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I decided a few days ago to begin growing replacement plants for the tomatoes and cucumbers. My rationale is that if I continue into mid October the original plants might run out of steam.
In addition to starting a few seeds, I cloned the Wayahead, Rutgers and Ugly Ripe tomatoes. In only six days all the cuttings have developed roots and have been potted into four inch pots. Additionally, several of the new plants already have blossoms. I know it says they should have been removed, but nothing ventured nothing gained. They turned out just fine.
I will let them develop in the small pots in a mixture of coco noir and perlite, then move them into the AutoPots when I want to replace the parent plants.
To tell the truth I was completely surprised at how quickly the roots developed in the greenhouse environment, as it normally takes about two weeks under normal conditions.
In my post of April 26, 2008 I included a photo of the two plants above. They were both started from seed on March 24, 2008. The plant on the right was placed in the AutoPot and grown in the greenhouse, while the plant on the left was grown outdoors in the garden. In my post of April 17, 2008, I wrote that by using the AutoPot I hoped to have tomatoes by early July. Well, they arrived on time!!
The variety is Wayahead, which is a heirloom that was introduced in the 1920s. It is supposed to have small to medium size fruit, and that is exactly what I am seeing. The fruit is about the size that you would purchase pre-packaged in the supermarket, however, there the comparison ends. The skin is thin and the fruit is juicy and tasty. We had a supermarket tomato this week, and the skin was about 3/8" thick and the inside was dry and pasty.
There was an article in the local paper this week concerning local farmers competing to harvest the first sweet corn. The winner stated he planted an early variety that only grew three feet tall and had small ears, but it came early. I suppose he was willing to sacrifice size for speed. That is what I think you get when you plant these early tomatoes.
I must admit that they are the best looking tomatoes I have ever grown! Each tomato, on every truss, is absolutely perfectly shaped and blemish free. I have never achieved that outdoors in soil.
We have been picking cucumbers for a few days, and now we have tomatoes, so I guess replacing the swimming pool with the greenhouse was a good move. I sure don't miss the daily chore of maintaining the pool.
The Rutgers tomato in the greenhouse is not even thinking of ripening at this stage, and the fruit is slightly larger than the Wayahead. This is also a hierloom developed in the 1930s for the Campbell Soup Company. I guess I will have to wait awhile to try the "Jersey Tomato". As I have no idea of how long the plants will continue to produce, and it is fairly early in the season, I am cloning both plants to have replacements "standing by" for late season tomatoes.
These cucumbers, according to the description on the package, were only supposed to need 18" to 24" of space and were bred to grow in containers. Well, the greenhouse is eight feet long, and they are now slightly short of both ends, and three or four feet off the floor. As it is only the first of July, I expect Tarzan, Jane and Cheeta will be living in the upper branches by the middle of August.
Being the first to admit that I have no clue as how to garden in a greenhouse; I decided I needed a book on the subject. The book I selected from the local library is The Complete Book of Greenhouse Gardening by Ian G. Walls. Although the book concerns itself mainly with soil gardening, I thought plants are plants when it comes to light, temperature and humidity. After reading about all the problems that must be addressed in soil gardening in a greenhouse, I wonder why on earth anyone would bother? Who the hell wants to heat soil to almost two hundred degrees to sterilize it? I'll stick to hydroponic gardening any day.
One thing I read got my attention; Mr. Walls wrote that cucumbers should not be pollinated, as it makes them bitter. Information I found from one of the Ag/Tech colleges said they should be pollinated. Who to believe? I decided to be lazy and not pollinate them because I noticed early on that the female flowers already had small fruit before I pollinated them. The information from the Ag/Tech college also advised that they do not need a lot of nitrogen, as it would make them grow more vine than cucumbers. I followed those directions and did not use a lot of nitrogen, and went heavy on potassium and phosphorus. I began to see the bottom leaves turning yellow. Nitrogen is a transferable element, and plants will draw it from the lower leaves and move it to the growing leaves where it is needed. My theory is that because the environment is very conducive to growing, these plants are determined to grow. So, I am adding slightly more nitrogen to the AutoPot reservoir. I am not concerned about any supposed lack of cucumbers, as there are more than we can use right now. I asked my wife to find our crock as the dill in the garden is just about ready and I am thinking Kosher dills, yum..
This Sarian runner has only been in this container for one month. I have been using a general purpose nutrient mixture of 1 teaspoon each of growth, macro, and bloom, which yields a TDS of about 1000 for this container.
The container requires very little replenishing, as loss is mostly due to transpiration.
One way I judge the health of the plant is the color of the root system. If I see plenty of white roots, I am a happy grower. As I now have enough runners of various varieties of strawberries in cold storage, I am going to let this plant mature right in this container. It should be interesting to see how large it can get, and what quality the berries, if any, will be.
The parent plant, which I started from seed, took many months to reach this size, so I intend to continue growing the daughters, as I do not want to go through the seed routine again...
A neat Father's Day gift I received from my son will be a great addition to the greenhouse and for growing under lights during the winter.
I was unaware that AutoPot made a single plant unit until recently. It will be useful for trying different growing media and different plants. Right now I am thinking Poblano peppers or another pepper I started recently.
We have had a small parrot for almost twenty years and each morning he has three small red chillies for breakfast. He sits on his perch holding the pepper with his left foot, munching and saying ummm, ummm. My wife drives to an oriental food store in Albany to buy the peppers and they have a warning that they are very very hot. It does not seem to bother the damn bird as he starts dancing from foot to foot when he sees me reach for the container. And, you really have to wash your hands good after handling the peppers. The peppers are called Thai Hot and come from Thailand. I have started a seed from the pepper, and it is coming along nicely, and it should prove to be an interesting plant to experiment with.
When I was building the greenhouse I considered constructing benches to support the hydroponic tanks, however I decided to simply place the tanks directly on the floor. They are supported over the gravel by pressure treated planks, which are in turn supported by the frames for the walk and the walls. The cost of the lumber and the effort of constructing the benches did not seem worth the effort. Another consideration was: that any large tank would require a pretty sturdy bench, so the floor was a better option.
What I really needed was some storage space for nutrients, additives, measuring equipment and various other odds and ends. We have a number of spare storage totes, so I tested one and found it could safely hold my weight. A simple circle cut with a saber saw turned it into a support for a flood and drain system with storage capacity for supplies.
Needing nutrients I visited a local hydroponic store today only to find that there has been what I consider a huge increase in the price of General Hydroponic's nutrients. The dealer said it was their first increase since 1993, and I said "bullsh_t". I have been only doing this for two years and this is the second time he has given me that story. When compared to the last price I paid, the price increase amounts to about 25%. After spending more than four decades in a purchasing position it is a sure bet that I will be researching a less costly alternative.
When I purchased the Seascape runners the instructions on the package were to remove the buds and not let the plants develop berries until July.
Usually, I follow instructions to the letter, however, I have been trying to grow hydroponic berries for much too long to have waited two or three more months to enjoy fresh berries. There would have been a lot more berries in the photo, but again, I could not resist the temptation to enjoy them.
The Sarian berries planted from seed on February 27th. are just about ready to produce a red ripe berry. It is not as large as the berries from the Seascape plant and some of the berries appear deformed. I doubt that being deformed will have any effect on the taste, but when it comes to enjoying food eye appeal matters somewhat I guess.
The Seascape plants are proving slightly more difficult to obtain runners from, as they seem to want to produce berries then produce runners. The Sarian plants take the opposite approach and produce runners then produce berries.
There will be no lack of runners for my planned winter crop as I currently have Sarian, Quinault and soon Seacape runners in cold storage. Additionally, my wife brought some runners home from a local farm where she recently picked berries.
Strawberries, I have found, are no more difficult to grow than any other plants I have tried to grow with hydroponic methods. Each plant has nuances, that once you understand them, are not insurmountable.
I decided a few days ago to begin growing replacement plants for the tomatoes and cucumbers. My rationale is that if I continue into mid October the original plants might run out of steam.
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