Noah Hinrichs :: Hired Geek

Home Grown Hydroponics Update

Noah — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:52:47 +0000

After quite a long time of growing and me having really no clue what I was doing the tomato plants finally flowered. The flowers came and went with no tomatoes so I was a little disappointed at first. BUT! After a couple of weeks of flowers a little tiny tomato appeared. The plants are around 3 or so feet tall and growing up a string like a vine so I had expected to get some kind of crop from them but all I got was one tiny marble sized cherry tomato. The tomato grew and ripened but I didn’t eat it - my dog got to it first. Bruno hadn’t bothered the plants the entire time they were growing but for some reason felt the need to eat the one tiny tomato that managed to grow. So thanks to Bruno there are no pictures of the meager yield from my first hydroponic experiment.

Some other good news though is that the jalapeño pepper plants that all died have come back to life. I went in to check on the plants one day and the apparently dead plants had tiny leaves growing out of them so it seems they were just sleeping. I am going to keep track of their grown and see if this little experiment can’t get me a tiny jalapeño pepper too.

More to come (with pics) once I have something else to report.

Next time i’ll buy actual hydroponic nutrients and do it the “right” way but this was a good learning experience and a fun experiment.

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Bent River Pinball Returns

Noah — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:26:22 +0000

Bent River Pinball is back! The pre-season starts this Sunday October 7, 2007 at 6pm at Bent River in Moline.

Also! I have launched a new site that will be specifically for the Bent River Pinball League. I am still working on design and since I have been swamped the past couple of weeks it has to wait. Anyhow, you can CLICK HERE to see the new Bent River Pinball site.

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Friends, Projects, and Santa Cruz

Noah — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 18:12:48 +0000

I recently returned from a short trip out to Santa Cruz, CA to visit and old friend and start a new series of projects. Aaron Holmes from NextGen Coaching invited me out to discuss our working together on several medium to large projects he has in the works. We will be working to create a fist full of sites, communities, and followings over the next year for several of his business ventures. Aaron has a ton of great ideas so this should be not only a very profitable arrangement but a great opportunity to work on some really interesting and different kinds of projects than usual.

Heelys!
Our first project is for a new sport gaining popularity all over the US - Heelys (or Heeling I guess). Aaron is putting together a Santa Cruz Team and wants to build not only a site to support his local teams but to create a massive community involving anything and everything Heely related.

I would post more about the projects but I don’t want to go giving away all of Aaron’s secrets just yet. I will keep the site updated with them as we start to promote some of the sites currently in development to beta.

Thank You to Aaron and Sumerly
For having me out, taking me around, and most of all for giving me the chance to get in and work with you on this great set of projects. You two have been awesome to work with so far and I look forward to a very prosperous relationship for us all.

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Home Grown Hydroponics Experiment

Noah — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:17:44 +0000

I decided to jump into the wonderful world of hydroponics and see if I could get some things to grow. I started by doing some research online and gathering up some junk I had laying around the house. I decided that I would grow 2 types of plants to begin with. I am growing cherry tomatoes and jalapeño peppers.

My materials consist of:

One large rubbermade tub with the top 2/3 cut off. This will be filled with water.
Two smaller rubbermaid tubs that fit inside the larger tub with some room to spare. These tubs have 12 holes drilled in the bottoms of them to allow the water inside.
One small fish tank air pump, tubing, and air stone
One bag of Perlite for use as a growth medium.
One jug of fish emulsion fertilizer
One package cherry tomato seeds
One package jalapeño pepper seeds

The assembled hydroponic setup looks like this:

Not pictured is the aquarium air pump which is off to the side but I assure you it’s there.

Total cost to setup: right around $30. I say right around $30 because I didn’t keep very good track and I already had some of the parts. It should be about $30 to setup from scratch though.

Progress

The seeds were planted in the perlite on 4/4/2007. I leave the air pump on 24/7 and change the water every other week or so. I should do it more I am told but I’m rather lazy. I pour a couple tablespoons of fertilizer in every time I change the water but otherwise I leave it alone.

4/16/2007

By now the Cherry Tomatoes have sprouted but there is no sign of the peppers. I was getting worried but the peppers came up in force just a few days later.

Here is a picture of the tomatoes so far. I didn’t include one of the peppers because it looks exactly like it did on planting day.

5/16/2007

I have some kind of a severe algae problem going on here it seems. I am going to try adding some algae killer that I have for my fish tank and see what happens. Stupid Algae.

As you can see the plants have grown quite a lot in the past month and appear to be doing well (aside from the algae). The pictures below are tomatoes above and peppers below that. Click the images for giant sized ones.

I will post more progress and pictures in the coming days. Any feedback, tips, questions, or suggestions will be appreciated.

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Heating Pads are Dangerous

Noah — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:14:18 +0000

I have a little aquarium with a leopard gecko in it on top of a chest in my bedroom. It tends to get kind of cold in there at night in the winter so to supplement the heat from his lamp I put a heating pad underneath the tank. One day I came home from work and the upstairs of my house smelled like something was burning. It took me a little while to figure out what it was but once I did I was most unhappy. What happened was the heating pad had gone berserk and melted itself, burned the top of the chest, and melted the plastic on the bottom of the tank.

Moral of the story: Don’t leave your heating pad on all the time no matter how cold your lizard is.

Click the images below for GIANT! versions

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Baby vs. Cobra - round 1

Noah — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:18:52 +0000

These parents are a few bricks shy of a load I think.

And you thought your parents were hard on you when you pissed them off…

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Bent River Pinball Update

Noah — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:48:12 +0000

The Bent River Pin Ball teams met for another night of competition and fellowship of the steel balls. One Good Ball beat the Flippin’ Balls 11-7 on a well balanced scoring attack led by Neil. Angela chipped in with three win points to smooth over the match.

Ball Pressure applied pressure to the league leading Badger Berserkers beating the first place team13-10. There were several “acts of God” where the “Pirate of the Caribbean” machine went into the 4 multiple ball mode which benefited the Ball Pressure group. The Berserkers were down 11-6 going into the final round, but finished strong to save face and come out smelling like a rose.

The final night of the spring Bent River Pin Ball League will be on Sunday, April 29 @ 6 pm. The fall session will start after Labor Day.

Bent River Pin Ball League Standings-4/15/2007

1) BADGE BERSERKERS 68 POINTS

2) BALL PRESSURE 56 POINTS

3) ONE GOOD BALL 53 POINTS

4) FLIP N BALLS 48 POINTS

FINAL LEAGUE NIGHT: APRIL 15 @ 6 PM

WEEK 6: MACHINE 1: 4X1 MACHINE 2: 2X3

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