End of the season update!

One of my favorite things about gardening in general is the progress that can be seen from week to week.

We are at the end of our growing season which we extended a bit by using water flushes intermittently throughout the fertilizer cycle.

It’s pretty amazing to think that in only a few weeks/months that a garden can go from this:

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to this:

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Over the course of the growing season we have made more notes and developed a new game plan for the 2018/2019 growing season which will be discussed in the reflections page.

We had one real good harvest for the lettuce this year but it seemed as if once they were cut once for the initial harvest, the rest of the crop bolted, but at least we were able to get one good harvest:

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Surprisingly squash grow well; however, because of the real estate one plant takes up in the tent we will probably not do the squash again but it was good for an experiment for sure. We were able to get quite a number of squash from this indoor season; although, some were not viable as they seemed to become waterlogged. I have deduced that their condition may be due to the hydroponic tent as the squash from the soil tent did not seem to have the same problem:

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The peas grew and grew and grew and grew but for some reason they did not throw any pods until almost the end of the fertilizer cycle. The plants were very very happy just like last year but not as fruitful. The same thing happened with the cucumbers.

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The cucumbers did well insofar as growing vines; however, the plant kept throwing off only male flowers. There were very few female flowers and the ones that did bloom seemed to fall off very quickly when fertilized and the small growth would wilt and die which, when trying to harvest fruit does not work too well.

When we needed veggies or fruits we would just pick them from the vines or plants so here are some pictures of our season long bounty from the gardens:

Week 5 Oh My, Squash!

Over the last week, a lot has happened in the soil tent.

The fertilizer regimen has a boost in some of the reagents that includes quite a bit of calcium and magnesium which has given a great boost to most of the plants, but most notably the squash which now have small squash and more flowers.

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We had to “rope up” the squash because they were taking over quite a bit of room and the peppers were not getting the light that they require, especially my poor little jalapeno that is already quite small and was planted late.

The bush beans are doing well and growing and because of this, I had to string up both of the plants in order to expand the plant. Hopefully they will fill out, continue to grow more foliage and keep sprouting beans.

The Early Girl tomato seems a little more wilty than I like, but the base of the plant is thick and strong and over the course of the last week has developed some flowers, so that is a positive thing.

I did prune a little bit off of the bottom of the plant so I hope that helps over the next week.

The bell peppers are doing well. The small jalapeno pepper is still hanging in there so as long as it seems to want to grow, I will just let it be until it no longer wants to stick around. Hopefully it will take off at some point.

The basil in the soil tent is not doing as well as it is in the hydroponic tent insofar as the height and girth of the stem; however, it’s much more aromatic in the soil tent than it is in the hydroponic tent.

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To be honest, I am not sure if the carrots are really doing that well or not, but I will just let them keep going and see how they do. The radish are all done growing at this point so It’s time to either plant something in their place or to plant more radish (which is what I will most likely do at this point given that they did well this last run).

Week 4 Indoor Vegetable Progress and Mods

In a better effort to streamline our weekly clean out process, We made some adjustments.

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A drain valve was added to the 10 gallon tank.

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A 1/2 inch tube was then connected and an on/off valve was added so that when the weekly fertilizer draining and washout takes place, I don’t have to carry the tank across the room to the sump pump.

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On the way to the sump pump another junction was added to the tube in front of the tent itself with another on/off valve connected to the drip pan located under the soil structure itself.

Previously we had been catching the overflow in an aluminum pan and dumping it every night. This way, it will dump into the drip tray and automatically drain out to the sump pump in the same tube.

This new streamline method really helps with the weekly change-outs.

The soil tent seems to be responding well to the fertilizer system that I have been product testing this time.

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The squash are thriving well and have small flower buds.

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The beans are doing exceptionally well and have quite a number of flowers!

We just planted an extra jalapeno pepper plant in the soil tent and it’s slightly stunted; however, this last week it has shown some signs of life by growing a small set of secondary leaves which is great progress as peppers grow relatively slow.

Below is a overall picture of our pepper row, the first and second peppers are both bell peppers which are doing extremely well, the third is the jalapeno (seen above).

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Our tomato plant is doing very well as well, but does not have any flowers as of yet. The stalk of the plant is relatively thick even thought the plant seems slightly small.

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The basil is growing slow. It does have a nice odor and wonderful color but it’s counterpart in the hydroponic tent is probably twice the size of the one in the soil tent which tells me that I have to do a little research and figure out the differences between the two tents at this stage.

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Our radish will be ready to be picked within a week to two weeks! The carrots are growing at a great rate.

Here is the overall picture of the tent for week 4:

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The Peppers Are In! Week 2

Patience is a virtue.

When it comes to plants, being patience pays off.

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The peppers have sprouted!

They look great and so very healthy.

Most of them were root-bound which is great for replanting!

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The rubric has changed… again.

We added squash to our hydro-tent as an experiment. We just wanted to see how it would do, plus it was an extra that grew and it wouldn’t be right to just put it out in the cold, plus we had some duds so we had the room.

A new look at the plants and how they have grown for week 2 (don’t be alarmed about the white powder on top of the baskets. It’s Diatomaceous Earth which is used simply as a precautionary preemptive measure)…

Tags are from Left to right, as the plants get bigger it will be easier to distinguish one from another:

*Brussels Sprouts / Anaheim Pepper / Cucumber
*(barely visible but they are there!)

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Jalapeno Peppers / Habanero Peppers / Sweet Banana Peppers

Snap Peas / Anaheim Peppers / **Bush Bean
**(it was an extra from the soil tent)

Porterhouse Tomato / Summer Squash / Giant Bell Pepper

Opal Basil / ***Place Holder / Monster Bell Pepper
***(this place holder is to give the squash room to grow)

Cherry Tomato / Multiple types of Lettuce Box

Hydroponics! Better Late Than Never!

FINALLY!

We changed a few things from our original charted rubric, it’s not a huge change, just some vegetable changes because we had a few extra sprouts of basil and bush beans.

*** this rubric is subject to change at any point as the amount of space needed may vary if more plants are put in the “vacant place holder” spaces.

Our sprout-lets let us know that they were ready to go into the hydro tent so we obliged. The peppers are, of course, taking their time so we did not plant any of those because we are waiting for them to break the surface, but everything else has come up.

Here is an overview picture of our tent with the baskets:

Here are some baskets with sprouts, we filled up the reservoir and added our first set of nutrients. We flooded the table for a bit just to get the plant’s roots wet and get them settled a bit in their new homes with the hydrocorn (things tend to shift after they are placed in the baskets). The timer is currently set for a 16 hour time cycle just like the soil tent. The water reservoir is set for 5 cycles per day currently and will be scaled back once the roots establish and the plants grow some.

They are hard to see, but I promise our little anemic plants are there in the big wide world of hydrocorn pellets.

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Top Row:
Brussels Sprouts/Vacant/Cucumbers

Middle Row:
Peppers (Not Yet Planted, NYP)

Bottom Row:
Peas/Pepper (NYP)/Bush Bean

Top Row:
Porterhouse Tomato/Vacant/Bell Pepper (NYP)

Middle Row:
Basil/Peppers (NYP)

Bottom Row:
Cherry Tomato/Lettuce types

The lettuce box was established…

So what we have here is (from left to right):

Romaine / Burpee Bibb / Grand Rapids / Buttercrunch / Red Romaine

Based on how the lettuce box grew last year, I am sure that we should have quite a nice flourishing crop this year.

Week 2 Indoor Soil Tent Progress

I followed the first week schedule for the Roots Organics feeding system and found that the worm castings in the Buddha Grow product settled in the bottom of our reservoir. The worm casting sludge is not a big deal, but does make for a messy cleanup from week to week when I change out the water and re-fertilize the plants for the next week. Overall, I will have to make sure to check the water feed lines well just in case they get clogged with the worm castings during their daily watering. Midway through the week I found that I had to add water to my reservoir, which I find to be serendipitous as I had planned to water down the reservoir halfway through the week in order to start flushing for the new additives by the time the fertilizer change out is to occur regardless. Currently, the timers are set to water once per day.

The light timers are currently set for 16 hours per day during the vegetative cycle. We could leave the lights on for a 24 hour cycle, but the lights are set for 16 hour cycles so that the plants are not too freaked out when the change over to a 12 hour light cycle happens during the bloom cycle.

The plants seem to be thriving well, so without further ado, here are some wonderful bragging pictures from the top of the soil structure to bottom:

Squash(s)

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Beans

Early Girl Tomato

Bell Peppers, both Monster Bell and Green Bell

Opal Basil

Radishes

Carrots!!!

(they just decided to come up so while they are teeny tiny in the picture, they are actually pretty big for only having been up a few days)

Day 1 Soil 2018 Season

Today we started the seedlings for the indoor soil garden:

As you can see by the above list, starter seeds were planted for squash, bell peppers, tomatoes, beans and basil. We will also be planting carrots, beets and radish.

The new structure for the tent was placed in the tent and we finished purchasing the last of the pieces for the irrigation system and fertilizer set up. This year I will be experimenting with new products.

Baby Dragon Homesteading

Learning New Things Each and Every Day

beans