4 c. Basil......

Success! After months of enjoying my fresh herbs in my cooking, I happily made and enjoyed my pesto!

Pesto
Ingredients: basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil



Fresh picked basil blended together for a most delicious meal! My brother-in-law, my inspiration for cooking, enjoyed some, too!

LED Indoor, Spring Herb Garden

I've been enjoying Basil, Cilantro, and Parsley in my everyday cooking. It is as fresh as it can get. Delicious. Fragrant. Abundance.

Indoor LED Cherry Tomato Garden

Life-Cycle: Seed to Seed
Healthy Life, Healthy Eating
I've planted 12 cherry tomato plants indoors with a 50 Watt LED light. I just changed the light to 12 hours, to start the flowering and fruiting. I planted the seeds the last week of February. They look great--excited to see and taste the fruit they produce!

Pesto!

I have 14 basil plants growing....and my goal is to make delicious Pesto!
I'll keep you updated on this one!

Happy New Year and Welcome Spring!

My first round of Indoor Gardening with an LED light was fun! I harvested and enjoyed tomatoes, peppers, and many different herbs and greens. I learned so much and truly appreciate fresh, right off the plant, organic herbs and veggies!

On to my next project. Right now my focus is on fresh herbs and some greens. It's at the beginning stages, and I've already been enjoying cilantro, parsley, spinach, romaine, and arugula.

Agroponics

I've set up my agroponics system for daily watering in my fruiting tray-

Garden Update!

Lots of flowering, some fruit....So, we added a black curtain around the fruiting tray to keep the lighting more consistent...
I had extended my garden into two trays and have now separated them into two different grow areas. Right now I have all my plants in the fruiting tray with 12 hours of LED light-2 kinds of peppers and 2 kinds of tomatoes. I also have some basil growing.
I'm going to start a vegetation tray of herbs and veggies with 18 hours of LED light in the new year and transfer the flowering plants into the fruiting tray when they are at the size I want them at to produce fruit. I sure have learned a lot and look forward to having my veggies year round! The cycle will move faster now that I understand it more too!

Fruit! One Hungarian Hot Pepper and Two Cherry Tomatoes

It feels really good : )

Flowers! Peppers & Tomatoes

It's been such a great learning experience to garden indoors. I've enjoyed my arugula, romaine, and spinach, cilantro, and parsley! I now have my peppers and tomatoes on 12 hours of light! (I still have my herbs going too, cilantro, parsley, and basil.) It's exciting to watch them flower and I look forward to the fruit they will produce- I've learned the power of controlling growth and flowering with my SHS4 LED grow light. I've learned to trim my tomato plants at the top so they get fuller instead of taller. One tomato plant I let go and it is 5 feet tall! I'll see what happens--it is full of flowers! Soon, I'll start the process from seed again, so that I will have peppers and tomatoes year round. Enjoy the latest photos! I have some extra SHS4 LED 50 watt grow lights available if you're interested in trying your own indoor LED garden!!!

LED Grow Light vs. Natural Windowsill Light

My basil is looking beautiful. The three in the back have been under the LED light and the two in the front have been in my kitchen windowsill catching natural sunlight. The window is facing west and gets a good amount of sunlight and a good amount of fog!!! I'm amazed as to how much bigger my LED basil plants are. They smell so good, too!

My parsley is growing growing, too. The two parsley plants on the left are under my LED light and the one on the right is in my windowsill. Quite a difference of growth with the LED light!

All of this indoor gardening is so exciting. I've enlarged my stand and am going to add a second light for my non-fruiting plants. My tomatoes and pepper plants are growing big, so I'm going to change their lighting soon to 12 hours a day instead of 18. I'm almost ready for them to begin flowering and making tomatoes and peppers. The romaine, arugula spinach, and herbs will grow under my second LED light with 18 hours of light a day.
Here's the latest picture and will update again soon! Enjoy~

LEdesigns4LEDs @ SLRE Green Living Festival 2010

On September 11th, me and my garden traveled to Gardnerville, NV to be a part of the Sustainable Living & Renewable Energy, Green Living Festival!

Here's how it all started.....My boyfriend has his own LED lighting company called LEdesigns. Michael lives in South Lake Tahoe and I got to enjoy a wonderful summer there outdoor gardening with him. As Liaison of LEdesigns, I told Michael that I wanted to use one of the extra SHS4 LED grow lights to start an indoor garden in my small SF apartment, so that I could enjoy home grown peppers and tomatoes, spinach, romaine, herbs, and more through though the fall and winter---really year round. I thought it would be fun to do some research of my own on indoor gardening with LED lights, too. So I gathered my supplies and got started in mid-August. One weekend after I started my indoor LED garden, we were enjoying coffee when Michael showed me an add for a Green Living Festival. We've always wanted to take our lights on the road (LEdesigns is currently an Internet company www.LEdesigns.info) and with the garden started we could show LED grow lights as well as standard LED lights. So we applied for a booth and off we went! Our booth was an informational booth about LED lighting and a great success! We made relationships with other vendors as well as sparked the interests of many people to try indoor gardening and replace fluorescent and incandescent bulbs with LED Bulbs.

Time Management-

Isn't life great when you have so many wonderful activities going on in your life!? My August was an exciting month and I finally sit, relax, and share.....about my indoor garden- It began with gathering my supplies and then spending the morning of the 14th gardening. My original plan changed some, as I planted a few different kinds of veggies/herbs and I was able to fit 10, 3" coco pots in between the 12, 6"coco pots. I also added a timer and surge protector for my led light. Success!


Looking Good!

My Plan...

I'm gathering supplies from local garden shops and deciding how I want to hang my light! I'm starting small and will grow from there.....
To start:
1' x 3' General Hydroponics tray
6" coco pots (12)
organic seeds
soil
my 50 watt LED light

Organic Veggies and Herbs to be used in my cooking soon!!
more to come.......
excited to share!!!