Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Edit History

Deephaven

Deephaven

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

Yes, lettuce (where you harvest the whole head) and other short term things are great in NFT.  I used to grow yu choi (kind of like a skinnier bok choi) in my NFT - I wouldn't harvest the whole head, just clip the outer stems.  It lasted several months with twice weekly harvests enough for 2 of us for dinner, but after a while, the root system became unmanageable and I chopped the whole thing and started over.

 

I grew an heirloom tomato plant in an ebb/flow setup.  It probably got to about 6 months old, providing us with basically 1-2 tomato per day until the root system wound up completely filling the 3 gallon bucket that was its home and the roots wound their way into the fill/drain pipe.  I came home from work one day to find a small lake of about 15 gallons of nutrient on the floor as the timer turned the pump on when no one was home and since the tube was blocked, it sprang a leak in one of the couplings upstream and went all over the floor.  So no more ebb/flow for me unless it's a plant with a much smaller root system or I'm able to put a lot more sensors/controls in to keep that kind of thing from happening again.  Now, growing in coco in fabric pots with a drip system, I don't have to worry about that anymore.  After a  while I'll see the plants vigor slowing a bit and I can check the roots out to see if they've completely taken over the pot so I can either do some root trimming or transplant into a larger fabric pot.  I have a kaffir lime tree and a curry leaf tree that are now at least 5 years old and still doing great.  So I'm team coco all the way for those kinds of plants.

Awesome.  Going to go research coco / drip systems.  

Great to know on the Yu Choy as well.  Something we regularly eat, but requires that I run to one of the non-local Asian stores to grab them.

Are the curry leaf and kaffir indoors as well?

Deephaven

Deephaven

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

Yes, lettuce (where you harvest the whole head) and other short term things are great in NFT.  I used to grow yu choi (kind of like a skinnier bok choi) in my NFT - I wouldn't harvest the whole head, just clip the outer stems.  It lasted several months with twice weekly harvests enough for 2 of us for dinner, but after a while, the root system became unmanageable and I chopped the whole thing and started over.

 

I grew an heirloom tomato plant in an ebb/flow setup.  It probably got to about 6 months old, providing us with basically 1-2 tomato per day until the root system wound up completely filling the 3 gallon bucket that was its home and the roots wound their way into the fill/drain pipe.  I came home from work one day to find a small lake of about 15 gallons of nutrient on the floor as the timer turned the pump on when no one was home and since the tube was blocked, it sprang a leak in one of the couplings upstream and went all over the floor.  So no more ebb/flow for me unless it's a plant with a much smaller root system or I'm able to put a lot more sensors/controls in to keep that kind of thing from happening again.  Now, growing in coco in fabric pots with a drip system, I don't have to worry about that anymore.  After a  while I'll see the plants vigor slowing a bit and I can check the roots out to see if they've completely taken over the pot so I can either do some root trimming or transplant into a larger fabric pot.  I have a kaffir lime tree and a curry leaf tree that are now at least 5 years old and still doing great.  So I'm team coco all the way for those kinds of plants.

Awesome.  Gong to go research coco / drip systems.  

Great to know on the Yu Choy as well.  Something we regularly eat, but requires that I run to one of the non-local Asian stores to grab them.

Are the curry leaf and kaffir indoors as well?

×
×
  • Create New...