Aeroponic V2 – Day 37

Another update for my butterheads. Requested by my colleague Ellen as she’s been quite interested in the progress of this pet project of mine.

Day 37 for my plants are looking not too shabby. There’s visible growth and the it’s looking more like a proper butterhead lettuce.

Looking nice and green.

Starting to slowly wrap up.

Based on what I read over the internet, I should be able to harvest around day 50, which is about soon. Will post and update then.

Aeroponic V2 – Day 25

Just some minor updates on my butterhead. It’s growing much much better than my previous batch. It’s now starting to actually look like butterheads.

From the pics above, we can clearly see that it is not “leggy” and it’s now slowly beginning to “wrap” into a proper lettuce. Looks like there it’s gonna be successful this time round.

Aeroponic V2 – Day 10

Here are 2 pictures from my Aeroponic V2 on Day 10.

Butterheads on the Left

Butterheads on the Right

If you look carefully, there’s a stark difference between the picture on the left and on the right.

The plants on the left seems very ‘leggy’ whilst the ones on the right are shorter and stubbier.

This is interesting as both of them are germinated on the same day and they are growing under the same lighting. Let’s see how this goes after a few days.

Aeroponic V2

With the failure of my first aeroponics attempt with my supposed butterhead looking like a weed, I now present to you version 2 of my aeroponic setup.

I blame poor lighting as the cause of my first failure therefore version 2 concentrates on having a better lighting system.

Remember the rack I mentioned in the last post?

It now houses my aeroponic grow box and lighting system.

2 x Philips Compact Fluorescents

I chose 2 x Phlips 20 Watt Compact Fluorescents for the lighting. This will dish out about 2500 lumens and hopefully this time round it the butterhead will look more like a butterhead. So here’s a pic showing the lights on.

Bright enough eh….

So if it fails to grow this time I shall give up…. or maybe not. I’ll just try to grow something else. Hehe..

Butterhead?

After many weeks since the initial germination and growing stage. I hereby pronounce that my first hydroponic butterhead a resounding failure. Well, maybe not resounding but indeed the result was not as expected. Here’s how my growbox looks like now.

Does it look like butterheads to you? Guess not. Looks like a bunch of weeds. Here’s a close up.

The leaves are definitely growing. But it just doesn’t seem like it’ll morph into a butterhead anytime soon.

Initial research on this matter does point to the lack of light, causing the ‘trunk’ to not strengthen and support plant. My plant is now kinda leggy and can’t support itself.

It’s back to the drawing board for me. I’m not giving up. I’m now thinking of designing some better lighting for the growbox and will attempt the butterhead again. Will post up my 2nd attempt when I start it!