watercress planter: 20080607 keywords:watercress habitat, growing watercress, homegrown watercress, how to grow watercress, using rainwater for watercress, keeping watercress wet, ways to grow watercress There happens to be watercress growing about a quarter mile from my home. So, I decided it would be interesting to have a little of it growing close to my house. And maybe that would inspire me someday to fix a way to grow a worthwhile amount. You see, watercress, as its name suggests, needs more water than is normally available in a growing spot around the typical house, and that includes my house. And I do not want to carry water to the watercress every week or so. So I dug a hole about two feet across and about 18 inches deep where a outlet pipe from a rainspout discharges roof runoff. Put a large plastic plant container filled with earth into the hole. Since the container had holes in the bottom that would let water escape, and watercress needs to be drenched just about constantly, I put a 2 inch layer of clay in the hole before placing the pot. The clay plugs the holes in the pot so water does not drain out. After putting the pot in place, I poured a slurry of clay and water around the outside of the pot to help stop water from eventually seeping out through the holes in the pot, through the clay under the pot and perhaps up around the pot. Would have been a lot easier to hot glue the holes in the pot before putting top soil in the pot but I had it in my mind that the pot didn't have holes and did not check that until after the top soil and watercress plants had been placed in the container. Anyway, the soil in the pot does not quite fill the pot, there is 2 inches of pot above the top of the soil. When it rains, the rainwater soaks the soil in the container and the the two inches fills with water so there is enough water that the soil will stay drenched hopefully at least until the next rain. I suppose, occassionally I'll have to carry water to keep the soil in the watercress container soaked. If all goes well, perhaps there will be enough watercress in the spring time to enjoy it in a half dozen or so meals. If the watercress does well, maybe I'll use a cutting torch to cut a discarded water heater tank in half lengthwise, use one half as a large container to hold enough watercress to have, perhaps, as much watercress as I can use. Move your mouse cursor onto this sentence to see a photo of the watercress planter.

using a yogurt maker to sprout seeds: 20081202 I want to include sprouted seeds in my diet. The vitamin content of seeds increases when sprouted, they make inexpensive subsitutes for more expensive vegetables, and I want changes in my diet. Eating new types of food trigggers heightened taste experiences and enables increased awareness of all the impressions associated with eating. And besides that, I get an intellectual kick from discovering new recipes that turn out to be delicious. Experimenting with new ways of fixing sprouts seems something not to pass up. I keep my home at a somewhat less than optimum temperature for sprouting seeds. The plan was to use a yogurt maker to provide optimum temperature. I purchased a yogurt maker at a Goodwill store on half-off day, costed me six bucks. On the outside of the box was printed in large lettering, "Thermostatically controlled temperature". I thought that the yogart maker might be an excellent utensil for keeping seeds at the optimum temperature for sprouting seeds to eat. It seemed likely yogurt bacteria and seeds would thrive at about the same temperature. Well, the first 1-eighth-cup batch of mung bean seeds didn't show any signs of sprouting after 2 days in the yogurt maker. I put my finger into the moist seeds in the yogurt maker, after the seeds had been incubating for 48 hours. The seeds seemed maybe a bit too hot. After disassembling the yogurt maker, I could see there was no thermostat. The thing just produced a constant amount of heat, raising the contents of the yogurt maker a certain amount above ambient, apparently to too high a temperature for mung beans to germinate, even in my 60 to 65 degree home. Luckily, a simple method of reducing the amount of heat occurred to me. I could wire a diode in series with the heating element inside the yogurt maker. The diode would allow current to flow in one direction only, thus blocking electrical power from the wall outlet one half the time and so cutting the amount of heat produced in half. I cut the wire inside the yogurt maker case that takes power to the heating element and soldered in a 3 amp 1000 volt diode, taped the connections, and ressembled the unit. I put the power plug into a wall outlet, put 1-eighth-cup of mung beans and about 1-half-cup water into a small plastic yogurt container and placed the container in the yogurt maker. Next day, I drained the water from the seeds, rinsed the seeds in water, drained away the water, laid a piece of paper card over the seed container to help keep moisture in, and put the yogurt maker's lid in place. Two days after putting the seeds into the yogurt maker, and rinsing and draining the seeds twice a day, the seeds had grown 1-inch-long sprouts. Success! Right now I have alfalfa seeds incubating in the modified yogurt maker. I'm planning on trying whatever other seeds that might make some good eating, including wheat, sunflower, millet, and various types of bean. I figure I can come up with a few dozen variations on each of a few dozen recipes for fixing the sprouts. Let's see... there's tomato, sprouts, and roasted peanuts with a little salt .... Here's a link to the yogurt maker I use, but I'm not recommending it, you understand. I have no knowledge that it is any better or worse for sprouting seeds than other yogurt makers. Salton YM9 1-Quart Yogurt Maker

Recumbent computer: 20090404 Working in the garden sometimes makes my back muscles sore. Then sitting at a computer makes those sore muscles ache even more. So to solve that problem, I hung a computer monitor face down over my bed where it is about 1 foot in front of my face when I am flat on my back. The keyboard is a tenting type, in two parts, hinged at the center. It rests fairly stably on my thighs where the ends of my finger naturally are with arms fully extended toward the feet. The keyboard joint is a pivot so the rows of keys can be aligned to accommodate the geometry of a person's hands - much better than a standard keyboard with rows of keys straight across the length of the keyboard. I am using, for now, a standard mouse with a piece of a plastic cutting board as the surface for the mouse's roller ball. The piece of cutting board rests on my chest and is pretty handy there but it will take some getting used to since the mouse is aimed to the left instead of the familar away direction. That's like looking in the mirror when your are trying to trim your hair. Using the mouse seemed very awkward and challenging at first but rapidly gets easier, even after only a few minutes working with it. The monitor is hung on 3-inch eye hooks screwed into ceiling joists and 1 eighth-inch nylon mason's cord running down to the monitor. Drilled a hole in the monitor's plastic case, one at each side, about 1-inch from the monitor's back side. Put the holes in a plane running through the monitor's center of gravity so it would hang with the screen almost perfectly horizontal. The computer itself is hung from eye hooks screwed into studs in the wall immediately to the side of the bed. A shelf holds the keyboard, mouse, and the cutting board piece within reach as I lie in bed so I can lay down and grab the keyboard and mouse. Maybe I'll invest in a mouse with a trackball on top so I won't have to lay a piece of cutting board on my stomach, one more thing to be manipulated before using the computer. This a 'most excellent' solution to an annoying aching back that sometimes makes working at the computer difficult during the growing season when it seems more often then not, back muscles are sore, and it is especially painful to maintain a motionless, upright posture for hours at a time when using a desktop computer. To keep from smacking my face into the monitor screen when I wake up at night, I sometimes sleep with my head at the other end of the bed. This is a comfortable way to read. I can download ebooks from the library and read them while laying comfortably on by back. No book to hold up, no tensed up muscles holding up a 100 plus pound torso, arms, and head. Yeh, Alan, you really have something here. And I have since mounted a laptop computer at the other end of the bed. No keyboard and mouse to manipulate. It's on an up/down swing arm so it can be moved out of the way when not in use. It's great for reading. The other computer with its keyboard at fingertips with arms resting comfortable is much, much better for keying. Maybe I'll get a picture here, or somewhere for the laptop, after the growing/harvesting season is over. Move your mouse cursor onto this sentence to see a photo of the recumbent computer. Words and phrases descriptive of the contents of this post: using a computer while laying down, using a computer in bed, mounting a computer for a bed-ridden person, ergonomic computer use, relieving backache, aching muscles while using a computer, making computer use comfortable

Slickditty MakeGizmos home

| My homemade devices pg9 |  | My homemade devices blog index | More blogs about homemade devices.