Hacker News Reader

Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

Why the buckets? I grow tomatos, spices and onions in doors with just a regular indoor pot and a natural light source AKA a window.

Giving plants light for longer duration does increase their growth (tho normal LED's and house lamps aren't optimal for this, there are specialized growlights that produce wavelengths that are more desirable for plants Chlorophyll absorbs blue light the most which isn't emitted from most lights that are used for indoor lighting which emit yellow, red, and infra-red light the most), but for most growths a window will work just fine, even during the winter time unless you are really upnorth.

So what's the deal with these? seems that if you would take those buckets and use them as normal pots you will get pretty much the same thing with the advantage of it being pretty and greening up the place to boot.

View on HN

Searching YouTube it seems most of these are used for growing cannabis - not something you would normally put in your window (depending on local laws / neighbors).

Well that explains "All plants are inside our law. We do not judge species based on their political situation. We are a melting pot of photosynthesis enthusiasts." ;)

Yup. The site linked to even has a separate page called 'smell', with all kinds of filter mechanisms. Definitely not to remove the smell of your strawberry plants :p

Beyond that, the economics of vegetables and such prevent lighting like this from being profitable. Consider that most people leave their grow lights on for around 16 hours per day on a 100W setup that produces about 25 tomatoes a month for example, which puts you at about 2.5kg which costs locally here about $5. Now just the lights alone for 16 hours a day for a month would be more than $7 on a 15c per kwh price.

The economics aren't bad, you can make it cost about the same as in the store, a little less or a little more, the economics just aren't great and given there's a whole bunch of time and effort, you'd only do this for fun, not to save money. The exception is when growing a crop that isn't $2 per kg but $10 per gram which is pot, so it's no surprise that 9/10 guys probably use this to grow weed. Besides there are much more fun systems around that can look awesome in your house if you just want to grow some veggies mostly on the power of the sun and merely supplemented by grow lights (for a few hours, in certain stages, or in winter), all kinds of hydroponics stuff that's a lot of fun as a DIY project to automate fully without hiding it all in a bucket. There was a tiny hype some time ago (windowfarming n all), but most of the urban farming is still soil based I find.

I don't think anyone grows stuff out of economics if you live in a city the cost of the soil, pots, seeds, and plant food alone make it highly uneconomical.

There's just something satisfying about being able to grow something even if it's unsustainable, I grow tomatoes and I probably buy more 50 times more tomatoes per month (usually buy a small box of vine/cherry tomatoes for nibbling every 1-2 days so that's about 8-10 pounds a week).

It's a hobby not homesteading, it's just a small ritual of having to move your plants to the window each morning from the more warmer spot they've spent the night in spraying some water on them while drinking your coffee and put some fresh herbs and spring onions on your omelette for breakfast.

It's not economical it's just relaxing and enjoyable.

gives you complete control of the grow variables: temperature, atmosphere, water and light containment

also allows for stackable modular design meeting different grow needs and encourages experimentation

though i think these sorts of builds are more for scientific grows stead house greening i can say my window tomatoes died because they only got direct sunlight for about an hour a day

> Chlorophyll absorbs blue light the most which isn't emitted from most lights that are used for indoor lighting which emit yellow, red, and infra-red light the most

Nope, LEDs emmit mostly blue. And the bluest ones are the cheapest.

But yes, one'd need a lot of LEDs to get the luminance of the day.

Plants need other frequencies to signal different chemical processes, they don't thrive if just fed blue light.

chlorophyll absorption is well documented

https://www.google.com/search?q=photosynthesis+absorption&sa...

There is a lot more to it than just chlorophyll absorption. I've been looking into this lately with regard to saltwater aquarium lighting, and it's pretty complicated stuff. Google "McCree curve" and "Photosynthetically active radiation" for (much) more.

You should check out the resources at http://www.reddit.com/r/HandsOnComplexity, there is a lot of great knowledge about plant lighting there!

As other people say, you are only looking at part of the picture. Plants need different wavelengths and these change through the plant's lifecycle.

LEDs are not optimal but plenty of people have reasonable success with them.

Personally I have a 250w metal halide. My electricity is $0.12 per kW/h so 10 hours per day costs me $0.40.

I grew with fluorescent before that and I would use that again.

I don't grow cannabis - chillis and basil at the moment but come spring I use it to sprout seedlings for the University allotment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com