Gardening: 2015-2016

[KennethT]

So, I finally got to planting some seeds this weekend, and I decided to do a little pictorial about how things are done in a hydro setup.  I personally love hydroponic gardening for many reasons - being indoors, I can do it all year long, don't have to deal with bugs, and my hands never get dirty!  Plus, it uses about a third the water as conventional gardening, and I can pack a lot more plants into the same space.  Also, you can accelerate the growth and boost the flavor of many plants as you can hyper-oxygenate the root zone, and feed with very high concentrations of nutrients.

 

To start, let me show a photo of my windowsill garden back in 2012, when I was more active with it...  the large bush you see in the middle of the photo is only 3 Genovese basil plants, which were extremely aromatic.  When I had to tear them down, I gave them to a friend who makes pesto, and he said that it made about 8-9 cups of basil puree!

 

 

So, here is how I do it.  The trough you see above on the windowsill is just that - a trough.  It's actually a 10 foot length of 4"x4" PVC that I glued end caps to both ends using aquarium silicone, and drilled holes in the top for the plants.  Inside the trough is a length of 3/4" PVC pipe that runs the length of the trough, and has small holes drilled in between each plant site.  The holes were tapped, and I screwed in these little plastic spray nozzles you can get.  This PVC pipe is attached to a submersible pump that sits in the reservoir (a 5 gallon bucket that sits under the couch), and then there is a drain at one end of the 4x4 that goes back to the reservoir.  What this does is create a about a half inch of nutrient fluid along the bottom of the trough that is constantly being replenished... and all those sprayers (that do the replenishing) hyperoxygenate the fluid, which eliminates any rot and supercharges plant growth.  The plants sit in little pots in the top of the trough, and their roots lay in the river of nutrient fluid in the bottom.  This is a modification of the NFT (nutrient film technique) method of hydroponics, which is commonly used in greenhouses to grow all kinds of leafy plants, but while it is a bit more complicated, I think it achieves superior results - but may be unwieldy for a large scale production.

 

So here's how I get started.  I like to use this substrate as a place to anchor the plant:

 

These are 1.5" cubes of rockwool.  It is good for plants because once it is saturated, it holds an optimal amount of water and air, so seeds and new roots won't drown.  It is wicking, so once the plants are in, you can spray from one side to soak the whole thing.  It is also pH neutral - it won't degrade to clog anything, and won't change the pH of your system over time..

 

Here's a cube up close:

 

The first thing you have to do is get some plain water and correct the pH - about 5.5 is optimal...  So this is a tool that every hydro gardener needs, a pH meter:

 

 

I take about a gallon of water (it just makes adjusting the pH easier, as you'll see in a second).  To the water, I add this:

This is phosphoric acid.  You definitely don't want to get it in your eyes or on your hands.  It is very concentrated - just a couple of drops in a gallon of water is enough to bring my pH into the proper range.

 

 

So, the first thing you do is saturate your rockwool cubes - you do this by dropping them in the bucket for about 10 minutes:

 

Once saturated, you take a block out without squeezing it, and stick in your seeds to the desired depth, which varies depending on the type of seed.  I use a pair of stainless steel pliers (the original purpose was to get bones out of salmon filets) to push the seeds to the desired depth. I dry the pliers after each seed is planted so I don't contaminate the rest of the seeds - I only plant 5 seeds or so per block, and there are tons in even the smallest pack of seeds!

 

 

Once all the blocks are finished, I put them on a plate and into a zip lock bag so they don't dry out.  Most hydro gardeners recommend putting the tray of blocks on a heating pad for optimal seed starting, but since I don't have one that doesn't turn off every 2 hours, I stick it on top of the refrigerator.  I also put some of the 5.5pH water into a spray bottle to mist the top of the cubes every day.

 

 

Once the seeds have sprouted, they'll go in my homemade cloning machine.  You can buy these devices, but it's pretty simple to make your own - they're good for seed starting and for cloning existing plants, which I'll do in a week or so after my rau ram plant gets a little older and stronger.

 

The cloning machine is basically a bucket with submersible pump and a bunch of sprayer nozzles:

The sprayer nozzles create a carpet of nutrient spray which constantly bathes the bottom of the rockwell cubes with weak nutrient fluid.  Once the plant roots get long enough to reach the bottom of my trough, they'll be transferred into the main garden.

 

Here is a closeup of the pump sprayer manifold:

 

Here you can see the sprayers pretty well. 

 

Here is the whole thing together - the square cutouts are about the right size for the rockwool blocks to fit in.  I usually stick a toothpick through each one so they don't fall through by accident.

 

 

As you can see, my cloning machine has space for 7 plants.  Today, I planted 6 sets of seeds, as I expect one slot to be filled with the rau ram clone by the time the seeds have sprouted.  I also planted 1 more - the sawtooth coriander... according to the package, it can take sawtooth up to 3 WEEKS to germinate!

 

Once these seeds have germinated, and done their initial growth in the bucket, I'll transfer them to the main garden, and start the rest of my seeds.

 

Today, I planted two different lettuces, pea shoots (great as a vegetable for stir fry), yu choi (another vegetable for stir fry - in the photo the plant looked very similar to what I had every day in Singapore, but they called it "baby kailan".... I haven't been able to find anything like it anywhere, and it actually looked nothing like normal kailan (aka chinese broccoli) at any stage of growth that I've ever seen), sawtooth coriander, Genovese basil (Italian), and thai basil.  Waiting in the wings are the kinh gioi (vietnamese mint), garlic chives, regular coriander (cilantro), and tia to (vietnamese perilla).

[Tere]

Slight change of plan yesterday, we went to the local supermarket / garden centre for some compost and they had very reasonable fruit plants. Bought a morello cherry tree for a fiver that is perfect for cordon planting. Also bought 9 plants at three for a fiver, if they don't take we haven't lost very much. Plus a few other things at seven quid. So in the fruit cage we planted 3 early raspberries, a middle and a late raspberry, white currant redcurrant and black currant, a green gooseberry, a red gooseberry, a tayberry, a blueberry, and we have a couple of cranberries to plant next weekend. We did manage to plant the rhubarb, but the asparagus crowns are lurking for next weekend, tucked up safely in the barn, since poor light stopped play.

 

I ache in places I didn't think were possible, but it's a good job jobbed

[Luke]

A major gardening delima...Two bunches of black muscatels that have grown together and are now fully interlinked....

 

 

The only solution was to cut them both off and eat them....Damn shame that.

 

Luke

 

[HungryChris]

About eight years ago I purchased ramps at the Union Square Green Market on a day trip to NYC. Even though I wrapped them up carefully in several layers of plastic, the smell of my knapsack for the remainder of that day is still brought up for my benefit from time to time as an example of how not to be socially responsible, travel in the city and on the subway. I did manage to get them home safely and planted them in a bed in what used to be my garden, until the surrounding trees just got too tall. Every year at this time I carefully rake away the leaves and watch for them to emerge and last year there were enough to start harvesting. This morning I had a quiet celebration as I noticed that they have just begun to emerge again. I think a ramp omelet is going to be the first order of business one day soon. Ramps 6, asparagus zip.

 

HC

Edited March 8, 2016 by HungryChris (log)

[Tere]

Cool. I want to do something similar with wild ramsons soonish. There's a whole lot naturalised in a dell not very far away so I have hopes that they will spread well if I introduce them - a couple of test bulbs are relatively happy!

 

I think they are slightly different plants - yours would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_tricoccum?

 

Mine are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_ursinum.

 

Very tasty.

[KennethT]

I woke up to this this morning:

I don't know which seeds these are that sprouted, but I think this is a record of some kind... less than 24 hours!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

While much of my dining room is occupied by rosemary, mint, thyme, and sage -- just now I received an achievement in World of Warcraft for picking one hundred thousand herbs.  I hate to think how much of my life that represents.

[HungryChris]

I'm probably being overly optimistic, but hope to plant Brussels sprouts this afternoon.

HC

[KennethT]

HC - I hope it doesn't snow next week!!!

[KennethT]

2 new sets of seeds have sprouted!  Since I now have 3 sets that have sprouted, it's time to get the seedling garden up and running... this is the bucket with pump/sprayers I showed last time.

 

Now, time to introduce another friend of the hydro gardener:

This stuff is great.  You use a very small amount - 2.5ml/gallon, and it increases the amount of fine root hairs and overall root mass which makes your plants much better at taking in nutrient.

 

Here's a shot of the 3 cubes that have sprouted - you can really see the difference between which one sprouted yesterday, and which ones did today:

 

Here's a shot showing the progress of the rau ram starter.  I wasn't surprised to see that there were some bugs that came along with the plant, so the other day, I drenched the soil and then sprayed all surfaces of the plant with AzaMax - which is azadirachtin, an organic insecticide derived from Neem.

 

You can tell that it's almost ready to clone by a couple of tips that are showing new growth.

 

Here's a shot of the garden from a distance, where you can see the bucket and the light.  I've been leaving the light on 24hours a day - I've found that young plants don't get shocked from the constant light, and in fact will give much faster growth... as they get older, they don't tolerate it anymore though.

 

[Tere]

Just planted 30 asparagus crowns (10 each of an early, a mid-season, and a late), and a trip to the supermarket to buy more compost yielded yet more cheap fruit trees. Came away with two plum "Opal", a "Doyenne du Comice" and a "Conference" pear, and a Coxes Orange Pippin apple. They are resting overnight in a bucket of water, along with 2 cranberries and three more of the cheap blueberries. I've also ordered a slightly different cranberry online, along with 6 whimberry / bilberry bushes and three lingonberries. The idea is we'll plant them just the other side of the rabbit fence from the veg plot in groups of 3 so we can drape netting over them if we need to.

 

I'd love some cloudberries but am reluctantly resigned to them almost certainly not working. 

 

Next projects, buy some hefty planters for wild and cultivated strawberries. And plot an edible hedge

[Smithy]

Tere, I admire your ambition.  If that garden takes off it will take over your life!  Still, there should be some mighty fine food coming your way from the effort.

[shain]

Next years avocados:

 

A tomato plant who grow by itself until I discovered it today:

[Tere]

25 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Tere, I admire your ambition.  If that garden takes off it will take over your life!  Still, there should be some mighty fine food coming your way from the effort.

 

We are cordonning the fruit trees, so they won't go too bananas. And I'm relaxed about not needing to pick everything. I have an enormous cooker / cider apple at the back of uncertain provenance, and I don't try to harvest it all. The birds are very happy to help me out, and the deer like the windfalls

[Shelby]

I had grand plans to plant onions today.  I have 3 sets of 100 each...red, white and yellow.  

 

But it's pouring rain (the weather people missed this forecast big time).

 

And, my Mennonite neighbor texted me yesterday and in conversation told me that the Farmer's Almanac predicts a major snowstorm here on Easter.   At a family gathering someone told me that the weather people said the same thing.   I will be EXTREMELY disappointed if that happens because all of our trees are blooming....the peonies have poked their leaves through...and there are things in the greenhouse that need to be planted.

[ElainaA]

@Shelby  I feel your pain. We are having an early spring here in the northeast - crocus, snowdrops and miniture iris all in bloom - and that is very early for us. I am fighting to resist the temptation to start seeds, knowing winter could easily come back. Last year there were almost no cherries because we had a very cold spell after the trees had bloomed.  My husband keeps saying "We can still get 2 feet of snow." (I respond "I do know that but please JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT." )

[Tere]

I am crossing my fingers for no snow too. Our winter has been incredibly mild this year and a lot of things are ahead now.

[Anna N]

 I have a question about my microgreens.  After I have harvested all of them can I re- use the soil?   It is now filled with roots and stems of my crop.   I have tried to find an answer to this question but I'm not getting anywhere.   I am sure it is perfectly obvious to almost everyone but me.

[ElainaA]

8 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 I have a question about my microgreens.  After I have harvested all of them can I re- use the soil?   It is now filled with roots and stems of my crop.   I have tried to find an answer to this question but I'm not getting anywhere.   I am sure it is perfectly obvious to almost everyone but me.

@Anna N I do that all the time. I pull out the stems and the worst of the roots - but since you  use the greens when they are so small there shouldn't be a lot of root material. I would use a very thin cover of fresh potting mix to cover the new seeds. I've used basically the same mix, with small additions, for up to 4 plantings.

Happy gardening!

Edited March 17, 2016 by ElainaA (log)

[rotuts]

its possible you can do this more than 4 times.

 

most of the nutrients and energy   until the first ( not true ) leaves opens comes from the seeds.

 

think :  ' Sprouts '

 

so if you have the seeds, keep trying.l

 

why not ?

[KennethT]

@Anna NLike others have said, you can definitely do it a few times, but as you start collecting root mass that has no plant attached, some of it may start to rot causing problems for the next crop...  If it's possible to remove as much plant matter as possible during your harvest, then your soil will last a lot longer!

[Shelby]

It's snowing.  

[Shelby]

The other day it was like 82 degrees so I went out to the greenhouse to take pictures.  I stopped to take a pic of these trees.

 

 

Tomatoes

 

 

Lettuce

 

 

Dill

 

 

More tomatoes...some brussels sprouts and some melons are in there somewhere....

 

 

Turkeys were right next to the house

 

 

 

Annnnnd......now I'm looking at this snow......
 

 

Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kayb]

Daddy used to always contend one should plant on Good Friday, so that's what I'm hoping to do.

 

[rotuts]

places near me  "  Memorial day "