Vertical Farming In The Urban Maze

SEE HERE

Growing plants in crowded environments requires real planning but it can be fun and productive. HERE's MORE

The Crowded Stunted Tomatoes of 2012

I suppose this is what happens when your plans are messed up and the tomatoes just keep growing in the original container in one inch rockwool cubes. I've been keeping these twenty-one plants in this container since sometime in May I think and this is what happens to tomato plants that are crowded and fed hydroponics nutrients.

You do get tomatoes of course. Here are three and they are all about 3/4 of an ounce apiece. I've taken a whole five of these guys off the plants and there are more coming of course. Sliced up they actually look pretty good.

But of course they are tiny. You might be interested in what the roots look like. I've been putting nutrient onto the rockwool about once a day. The plants are healthy enough given their crowded conditions but the bottom line is that the tomatoes are very stunted. These were supposed to be three varieties of large tomatoes but the crowding clearly stunts their growth.

I'm going to keep them going. It's interesting just seeing what happens. Hydroponics is always an adventure and it's a great way to explore what happens with plants under various controlled conditions. This started out as a plan to grow big tomatoes but since we're moving it turned into an experiment in crowded conditions. The sliced tomatoes still tasted good with my morning omelet.

Float System Production of Lettuce

Float systems are really cool, but tend to be limited to low growing plants. I've grown a few herbs in float systems and using the small kiddie pool I did tomatoes a couple of years ago but I didn't solve the support problem very well.

Wicking Baskets: Pretty Cool!

This is a fun little video about building a kind of a wick system. It would not be difficult to transform this into a true hydroponics system by replacing the soil and the wicking material with passive medium and watering with hydroponics nutrients in the water. I'll have to try a design like this. It looks like it would likely beat the kind of wicking system I've used in the past.

The Mini Jungle Saga Continues — Tiny Tomatoes

Not sure what to do with this little mini-jungle that's been developing.  One problem is that it has now reached the point where it might be unsustainable since it's gobbling up nutrient at about a gallon a day, well maybe a smidge less.  If you forget to check the plants can get droopy really fast.  This afternoon I went to check that the rockwool was getting fairly dry (I must have forgotten to put nutrient on them yesterday) so I filled the tray and after a couple of hours they were back.  But I imagine that that kind of stress is not good for them.

Now they have little tomatoes on a lot of them, which makes them all that much more difficult to just sacrifice.  See picture.  Jessica found a bunch of pots and is lobbying to put them into pots.  That might work but the shock from separating the plants might be a problem.

I'm currently thinking of it as an experiment in plant crowding.  How's that for a rationale for screwing up?  It's also an experiment in just adding nutrient to rockwool without any flow.  The oxygenation doesn't seem as if it ought to be very good, but the plants don't look all that bad given the crowding and the sporadic watering.

The Price of Delay

Back on April 8th I posted a picture of the original 1 inch rockwool cubes that I seeded with about four different kinds of tomato plants.  SEE HERE Well a small problem developed.  We decided to move and bought a house about 40 miles North and that made it difficult to decide how to proceed with the Summer 2012 Hydroponics adventure.  The short term solution was procrastinate but keep the plants going with nutrient.  So there they are as of today ... a dense clump of tomato plants, the smallest "jungle" I've created to date.  They are healthy but now thoroughly intertwined so that if I separate them I'll destroy a lot of developed roots.

The bottom line is that we bought a house and are very busy transferring stuff from this one to that one and this clump is living on our back screen porch just outside the door on a railing overlooking the backyard.  It's pretty cool but it is now absorbing about half a gallon of nutrient a day and will likely increase and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.  You get attached to your plants and don't like sacrificing them.  So I'm currently trying to figure out what to do with a mini-jungle of about twenty-four tomato plants all growing in less than one square foot of 1 inch rockwool cubes mounted in a shallow plastic container.  Stay tuned!

Lights and Reflectors

Grow lights are a great way to grow indoors. I've not done a lot of it although I have a couple of security lights which can double as grow lights. When I first did some of this I was amazed to discover how little light fluorescent lights put out. They have to be just a few inches from the plants and then they only provide enough light for deep shade. High pressure sodium (HPS) puts out a lot more light and so does metal halide (MH). I've fooled around with both a little, mostly to start seeds before it is warm enough to put the plants in the back yard. Nate Lipton from GrowersHouse.com sent me a link to a piece on reflectors. For the technically inclined this is great fun. For others it might just be important to know that if you're using an expensive high-powered light you really don't want it going all over the place, just on your plants. So the efficiency of reflectors is important. Check out their site for other stuff if you're so inclined.