solar food dehydrator which got a little out of my skill set at the time and dropped that project for now. But at the same time I got a little crazy for solar cooking. I made myself one of the cardboard/foil ones that I haven’t really tested out yet but I will try and use it one of these clear weekends.  But what I thing I need is this guy: SOS solar oven.

I have been watching lots of videos on cooking with solar and everyone seems to really love this guy. So lets all just send my wife some cash to get it for me. 🙂

Okay lets look at some pictures.

Tray 1 2 tomatoes, a bell peper, lettuce, mint and some other herb…

Want to say Tray one is looking good. But this tray seems to be going a little slower then tray 2.

Tray 2, lettuce and spinach

We added some romaine this weekend and you can see in the very top left one guy hanging out on his own flanked by a salad ready to go… I think i will try and go out and prep a some greens for salads with dinner this week.

Tray 3, cucumber, romaine and more herbs.

Here is the rest of the romaine we added this weekend along with my cucumbers that i started from seeds and a single plant i bought at the store this weekend as they are so little i am afraid mine from seeds are not going to make it..

Strawberries and Bee catchers!

Last year we bought these pre made hanging baskets of strawberries and i just kept eating them right off the basket. This year we decided to get even more but so far we have only found 2, but i have room for more. 🙂 Also we have added flowers. One of the issues with a green house can be the lack of bees. So in hopes of getting some of the little guys to pop in from time to time we added a few hanging baskets. This one is Red and yellow in honor of my ❤ for Iron man.

 

More flowers!

 

These guys round out my flower needs. I have added the frame of a covered swing that a wind storm we had at last week just destroyed. Lets me hang things in the middle of the Green house and lets the  wife reach them for watering. I also moved the tomatoes on the ground to sit under these so they will get some shade durning the heat of the day to help prevent sunburn.

Tomatoes!

Speaking of the vile evil things here are the other tomato plants, they are about 6-8  inches taller then when we planted them. So they are growing strong.

You know what is on the left or you should by now but the right is a watermelon.

This is my first watermelon. I am not 100% how it will do so it gets its own pot and a ton of vermiculite mixed into its soil to help keep it watered so we don’t end up over watering… I have big plans to make square melons. :0

Thinking Christmas already!

Something we never really thought about was growing a permeant inside Christmas tree. But we are going to try. It was the wife’s idea. And it happens that it will be all kinds of useful. This guy shouldn’t get much bigger then 4-5 foot tall. But i can use its pines for tea, it has editable pine nuts when larger and in a pinch i think you can even eat the bark… Why do we only have one?

Grapes!

We started training these guys to crawl the fence. Hope they do well. Lots of firsts this year.

And finally we also added a composting bin to the yard. I didn’t take a photo as it is more or less a box with holes in the bottom and side doors with a hinged top. Think everyone can use your imagination but i am going to make someone here at work very happy  as he bagges his grass clippings and i am going to go and steal them for my bin. 🙂 Going to call that win win.

 

Well for a post that is most images this has taken way to long and i have a pile of work to put off… I mean knock out.

<3s

 

Gurobo Farms Update Apr 16

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First of all if you didn’t see the new Clankenbeard art work of me as M.O.D.O.K. then look for a bonus post from last night. It is amazing as always. Really it is great. Thinking about asking if it is cool to make tee shirts with this on the back. I just need CTH to stand for something as cool/evil as AIM…

Okay lets hard break to the leaf of this post, Backyard Farm update. Last night as a fam we did some work/repairs on the greenhouse.  We had a few days of real strong winds where I realized that I had made a real error the placement of the door of my greenhouse. It is facing north. So right now as the seasons are changing we are getting a fairly strong north wind that is trying to blow my green house up like a balloon.  Meaning that this winter I will also have a cold wind attacking my greenhouse. Had I put the door on the south side then we would have been much better off. Live and learn I guess. I wonder if I could get 6 or 8 strong friends to help me pick the hole thing up and turn it around??? Maybe if we do a down time and empty the thing I can make that happen.

Over all things are growing well.

Grow beads 1-3

We have enough greens for a salad they are really going as you can see.  To the right we have some tomatoes and some herbs growing. And in the back of that tray the bell peppers are doing well.

Here is a close up of tray three where we have some more herbs growing and doing fairly well but toy can see the cucumbers just starting to pop up. These were all from seeds so I am happy to see them growing at all.

Speaking of seeds, the seeds I have right now are just from True Value, which is fine as most of my plants are from the same place atm. I don’t know the quality of these seeds or the plants they are going to be, but I did pick up some heirloom seeds from Underwoodgardens.com. They have a solid reputation and I have high hopes for them. And when they come in I will go into getting them started.

In tray 4 we have the peppers and they are rocking as they do. But here you can see my soil tmp, a nice warm 61.

Bead 4

 

Very over cast day. Also you see one of the new water tanks temporally set up as a rain barrel.

As you can see it was warm but overcast last afternoon. Want to say the air temp was about 54… And the tmp difference was great enough that the wife was annoyed anytime I wanted her to help me out side of the green house. J

Lets see two quick photos of one of the tanks in place.

Filling the tank with 175 gals of water… Oh the water bill this month might hurt.

Messy Samius.

When we first started to fill the tank I had the value open and made a bit of a mess. But you can see the basic plan. Big tank of water add fish and plants, grow both and win. But here is the thing; I really think I want to pump the water from the bottom drain, shit sinks right? And/or I want to be able to set things up to drain water out of this to water the plants with once and awhile so to both control and ammonia build up and as bonus fertilizer tee. I don’t think it would be all that tasty but the plants love it.

Soon I hope to have fish in the tank and my grow beads going real soon just need to get their supports in and setup.

Well better get moving on the day.

<3s

Last Big Push

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This weekend was a good one on many levels. The chickens are out of my parting spot and in their mansion/coop. I was able to pick up my new water tanks and got them plumbed up at least temporally.  In DDo land, my piker account hit its’ 20th von completion, completely out of the blue for me.  The wife pulled 2 or 3 web items from one run and was able to use them all on that alt. The British invasion managed to rock an EE tor with all dragons. And my arty finally got Litany flagged and I jumped from 16 to 18 in about an hour.

I will post some chicken video and pictures later in the week. But I just want to say the wife was really worried about them the first night we moved them out into their coop but now after a few hours of watching them do their thing she is finally okay with them being out of the house.

I will have better images of the tanks currently plumbed up with some of my thoughts but for now this one to give you some scale of a 200 gal tank will have to do.

Remmie setting the scale for the new tanks.

I am sure Grim will talk up the Tor run if not I will save that store for later in the week also. But let me just say it was a lot smoother then some of our other EE runs. And we were able to get the blue beat down also. We had been having issues with it. Even this weekend it was 3rd time was the charm…

The real story, I pugged a little on Samiusbot Friday night and knocked out 3 of the shroud flagging quests to maintain my elite BB.  Then with the wife’s help over the weekend, I completed my sigil to run litany. Which I ran in to the ground last night after splurging and buying a 50% xp pot, for 90% of level 17. So now my arty is chilling at level 18 with 2 of the shroud flagging quests to do, which I think I can solo if I can’t find a group to help me out. Then I can run Coal Chamber and Devils until I am tired of that xp. After that it is a simple matter of pushing the last little bit to 20 and making time to rock him to 25 and grid out a few destinies.

Not real sure how likely it is that will happen. The wife has been powering up her very first alt to 20 with a plan to TR her. Not sure if that is a right now project or a when she is ready project. But I think she wants a BIG hit dps alt. And I think that she might be making herself one. If that is the case then I might be TRing a healer type alt or using a first lifer to help her get caught up to my rogue to play with her on him.

All I know is My arty goal is in sight and that is a big deal because other then the wife helping in a few key places (sigil farming) this guy has mostly soloed only which I think says a lot about the wf arty ranged as a build by its self….

<3s

Anyone Else A Little Excited by Shit?

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Its okay, you can tell me. I won’t poke fun. Okay I will but just because this is not about scat play, although if is your bag… Right on. No I am talking composting… Yes, more gardening … J

Now that my greenhouse is 80% or more done and is in use I am already spinning down the line as to what is next… Looking at my plants right now things are good if spartan at the moment. I have lots of room but I am not sure how much of my room will be eaten up by my aquaponic system but I have to think I will have lots of room as my current plans are fairly small. So I need more rich amazing dirt and the best planting dirt comes from shit.

Also yesterday I went to take some temperatures in out side of the green house and inside over lunch. And while the temperature difference was impressive

Outside open air: 56

Inside open air : 85+ (closed up open things dropped to about 70)

Out side soil: 60ish

Inside soil: 71 which I hear is about ideal for most plants.

But it made me think how am I going to heat this thing in the winter? Do I even try? Or do I just hope I have enough thermal mass and light to push through?

Then I remembered the shit and started some Goggleing. Did you know that while composting the piles heat up? In some cases to 160 in some rare cases if allowed to dry out too much they have started on fire…

So there is a chance I could use some of the natural materials and the chicken shit to get two birds with one stone by composting the right way.

Wow! This guy just used compost heat to power his shower for 500+ showers, the power of poop.

Look around for jean pain method for more info. Me I am thinking about a 55 gal drum on rollers but I will need to start it outside on the ground as to collect some earthworms???? I don’t know, more research. I might just be able to make an pile out side of the window use a tarp and some ducting and heat the thing? Lots of thoughts/information to fit into a working idea.

 

Well wish me luck, have a good weekend and I hope to have some DnD talk on Monday.

 

<3s

Research Mode: Bring on the Weed

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So the last couple of days I have stumbled on to another aquaponic system, Bato or Dutch Buckets. And as I do when I find something that might work well for me I hit research mode scrambling as hard as I can to learn everything about that thing. Some of you have seen the results of that research mode from me time and time again. In DDo that is different builds or gear setups and so on. In real life I have used this kind of information gathering on the health (peleo diet), biking (my trike), the green house and even my aquaponic systems which jumped started this conversation, one sided as it might be.

So Goggling around reading forums, watching videos and checking out various build/use results; all while doing my normal job and or doing DDo screwing off…

Like I said the last few days has been about these Bato/Dutch boxes and as I do I follow the information even though I think I have a solid grasp on the teck. And out of no were I realize that more then half of the materials I am reading or watching is for people to grow the wacky tobacky…

Not again.

I have to be on some kind of list by now. Every time I get in to growing almost anything I end up some how I end up learning from people that are using these skills for illegal uses.

When I was learning about growing my own mushrooms I didn’t even have to get very deep into it before I realized that these people were so adamant about their systems because they are growing makic shrooms. More then half of the auaponic research was from people that wanted to grow weed. Building a green house? About a third.

Guess that makes some sense, who has more passion for these things then those kinds of growers/users?  I do find it funny that those are the people that are making videos and posting details/sharing their building methods. It would be like researching how to commit a B&E and seeing a video by/from thief’s while in progress, which has happened. Normally those are the people you hear about winning a Darwin award…

Well if you want to know what a Bato bucket is here is a good basic blue print and I will take pictures and show you how I am using it once I get the tank in place.

Bato bucket blueprints

 

Hope you enjoyed your bonus post.

❤

Pew Pew

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So I haven’t had a ton of playtime so far this week as I have been busting ass working on the greenhouse. Last night we did a little planting even. I will add some pictures at the bottom.

Anyway as I said I haven’t had a lot of time in game, about 45 mins on Monday night and about 3 mins last night. But that was enough time to play some with now level 15 Samiusbot!

Level 15 on a pure arty is huge; Blade Barrier is up no more caster level checks on Reconstruct scrolls and the most important thing for my build eating a +4 dex tome just in time for level 16 and its bonus feat! Tasty, tasty dex tome allowing IPS…

Knowing that I had limited time Monday I decided to just relax and do some Vale explorer zone work.

I had a real blast. I moved my draw settings last week up a notch to very super special high and now I feel like those archers in the Sands. I can shoot you from waaaaaaaay over heeeeeeere! The Dps is not bad almost 50 on avg on the first number then blazing, good, icy burst, and rune arm for normal hits. I started wearing Wind Howler Bracers for the shrieking bolt and using a bold trinket when xp is not about to roll in…  Over all the dps is not bad at all assuming I can shoot at the mobs from a distance.

But now with BB on line I am ready to jump back into the heavy content again. Right now fairly ungeared they are hitting for about 300ish range crits are fairly huge think I can work in a spell power item fairly soon. Might have to work in a Spell Power item real soon…

Also I need to remember to move some rune arms around/farm up a Tira’s Splendor. It would be a permanent rune arm in my arty’s toolbox.

Well I think tonight baring Tobril having work issues again this week I should have lots of game time tonight. This long on for the Daily Dice roll and not much else is crazy…

<3s and a few pictures with plants in the ground.

 

Growing Begins!

Wife planting some Poison Fruit aka tomatos.

 

Every Beginnings End

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So depending on where you are reading this post, this is a good by post or a welcome post. With the loss or soon to be lost my.ddo I have jumped ship to samiusgurobo.wordpress.com and soon samiusgurobo.com.  Hey for 18$ I can get a domain name to point to my wordpress blog…

Lets jump to some content!

This weekend I busted hump with the aid of my family and we are almost done with my trampoline turned greenhouse. We have a few more finishing touches like getting the door rehang and running some trim around the base to hold the plastic to the bottom of the frame. Then starts the fun stuff the growing.

I have lots of big plans for my greenhouse and as I always do I will share them with you has the come together.  But I will say I have a section planed to re-fire up my aquaponics experiments including using some real fish and a much larger tank.

My little urban farm is coming together nicely; the chicks are doing well so far. Oh for any that didn’t know I now have chickens. Surprise! My town allows up to 15 chickens as long as they are 50feet away from every building or in a mobile coop. All I need now is a few solar panels and a milk goat…

Just because I got things done doesn’t mean I didn’t get some DDo time in because I did. I was able to push to lvl 15 on my arty this weekend Blade Barriers!!! And we got some other things knocked out with the Brits including a 67 min EE Madstone. Which Grim was the only one not to take a death, but I think most of those deaths could have been avoided. I know my 2 deaths were strange things that I should have been smarter about and avoided. One I got pinned against a wall while kitting, should have went for tea with the queen and not tried to heal out of it. The other involved me being a baseball and being knocked into lava, which is very hot…

Lets see we also did an EE Crucible, which took less then the hour of ship buffs. But I had an early death thinking that Tobril on his healer would heal me but he was in save SP mod right out of the gate and I should have just PWKed my attacker when he got too close. Lesson learned!

But over all it was a very good weekend for me. I got the EE Skullsmasher for Java, thanks to my wife being good enough to pass it over to me. And I picked up a spare Iron Beads. Looking at the AH and SH I didn’t see any of them listed. Given the apparent supply and potential demand I think I will list the one I pulled for a fairly hefty sum on the SH and see if it sells. I am thinking of starting at 100 shards and having a buyout of 500. It seems overly high to me but I did get those tells the other day and there are 0 to be found…

Well it is time to go, I will miss my.ddo but these things happen. I got my black log of posts moved to the above URLs. I am really grateful to my.ddo and turbine for hosting my ramblings for as long as it have. My first post on my.ddo was March 16th, 2011 and I started there/here because I didn’t want to pay the hefty price for my guild site that was 80% my blog 10% tobril’s blog and the rest was other guildies chatting back and forth on the private forums or the rare post of their own… So moving due to shutdown is just SOP but I really like my.ddo sure is had a lot of issues but its community was more then top notch. Still I think we will still be around if a little fractured for a while.

Well as always…

<3s