End of the season update!

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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:

 

 

Hydroponics! Better Late Than Never!

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FINALLY!

20180128_210910.jpgWe 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.

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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:

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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

 

 

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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):

20180129_212551Romaine / Burpee Bibb / Grand Rapids / Buttercrunch / Red Romaine

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

 

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.