experiment

Week 5 Oh My, Squash!

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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).

 

Comparing Weeks 3 and 4 Progress

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Over the course of week 3 and 4, a foliar mist has been added to the overall regimen.

There have been quite a few growth changes over the course of the few weeks.

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Peas week 3

peas week 4

 

 

The snap peas are climbing the trellis rapidly so we have had to re-direct them several times. The direct comparison is very apparent between the two pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

With respect to the bush rojas beans, over the course of weeks 3 and 4, there are several beans which have sprouted and the plant has almost doubled in size:

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Bean week 3

Bean week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet Banana comparison between weeks 3 and 4.  By week 4 the leaves are now above the pot.

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Sweet banana pepper week 3

Sweet banana pepper week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The habaneros are slow going, but seem to be regardless of whether they are indoors or outdoors.  Last year, the peppers were very small in the hydroponic tent but they seemed to be super spicy, moreso than the peppers that we were used to harvesting from the outdoor garden.

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Habanero week 3

Habanero week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The jalapenos have doubled in size over the last week.

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Jalapeno week 3

Jalapeno week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Brussels sprouts are bushing out very well.

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Brussels sprouts week 3

Brussels sprouts week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cucumbers have finally started to develop feelers of their own and have also started to grow some flowers.  Once they get bigger and have more flowers, I will be able to add a section on flowers and indoor plant pollination which gets really tricky with some plants such as the cucumbers and the tomatoes.

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Cucumbers week 3

Cucumbers week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have two types of bell peppers in the garden.  Monster bell and giant bell.  Both of which are showing about the same amount of growth during the two weeks, seen below…

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Giant Bell week 3

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Monster Bell week 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monster Bell week 4

Giant Bell Week 4

The squash plant that was a volunteer that we threw in the tent just to see what would happen is definitely flourishing!

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There are two type of tomato in the garden.  We have noticed, with respect to the tomato plants, that the tomatoes that are to produce larger tomatoes, they seem to not do quite as well as the cherry tomatoes.  This is the same problem that we had last year when trying to grow tomatoes as well.

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Porterhouse tomato week 3

Porterhouse tomato week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cherry tomato week 3

Cherry tomato week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cherry tomato have flowers on them; however, as wonderful as it is, I had to prune some of those branches off of the plant because they were sucking energy from the plant without any benefit as they were lower branches.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opal Basil has grown faster in the hydroponic tent than in the soil tent but does not seem to be as aromatic as in the soil tent.

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Basil week 3

Basil week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, the lettuce box.  I harvested the lettuce from it because it was beginning to bolt.  We will see if any of them grow back and if not, I will plant more.  They grow really fast.

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Lettuce Box week 3

Lettuce box week 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3 New Growth Update

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Hey Everyone, this is a basic update for the soil tent.  It’s week 3 and a few things have transpired over the course of the week.

First,I added a product to our filter to keep the worm castings from getting into the lines from the nutrition mixture.

It’s a basic white mesh bag which just goes around the filter allowing it to work, but keep out debris.

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Second, one of the bell peppers was not coming up so I replaced it with a Jalapeno pepper that we had grown as an extra for the ebb and flow hydroponic table.

The soil tent is growing great!  Here are some bragging pictures.  The plants are growing so beautifully:

 

 

 

The Peppers Are In! Week 2

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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:

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

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Jalapeno Peppers         /                Habanero Peppers          /     Sweet Banana Peppers

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

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Porterhouse Tomato         /                      Summer Squash                  /       Giant Bell Pepper

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

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Cherry Tomato               /                             Multiple types of Lettuce Box

 

Week 2 Indoor Soil Tent Progress

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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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Early Girl Tomato

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 Bell Peppers, both Monster Bell and Green Bell

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Opal Basil

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   Radishes

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  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)

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2018 Winter Outdoor Soil Experiment

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The beginnings of our soil “experiment” start with our planter boxes which we had already established a few years ago and installed irrigation set-ups in each box (smartest thing we did in that garden!).   For now, just because this is new for us, we are only using one planter box to see how well it works.

20180121_155330.jpgWe purchased greenhouse domes made by Outsunny which fit our box which measures approximately 8’x4′.  Rory and Chewy really wanted to be in the photo. We added a little peat moss in and tilled the soil (yes, I know, gasp… we should be turning it by hand with a shovel, but to be fair, it’s winter and soil tends to be hard.)

 

 

 

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The basic of outdoor plants that we, in our household consume were planted
(in order from left to right):

  • Peas
  • Brussels Sprouts
  • Broccoli
  • Beets
  • Acorn Squash
  • Onion (red and yellow, planted throughout the whole garden).

 

As the season progresses, updates will be posted.

2018 Water Delivery Drip System Setup

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FINALLY, NO MORE HAND WATERING!

With the new setup, a water drip system was developed for the soil tent.  Here are the components we used:

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The white reservoir is a 10 gallon holding tank.  Inside of the tank will be a submersible water pump for the water distribution and an oxygen pump with stones connected to aerate the water.  This is in an effort to keep down algae and nutrients in the water from settling.

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Connected to the white water reservoir is 3/4in tubing which has been directed up through a hole and then down to each of the tiers of the box.  There is an on/off valve connected to each tier for both water flow control and also for any issues which may arise in the event of any blow outs or leakage problems.

 

 

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For the actual water delivery, spaghetti tubing will be directed to each plant with a disk that outputs a specific amount of water per hour, or with those plants such as radish and carrot, there is a unidirectional broadcast head that will distribute water in the same method.  Each shown in the picture was placed in the box to pressure test for leaks and double check the rate of delivery for each disk.

 

 

 

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The green disk (the light makes it look black, but it is really green) provides water at a rate of 2/gal per hour.

 

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The black disk provides water at a rate of 1/gal per hour.

 

 

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The red disk provides water at a rate of .5/gal per hour.

 

 

Overall, I may use the red emitters more than the others, but each has it’s own benefits depending on the plant and its water requirements.

Day 1 Soil 2018 Season

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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.

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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.