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:

Comparing Weeks 3 and 4 Progress

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.

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:

Bean week 3

Bean week 4

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

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.

Habanero week 3

Habanero week 4

The jalapenos have doubled in size over the last week.

Jalapeno week 3

Jalapeno week 4

The Brussels sprouts are bushing out very well.

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.

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…

Giant Bell week 3

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.

Porterhouse tomato week 3

Porterhouse tomato week 4

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 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.

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.

Lettuce Box week 3

Lettuce box week 4

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: