Gardening: (2016– )

[KennethT]

All these tomato shots are making me long for my Goose Creek that I used to grow in my apartment.  Maybe once I move, I'll consider it again - I'll already have all the herbs in the windows and the tent for, ahem, other stuff... Why not one more???

[TicTac]

I like the Black Krims (thought it was Krum - Krum sounds way better anyways, so I will stick with that...lol) as well.  They are a nice balance of sweetness and acidity.

 

My favourites are certainly the orange varieties.  The sweetest tomatoes you will find!

 

Tonight I have assembled a Greek salad that is 95% sourced from the garden (olive oil, olives and feta...sadly; not so much!)  Should be good.

 

 

 

 

[chromedome]

51 minutes ago, TicTac said:

I like the Black Krims (thought it was Krum - Krum sounds way better anyways, so I will stick with that...lol) as well.  They are a nice balance of sweetness and acidity.

 

Tonight I have assembled a Greek salad that is 95% sourced from the garden (olive oil, olives and feta...sadly; not so much!)  Should be good.

I'd just shrugged off the Krim/Krum thing as a typo (or maybe a sly Harry Potter allusion). It's all good.

 

As for the olives, hey...with climate change, you might yet be able to grow your own.

[heidih]

45 minutes ago, chromedome said:

I'd just shrugged off the Krim/Krum thing as a typo (or maybe a sly Harry Potter allusion). It's all good.

 

As for the olives, hey...with climate change, you might yet be able to grow your own.

 

Ha!   Years ago next door neighbor with 7 acres processed his olives. Us kids only were familiar with the canned stuff (which I detested) so we spat the seeds out like watermelon or cherry. T'was fun. All the dogs got tummy aches. 

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

My husband's all-time favorite tomato is Prudens Purple, but he admits he also likes Gold Medal almost as much. In the Colorado mountains we were restricted to short-season varieties, so while one year I successfully grew Prudens, the following years were not as good. And here because I grow tomatoes in pots to shelter them from the rains, I can't grow anything that large. Sigh. Right now I have 4 tomatoes in process--Siberian (not to be confused with the old tasteless variety Siberia), Juliette (a small roma type), Very Large Cherry (from Seed Savers) and an unnamed slicing tomato called "bola" or ball. Just as I was in Colorado, I am hopeful.

[dcarch]

Just my way to enjoy my tomatoes.

 

I slice them very thick, two to three times thicker than most people would. Then I put them in the dehydrator for a few hours.

 

I don't like watery tomato slices making my bread soggy. I like my tomatoes super flavorful.

 

dcarch

[Smithy]

My three cherry tomato plants look prolific, and at last the fruit is beginning to ripen. These plants are all taller than I, and they just keep bearing in their delightful indeterminate way. The Sun Gold and Black Cherry tomatoes make a nice color contrast to the classic reds, don't they?

 

 

The bowl fragment is from a beloved hand-painted Italian bowl that slid off a the top of a bookcase a few weeks ago, a casualty of trying to fit one too many books in the case. The bowl broke into too many pieces to consider trying to glue it together. I've scattered some of the sherds around in various plant pots, but I have trouble letting go of these bigger pieces that still show the original pattern. It's a measure of my general good fortune, I think, that I could spare emotion to lament a dish!

[KennethT]

Spaceship garden is almost fully automated! Just needs some coding changes and we'll be all set!

[heidih]

39 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Spaceship garden is almost fully automated! Just needs some coding changes and we'll be all set!

 

 

I love your enthusiasm. I did take over the greenhouse controls in a new system when the main guy was headed to the UK for 2 months. I took a composition book full of notes  and I did not kill anything but  - it is not me.  Stressed me out as outside temps were fluctuating wildly..  Challenges can be good for the mind I suppose.  I did have fun with the biological controls for fungus gnats and the like. The ladybugs the County released in mass quantity however - that was not pretty as we had an immediate rare frost. Explain to the little kids why they are not moving - umm they are dead. 

[dcarch]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

Spaceship garden is almost fully automated! Just needs some coding changes and we'll be all set!

 

Are those 9 things on the board Peristaltic Pumps?

Looking at your hydraulic setup, you will need self-priming pumps

 

dcarch

Edited August 16, 2020 by dcarch (log)

[KennethT]

9 hours ago, dcarch said:

 

Are those 9 things on the board Peristaltic Pumps?

Looking at your hydraulic setup, you will need self-priming pumps

 

dcarch

 

no - they're solenoid valves.  There is a large submersible pump in the reservoir outside the tent pumping into a manifold made from half inch tubing.  When one of the plants needs feeding (as sensed by the capacitive moisture sensor), the controller first turns the pump on, then a second later opens the valve that leads to that plant using pressure compensating drippers.  Once the setpoint is reached, the valve closes, followed by the pump a second later.

 

Submersible pumps and pressure compensated drippers are the most common nutrient delivery method for hydroponics.

[dcarch]

6 hours ago, KennethT said:

no - they're solenoid valves.  There is a large submersible pump in the reservoir outside the tent pumping into a manifold made from half inch tubing.  When one of the plants needs feeding (as sensed by the capacitive moisture sensor), the controller first turns the pump on, then a second later opens the valve that leads to that plant using pressure compensating drippers.  Once the setpoint is reached, the valve closes, followed by the pump a second later.

 

Submersible pumps and pressure compensated drippers are the most common nutrient delivery method for hydroponics.

 

Good practical system.

A system using Arduino controller to drive peristaltic pumps driven by stepper motors can offer some degree of flexibility if you are growing different plants at the same time, but more expensive and complicated to configure.

 

dcarch

[KennethT]

I would use peristaltic pumps if I was automatically dosing my nutrient as they work best for small quantities.  As it is, I make it pretty infrequently (less than once a week) so I never bothered.  When feeding, my plants usually take at least 1/4 gallon, which would take forever with most peristaltic pumps. But if I were to use a peristaltic pump for anything, rather than use steppers (which have flexibility but also add complexity) - you can by premade peristaltic pumps that run off of DC and have a measured rate - i.e. 10ml per minute or something.  Then I'd just have the pumps running off a relay (more likely a transistor switch like I've got for the solenoids) and time their on-time using the Arduino's timing functions like millis().

[haresfur]

I was given a couple of these frost-tolerant mustard greens a couple of years ago and this year they have really taken off. They self seed so they have migrated to a different raised bed and are giving the grass outside the beds a good run for their money.

 

[heidih]

They are beautiful - What is your favorite prep?

[haresfur]

2 hours ago, heidih said:

They are beautiful - What is your favorite prep?

 

I mostly do them in a beef-noodle stir fry but have put them in soup

[TicTac]

Odd season for tomatoes - other crops, basil (from seed into the ground) in this case, booming!

 

 

[TicTac]

Came as literally one lone twig, the ‘little engine curry leaf plant that could’ came roaring back to life.  Methinks it enjoys this rather hot summer.

 

 

[KennethT]

15 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Came as literally one lone twig, the ‘little engine curry leaf plant that could’ came roaring back to life.  Methinks it enjoys this rather hot summer.

 

 

Nice... In my research, it seems that they can typically drop all their leaves when it drops below 40F (as long as it doesn't freeze) but will completely come back once it warms up.  My curry plant is very sad - it's one of the few that I'm growing that isn't doing so well...  I actually ordered a replacement from Logees - their plants are older (about a year old) than the one I got (about 6 mos), and I gather they really don't start taking off until about a year old... and I'm sick of waiting!

[heidih]

43 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Came as literally one lone twig, the ‘little engine curry leaf plant that could’ came roaring back to life.  Methinks it enjoys this rather hot summer.

 

 

Are you using the rocks to stabilize the plant or to collect heat?

[TicTac]

4 hours ago, heidih said:

 

Are you using the rocks to stabilize the plant or to collect heat?

Neither.  But rather to stop the tree rats (aka squirrels) from digging in the pot!

[heidih]

25 minutes ago, TicTac said:

Neither.  But rather to stop the tree rats (aka squirrels) from digging in the pot!

 

I'll up ya - we have non native squirrels AND reaL tree rats. They run along the power lines at night.  I had the side door open (no screen ) - today and one of the bushy tails made 5 attempts to visit me! I got a bit hoarse from screaming "git" at it! 

[KennethT]

I ordered a replacement for the curry tree - I don't know why the first one is not doing so well but I decided to try one from Logees. Looks great so far - I have it in the corner of the tent, acclimating....

[heidih]

Looks plump and lusty.  Plants are individuals - not all behave as one expects.

[KennethT]

I've decided that I'm going to keep the old curry tree - I'm going to replant in a small cup and prune all of the branches off. Maybe it'll reset itself that way.