Thursday (10-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Gardening in New Jersey

After the deer ate my strawberry plants in the canvas pots on my patio, I tried to get some strawberry plants started indoors in the hydroponic gardens. I cut some of the runners from the Garden Towers. After 2 weeks only a small percentage started growing roots. Most were dead. Later, I read that the runners are better started still connected to the mother plant. I then ordered some strawberry plugs (Sweet Charlie and Chandler) from ISONS in Georgia. These are delivered in October for fall planting. I decided to try some indoors in the hydroponic gardens, and the others outside in the canvas pots (replacing the ones the deer ate). Time-lapse video of the indoor planting.

Daily Electric Energy Used (51.1 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (30.9 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. The sun came out in the afternoon.  Overall a net deficit of 20.2 kWh.

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Wednesday (09-October-2019) — New Jersey

Home Cooking: Bread and Salsa Verde.

It must be autumn as it is cold and raining outside. Spent the day making Bread and Salsa Verde. I made a Time-lapse video of the time in the kitchen cooking both using a Garmin VIRB-360 camera.

Whole Wheat & Muesli Bread Recipe: Bob’s Red Mill Muesli (1 1/2 cup); Bread Flour (1/2 cup); Whole Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Sprouted Wheat Flour (1/2 cup); Flax Seed (1/4 cup); sugar (2 tbs); dry milk (1/4 cup); salt (1 tsp); egg (1 large); flax oil (2 tbs); water (1 1/4 cup). Above ingredients added to the Panasonic Bread Bakery. Yeast (2 tsp) added to yeast hopper and the unit set for Whole Wheat Bread (Rapid) and started. Three hours later, the loaf of bread was removed and allowed to cool. This time the bread stuck to the cooker and was hard to get out. Next time reduce the Muesli by 1/2 cup, and increase the bread flour by 1/2 cup. I like this bread since it is not as dense and heavy as the Rye & Whole Wheat loaves.

Salsa Verde Recipe: First I grilled/blackened husked and washed Tomatillos (2.5 lbs), Red Onion (1 quartered), New Mexico Hatch Chile Peppers (4, cut in half and de-seeded) on a broiler pan. These were placed in a 4 quart Instant Pot pan along with garlic cubes (12, Trader Joe’s), salt (1 tsp), Coriander (1 tsp), Cilantro (fresh, 2 oz, washed and chopped), Apple vinegar (1/4 cup), Lime juice (2 medium, squeezed). Then cooked for 10 minutes at high pressure. After relieving the pressure, the mixture was blended with a hand-held immersion blender. Still a bit too sweet. More vinegar and salt?

Daily Electric Energy Used (52.5 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (12.9 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Cloudy and rainy all day. One load of laundry and two loads in the dishwasher.  Overall a net deficit of 39.6 kWh. Hope to see more sun this month… But the ground is dry causing the deer to keep getting into the fenced wildflower meadows.

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Tuesday (08-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

The lettuce in the AeroGarden Farm #1 at day 20 is ready to have some leaves harvested for a salad. The types of lettuce growing the fastest are Black-seeded Simpon, Red Sails, and Red Romaine.

AeroGarden Farm #1. Lettuce ready for first harvest (20 days). Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 1400, 60 mm, f/11, 1/125 sec) (DAVID J MATHRE)
AeroGarden Farm #1. Lettuce ready for first harvest (20 days). Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 1400, 60 mm, f/11, 1/125 sec) (DAVID J MATHRE)
First Harvest. Salad for Dinner from the indoor hydorponic farm.(20 days). Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 1600, 60 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec) (DAVID J MATHRE)
First Harvest. Salad for Dinner from the indoor hydorponic farm.(20 days). Image taken with a Nikon D850 camera and 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens (ISO 1600, 60 mm, f/5.6, 1/125 sec) (DAVID J MATHRE)

Daily Electric Energy Used (47.0 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (18.2 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. A little rain and not much sun. Overall a net deficit of 28.8 kWh.

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Monday (07-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

The deer continue feeding inside the wildflower meadows.

Daily Electric Energy Used (48.7 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (29.6 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Not much sun. Overall a net deficit of 19.1 kWh.

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Sunday (06-October-2019) — New Jersey

Autumn Indoor Nature in New Jersey.

Daily walkabout with a Nikon 1 V3 camera and 70-300 mm VR lens. After the rain and temperature dropping 40 degrees, I thought all of the Monarch butterflies left for Mexico. Today, I found one of the hundred or so that were here last week remained. It was spending its time feeding on the Cosmos flowers. Afterwards, I mowed the lawn. The grass is pretty dry, and the leaves from the trees are starting to drop. There are lots of black walnuts on the ground. This year I’ll leave those for the squirrels to collect. It’s too much work to dry them and then after cracking the black walnuts open, it is really hard to remove the nut meat. Finally, a Harvestman (daddy long legs) spider visiting a security camera in the middle of the night.

Click on the above image to access my Photoshelter gallery that contains the images in the following slideshow.


Daily Electric Energy Used (49.6kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (204 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Lots of clouds. Overall a net deficit of 38.3 kWh.

Weekly Electric Energy Used (364 kWh) from Sense and Daily Solar Electric Energy Produced (206 kWh) from SolSystems and Locus Energy. Several cloudy days, and the indoor hydroponic systems came online. Overall a net deficit of 158 kWh.

Past Week Weather Conditions.

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