Germination – The First Step

Welcome to Week 1 of this grow blog. Today’s post focuses on seed germination. Seeds contain everything a young plant needs to survive, but seeds will not germinate without the right environmental conditions. For this grow we will want to give the seeds the best possible environment, which includes moisture level, humidity, and temperature. To… Continue reading

Bee Blog – Scales

We have new toys in the bee yard! We recently installed broodminder scales under the GROW honeybee hives to help keep track of how they are doing without having to open the actual hives, which is especially challenging during winter. The scales take a lot of the guesswork out of beekeeping. Before, we could tell… Continue reading

Greenhouse Update: Ideal Growing Media

Over the summer, we had an optimistic “aha moment” after visiting the VAST Produce hydroponics operation. Our intern, Christopher, and educator Andy returned from their field trip reporting that the folks at VAST seemed to use simple and affordable peat pellets for growing media in their deep water culture bed. If peat pellets could work… Continue reading

Greenhouse Summer Summary: Pest Control

Welcome to the final GROW blog post written by me, Christopher. It’s been an awesome summer being a Youth Exploring Science teen working with the GROW team, and I’ve learned so much throughout this whole experience. But before the final goodbye, there’s a lot to recap about what happened this summer with the greenhouse. It… Continue reading

Greenhouse Update: Life on a Leaf

When we think of animals and ecosystems, we often think of vast savannas, rushing rivers or lush jungles. For many people, the ecosystem is a giant place where multitudes of plants, animals and other organisms live. But sometimes, an ecosystem can be very small, with much of the action taking place on just a few… Continue reading

Greenhouse Update: Large Scale Hydroponics

During our visit with the brothers at VAST Produce, our tour guide, John, told us something very interesting about how he saw hydroponics and aquaponics advancing in the future. He said it was a “chicken and the egg situation” because he believed that to find major technological breakthroughs that would open the industry to more… Continue reading

Greenhouse Update: A Visit to VAST Produce

The hydroponic and aquaponic systems we have at the Science Center are great demonstrations, but in terms of size and complexity, they’re actually pretty small compared to what you’ll find with industry professionals. Luckily for us, we recently had the amazing opportunity to tour a larger-scale hydroponic setup. Over the next few blog posts, we’ll… Continue reading

Greenhouse Update: What is Aquaponics?

While we patiently wait for the pests to make their next move, it’s important to talk about what exactly is in our greenhouse and how that environment affects how and what we grow. It’s time to explore the unique and wonderful world of aquaponic farming. When visitors come to the greenhouse, we like to ask… Continue reading

GROW greenhouse

Greenhouse Update: What About the Fish?

Shortly after writing the last blog post, we replanted in our deep-water culture with seedlings we started in soil. With the newly introduced seedlings, we’re diligently watching for any signs of new infestations. We laid out new sticky traps to keep an eye on the insect populations but haven’t seen any major changes from last… Continue reading

GROW greenhouse

Greenhouse Pest Update: Trapped and Recorded

It’s been two weeks since we started our pest-control adventure in the greenhouse, and since then we’ve made a lot of fascinating discoveries. We laid out sticky traps to survey the different kinds of insects living in the greenhouse, and now we’ve been taking the traps back to our exhibit microscope to take a closer… Continue reading