{"id":6405,"date":"2012-06-14T15:40:04","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T21:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/?p=6405"},"modified":"2012-06-14T15:55:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T21:55:00","slug":"automate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paige.ericksonfamily.com\/?p=6405","title":{"rendered":"Ryan and his ‘garden system’"},"content":{"rendered":"

My husband likes to automate things. We have remotes for the garage, the sprinkler systems, even the lights and fans. A lot of that comes from working for a home automation company, I”m sure. But I think it’s just in his nature. This year, his latest fascination has been building a new gardening “system”. I guess the garden boxes he built me a few years back aren’t good enough. <\/p>\n

First, he had to find enough buckets. He eventually settled on 3 gallon ice cream buckets from the BYU creamery. So our little veggies have yummy names on their buckets, like Pralines and Caramel, Chocolate Vanilla Swirl, and bubble gum.
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Without getting too technical (ME? Technical? Don’t make me laugh!), the buckets sit on a trough made from a raingutter, and they each have a little basket on the bottom of them, which sucks up water from the trough (that’s the technical term, you know) and is supposed to give the plant all the water it needs.<\/p>\n

But when I planted a bunch of seeds in the buckets, I was disappointed when nothing sprouted for about two weeks. That was when we realized that they need more moisture at the top in the initial weeks, and then he covered them with plastic wrap to keep the water in. And look at how many little sprouts we have now! Not those tomato plants, mind you. I bought them as plants. I did, however, plant some tomato SEEDS in my other garden, and it looks like they are actually starting to grow! Probably not grow fast enough to yield any tomatoes, but a girl can hope.<\/p>\n