Journal 3

Since last week, I completed the interview with Sir Clinton, contemplated the meaning of plant life, and tweaked the system to perfection. William fell asleep on the job and, as a result, the plants almost died. We also built the all important base structure.
I spent some quality time with Cliton at the Aquarium (love senior year) and I was able to trap him for long enough to record some of his vast knowledge of hydroponics. He is actually an even more interesting character than I originally thought. Although it sounds exceptionally cliche, engaging in this interview actually taught me more about him as a person than years worth of conversation. Oh yeah, it also taught me a little about my project too. But seriously, it was rewarding to be able to hold my own in a lengthy discussion with someone who is so clearly a hydroponics expert. Hydroponicsnewb no longer! I must change my username, but I wouldn't want to confuse my hoards of dedicated blog followers.
The little lucious lettuces are growing wonderfully. I attached some pictures for you to see. It's fun looking back at the older photos and seeing how different they look just a few weeks later. It would've been cool to take a snapshot every day and then flashed them in sequence like a flipbook. Unfortunately my camera was needed for other little to-do's - like prom. Although the plants have been steadily growing, it has taken forever. When I grow veggies outside it never seems to take this long for them to be ready to harvest. Perhaps I am giving them too few nutrients, or perhaps I am watching and waiting for pot to boil but it never will until I look away.
I should give lots of credit to my mother who has before now managed to go unmentioned. When I am at school, she and William plug the system in to the electric socket so the plants can get a few minutes worth of hydration. She is the best hydration station. I really need to find a timer but, once again, I want to keep the whole system zero cost. I also worry that if the system is on a timer in another room, I will not check up on it as often and I will lose that close bond that I currently share with my little lettuces. Heaven knows what we are going to go through psychologically when it comes time for harvest day.
The flow rate is now perfect and comes in predictable bursts thanks to William and my most recent addition. Back when I first looked at other people's windowfarms, I was perplexed by how they kept them from tipping over. After reading more, I realized that they had nailed them into adjacent walls and super glued them to curtains and other ridiculous feats. This made little sense to me. I experimented with dowels of different rigidities and even contemplated a custom base inside the bottom reservoir to keep things from swaying side to side. None of this worked and the system still tipped precariously. To make matters worse, my pumps (awkward miscalculation there) combined strength barely gets the water to the top bottle when the system is perpendicular to the ground. When it tilts, the water pressure changes again and the water has further to travel or something physics-y like that and so the blob of sustainance falls back down the tube and the plants shrivel and die. So it is paramount that my system stands up straight! Just when I was running out of ideas, my dad suggested that I build around the system rather than try to intrinsicly improve it. This proved to be invalable advice. Having stared at the bottles for so long, I could not see the answer to the problem which his fresh eyes immediately detected. So thanks dad! On another note, it makes me excited to go to an outstanding university where I will be surrounded my lots of keen, fresh eyes belonging to peers who will hopefully make collaboration mutally beneficial. But I digress. So William and I got busy building a base structure with a strong and competely rigid brace. We found wood in the garage, nails on the floor, and the piece of metal in the basement. (I realize that makes my house sound like a dump, which I assure you mum and dad, it is not.) Then we laced the system in to its new home and lo and behold it stood up straight with absolutely no tipping involved! Success!
I have now completed the physical portion of the Senior Project! On to the (boring) write up