Tube Garden

Purpose-to inhibit broad leaf plants from obstructing light source for adjacent seed pods

Supplies

flexible plastic

lettuce seeds

peat pellets

temperature gauge

hole punch

tape

LED grow light

Step 1: Set Up

On December 10th, 2019, I made an indoor greenhouse for this experiment. It consisted of lining a basement closet with plastic sheeting and installing an LED grow light.The house temperature was set at 70 degrees fahrenheit.

I put peat pellets into a styrofoam food tray and soaked them in water for 1 hour. I then inserted one lettuce seed into each pellet.

I set up 5 different experiments:

-no tubing (the control)

-tubing with a 1&1/4 inch diameter

-tubing with a 1&1/4 inch diameter with holes punched in sides

-tubing with a 1/2 inch diameter

-tubing with a 1/2 inch diameter with holes punched in sides

The tubing (plastic cylinders) was a recycled Christmas ornament lid. I found that the plastic was flexible and sturdy enough for this experiment. I cut out the plastic and then rolled it into a cylindrical tube and taped it with first aid tape. I used a hole puncher to create holes in one of the 1 & 1/4 inch tubes and holes in one of the 1/2 inch tubes. I pressed the tubes down into the peat pellet containing the lettuce seed.

Step 2: Continued Monitoring

I continued watering as the pellets dried out. The lighting was set on a timer to have 20 hours of light per day.

On 12/15/2019, there were signs of new growth in all of the experimental pellets. And on 12/28/2019, the seedlings are really starting to gain momentum.

Step 3: Results

On January 15th, I concluded the experiment. As you can see, the lettuce grown outside of the tubing has a span of 5 inches across thus inhibiting some of the other peat pellets from receiving light. As far as the lettuce in the tubing, we can measure a 4 inch height on the larger diameter tubes. The air holes did not make any difference as the lettuce growth was similar. The smaller diameter tubing (1/2 inch) did not allow for as much growth as the larger diameter tubing.

In conclusion, forcing the plants to grow in a more defined space can help alleviate the issues of broad leaf plants taking up valuable space.