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Magnets Installed!

planters!

Another day at BCL HQ and some more progress on this ongoing magnetic planters project. Michelle and I finished putting in the remainder of our magnets into our plastic bag planters, but there are still some more planters left over. So, with more rare-earth magnets now on the way, we’ll finish up the rest when they arrive next week.

We also have a test planter in the wild now to make sure it works as we assume it’s going to work. The other tests that I’ve done indoors have been fine, with some of the mint I transplanted actually taking root, which is really exciting! It was quite interesting to see all of these individually made designs and see the range of techniques that everyone used when making the planters as Michelle and I worked with just about every one today… we imagine it will look quite great to see them all installed (temporarily) in one place filled with plants before they’re sent off to other magnetic surfaces across the city.

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Refining and Reworking the Planters

IMG_2949

Another week and another day in 406 Pelissier, which as it continues is now part of Windsor’s Visual Fringe. It’s tough to find time to get down there, but I think we made the best of a few hours last Tuesday. We’re continuing work with the planters, which is (as they always seems to be) another fairly long-term research and development type of project. However, we made some great progress and some new strategies for designing the planters, and did a couple more test transplants.

Continue reading “Refining and Reworking the Planters”

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Rare Earth Magnets + New Pulp Recipe

stronger new planter with rare earth magnets

Our recipe from the other night produced a much stronger planter, though I think there’s still room to add a coat of wheat paste to the outside. The rare earth magnets do well if there’s two, but I think the best solution will be to adhere them to the outside of the planter, or embed them in the pulp (which would make things a bit more difficult). Ideally, we’d use one magnet per planter.

This planter is about the size of a cigarette carton, but should be perfect for a sprout of wild flowers or cat grass or something more interesting, with lots of depth for the roots to do their thing. Plus, we’re now thinking that there’s a good amount of surface area to work with for some text / stenciling / recipe, etc.

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An Update on Our Planters

ooohhhh wild flowers

The wild flower seeds from last year are still good—I planted these seeds on Thursday or Friday and they’re growing like crazy already. The paper planter shaped around the spray paint can lid and reinforced with some wheat paste is holding up, as is the magnet.

We have an idea for a better shape and some good suggestions for further reinforcement, and I placed an order for 1/2″ rare-earth magnets tonight, so we’re on track for getting this project off the ground in the next few weeks.

More research to do, but I’m excited with where this project is going!