Category: City Gardening

Worked on unobtrusive plant up-lighting, using honeycomb filters to eliminate glare. Then, the sun reminded me there’s nothing like natural backlighting. No artificial light in this photo.

Turned our indoor garden pallet on wheels upside-down and started installing electrics and electronics. I’ll install 14 feet of lighting track inside the pallet. It’s highly adjustable and maintainable: lights and electronics snap in place.

There were frequent “rain showers” inside our home as I finished up expanding our homegrown automated plant misting system into three separate zones. An ultraviolet water purifier minimizes the possibility of Legionnaires’ Disease from inhaled, contaminated droplets.

Just noticed that, in my absence yesterday, my water bottle had been repurposed for plant propagation. Occasionally, with permission, Dwight comes home from his volunteer job at a greenhouse with cuttings that would otherwise be composted.

Took delivery of a wheeled, recycled plastic industrial pallet for our indoor garden. Dwight will come up with a system of risers so the plants can be at different heights. I’ll be concealing lights, irrigation tubes, wiring, and electronics inside the pallet.

Spent the afternoon soldering sockets onto cables for moisture sensors for our indoor garden.

Looked up at the ceiling of our “indoor garden.” Up-lights were projecting shadows of palms, gently swaying in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

Boxes of irrigation parts waited to be taken downstairs to the mail room. I upgraded our houseplant irrigation system and sold the old parts on eBay to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Everything went. Boxes and packaging materials were rescued from a dumpster.

Spent my Sunday afternoon with a crimper, a heat gun, and a soldering iron. Built the wiring harness for up to seven capacitive soil moisture sensors for a 3-level rack of houseplants. The box holds a microcomputer that wirelessly communicates with our home automation hub.

Circuit boards mimicked a fern as they waited for their red, moisture-resistant coatings to cure.