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Algae, ultrasonic humidifier, pollinating the strawberry

A project log for GrowInBox

A box that fits in a room, in which plants can be grown.

domenDomen 10/29/2015 at 20:050 Comments

It's day 44 for the strawberry. A second flower is emerging.

I've taken a new jar, cleaned it and wrapped around it 3 layers of aluminium foil and changed the air stone.

I think it's pretty dark in there. Only time will show.


I also scraped some of the algae from the net cup and the rock wool cube. The roots are growing nicely (at least for now).

The nutrient solution is the same as always, 50% strength of the root stimulator and 50% strength of the plant food. I lowered the pH with Sodium bisulfate, which is from the pH minus chemical for use with pool maintenance.

A fan was also added to help to strengthen the stems, as it was recommended in the comments (thanks).


I also took apart the ultrasonic mist maker. I was heavily disappointed when I found out it was just a block of plastic in which all the electronics were.

The spring came out of the inner block of plastic and made a connection to the piezo crystal. There was also a metal ring around the piezo and some rubber so water couldn't get to the spring I guess.



The red arrow is pointing on a big, at least 2W ressistor, and the blue arrow is pointing on a weird metal element. I didn't hack it apart further because it seemed meaningless.



I also read about pollinating the strawberries.

"Use a tiny paintbrush to transfer pollen from the flower's male stamens to the female pistils. The numerous tiny pistils are grouped on a stem in the center of the blossom. The stamens are the parts of the flower covered in pollen. Act soon after a flower blossom opens for best results."
(source)

(Image source)


I've done that today (though I didn't find a brush so I used a cotton swab) and 2 petals fell off ... Strange. Maybe the strawberry has pollinated herself already.

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