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I was standing out in our backyard, looking into the woods. The sassafras trees' leaves are turning red and look like childrens' mittens waving in the breeze. A few leaves fluttered from oak trees and blew to the ground. I like the changing of the seasons because it gives me a sense of freshness, newness, renewal. I like the autumn because I love the holidays, and autumn gets me thinking about how I'll decorate this year.
The garden is drying back and the zinnias are about spent. I leave the flowers there until I quit getting any new blooms. I can't bear to yank them out when they are still producing flowers, even though the stalks are getting splindly and the leaves are turning brown. The pentas are still going strong and the hummingbirds are still visiting. Last year we saw the last one in early October.
I am not a tomato gardener. In all, we have gotten 21 tomatoes from the two plants and I didn't think they tasted any better than grocery store tomatoes. For all the effort and the cost of the plants, I am not going to put them in again. Not unless someone I personally know gives me some plants that will yield some really flavorful tomatoes.
I am going to Southern Vistas nursery today and get some new flowers for the fall and hope to put them in this weekend.
I got home late from work. Our company has moved to a new office and I am working late every night doing extra tasks associated with the move. Tonight I didn't get home until almost 8:30, but it was still light outside so I went out and sat on the low brick wall and looked out over my garden.
It is looking good. The zinnias are opening at a record pace and they are so lovely. God definitely loves color. He sure makes those zinnias the most lovely shades of orange, pink and yellow. I love to drink in the colors with my eyes. I am happy that this year I put in a wide variety of flowers with the zinnias, impatiens, salvia, forget me nots, flocks and pentas. Everything seems very happy although I am learning to plant some of the low plants out away from the tall ones that shade them. Leftovers from last year are the Mexican heather, the dead nettle and a couple chrysanthemums. Oh and the hot pink geranium I nursed through the winter on the dining room table. The butterfly bush is doing well too.
The tomatoes are okay, although they seem like they should be getting some new fruit. The same 13 tomatoes have been hanging on since mid-July, and no new ones have set on. The fruit that's there looks good, at least to a novice like me. I keep hoping for the gargantuan tomatoes that the plant labels promised... but right now they look like the size of most grocery store varieties. Hopefully they will keep getting bigger. And someday they'll be red and ripe!
This summer everything is taking a long time to get accomplished. After the slugs were killed off, I put two large zinnias in and waited. They both did well, and are continuing to grow and bloom profusely - one pink and the other orange, both with double petals. After no slug damage, the following weekend I put in 3 packs of zinnia seeds, two are the giant cactus variety and one of the doubles. Wow, are these coming up strongly and so many - like over 100 plants are growing in 3 beds. I just hope they have enough sunshine to bloom for a long time into the fall. The house shadows these beds come fall.
The pentas are doing well and the hummingbirds are enjoying them. This year, I have red, lilac and white ones. The birds go for the reds first.
Yesterday I bought 18 red salvia to plant where the pansies pooped out. I am hoping the hummingbirds will enjoy them. Last year I had a salvia in a planter and I remember the birds checking it out. So later today I will get busy planting them.
My husband wanted to see if we could grow some tomatoes so we went and bought two plants back in mid June and put them in. Just this week I saw that 4 little maters are setting on, right now only the size of marbles. But this is exciting for us. We haven't grown any vegetables in more than 25 years. So I hope they do well and that the sunshine will continue on them long enough for them to get big and ripen.
The forget-me-nots didn't bloom this year and now the leaves are fading. I thought that there was something wrong with them, but I got on a gardenguides forum and asked a question and found out that they bloom early in the year. So they will hopefully be full of blooms next Spring.
We had a nice long Spring this year, but now it is a typical South Carolina summer with very high temps.
Greetings, and may you all keep on smiling! I was asked what types of heirloom tomatoes I am growing. Currently I am fathering 8 plants: Gingers Golden Delicious, Green Grapes, Hillbilly, Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Paul Robeson. The other tags the dog ate before I could write them down, BUT they are similar to Cherokee Purple, but Cherry sized. The last one, it's yummy. That's the 8. A smile came to my face when i saw that some of you enjoyed the idea about a pool in the greenhouse, solar powered. Wait until I tell you about the BIG dream. Anyway, the tags came out great, I am seeking construction sites out now. Recycling the old PVC pipe. Harvest is so busy for us all, may your acts be worthy enough to earn the happiness you deserve. Gregory
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so sadly last friday while i was at work and my 13 yr. old niece was babysitting my girls...our dog, molly, got a hold of mumbles and killed him and a hen...i am so heartbroken...mumbles was such a good rooster....luckily we do have a baby rooster and 2 more females....no other rooster is going to be like him...we will miss him terribly...
update on wilbur...we are getting rid of him....he will be going to a nice farm with a lady friend :) where he will be much happier...
here are some pics of my garden...
cherry tomatoes....
veggie garden with green onions, hot peppers, green peppers, tomatoes, asparagus, lemon cucumber, & butternut squash...
strawberry plants...15...and in the pot at the end is clilantro...
close up of one of the strawberries...yum, yum...can't keep the birds from eating them...tried hanging pie tins with no luck...any suggestions...
Now that you've had a peek at Melissa's Secret Garden, I'll have to post photos of Jacquie's. (I have to photograph it first, though.) Hers are very different from mine and Melissa's, but lovely, just the same. My eldest daughter, Dawn, studied landscape design and had beautiful beds when she lived in Ontario. She hasn't adjusted to the growing conditions in Georgia yet, but I'm confident she'll eventually create something terrific down there.
It's raining here today, so I won't be outside, which is probably a good thing because C is preparing to go fishing for pickerel (walleye) with several of his buddies this weekend.
We got all 40 lbs of seed potatoes (Banana Fingers, Yukon Golds, Cal Whites and Chieftains) in the soil, finally. That makes ten 40' rows. I may have bought too many, don't you think? We will share with family and friends, but I think I'll cut back to 30 lbs next year. I'm just not sure which variety to eliminate.
My teenaged tomato plants (21 of 'em - the rest were shared with family and friends) are nestled all snug in their beds surrounded by eggshells and makeshift cloches.
Our onions, peas and beets are up, and I put a row of Swiss chard and one of parsnips in yesterday after I transplanted more volunteer sunflowers and seeded my shade bed with amaranth. I still need to plant three varieties of beans, cucumbers, pumpkins and several different gourds. We sell the gourds at a roadside stand. I found a new variety of gourds yesterday. They resemble apples in shape. Had to buy a packet of seeds to try them out. Tri-coloured pears used to be our best seller, but last year crown of thorns took over. I also purchased a new, expensive hand trowel. It seems to me that I break the cheaper ones on a regular basis. I broke one of mine and bent one of Melissa's during our All Girls' Weekend.
I'm looking forward to having this weekend to myself. No meals to prepare! No interruptions! No working on someone else's agenda! I want to concentrate my efforts on edging up my shade bed and getting the last of the seed into my cutting bed, then weeding and mulching the beds at home. That is, if I survive the preparation for C's fishing weekend. I need to make several dozen of his favourite chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. That's the easy part. C tends to leave a lot of his preparations till the last minute then gets hyper about getting everything packed and ready to go. I'll likely have to help him search for some of his stuff and undoubtedly have to assist with putting new line on his reels, etc. He's just gone to town for some new swivels because he can't find the packet he bought last fall. Ah well, it's a small price to pay for three days of peace and quiet in my flower beds and, hopefully, fresh pickerel for dinner Monday evening.
Another lovely day! I put a spent pot of daffodils I had purchased earlier into my garden and potted up the last of my tomato seedlings - 40 in all of 2 varieties - Golden Goddess and Brandywine. I only want 6 of each, so after I distribute some to my family and friends, I'll donate the remainder to our local Horticultural Society for it's plant sale. I had forgotten what the soil is like here at home - pure clay! Some of it is getting better following heavy applications of sharp sand, but I've got a long way to go. It seems to support growth well, but it's difficult to weed.
The second of my okra plants gave up the ghost, so I'm giving up on okra.
Between Thursday, Friday and today (Saturday), I feel as though I got a good start on the garden. Here's what happened so far.
Hand turned about 2/3 of the garden. Managed to get the radishes, onions, and peas in yesterday. Today I finished planting the lettuces. Here's what I put in today:
• Lettuce Salad Bowl (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 50 days
• Mesclun Salad Mix (Burpee® brand) - matures in 48 days
› 15% Black Seeded Simpson
› 15% Red Salad Bowl
› 15% Lollo Rossa
› 15% Royal Oak Leaf
› 20% Arugula Rocket
› 20% Radicchio Verona
• Tom Thumb Letuce Butterhead (Burpee® brand) - matures in 65 days
• Mesclun Zesty Salad Mixture (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 45 days
› 25% Tango
› 15% Lola Rossa
› 15% Black Seeded Simpson
› 15% Deer Tongue Red
› 15% Royal Oak Leaf
› 5% Arugula
› 5% Frisee
› 5% Mizuna
• Lettuce Simpson Black Seeded (Lake Valley™ brand) - matures in 45 days
Later I was able to put out seed for Violas and transplant some of my seedlings. Here are some pictures:
Yellow Pear Tomatoes, Garlic Chives
Garlic Chives and Sweet Marjoram
Dill, Patio Tomatoes, and one Celebrity Tomato
Also cut some of the Forsythia to bring inside for some color. They should start to bloom in the next 5-6 days. I am so excited about Spring 2009!
I found some eight-year-old bell pepper and tomato seeds lying around that I thought I'd try to start. I went through an egg carton for supper tonight, so I filled it with dirt from outside and put five seeds in each compartment (hey, they're really old seeds, I'm lucky if one comes up).
If they come up, great. If they don't, it's off to Earl May for seedlings. Wish me luck!
Yes this REALLY snuck up on me! I posted blossom pictures Sat and I found this tiny guy today.
I am completely stunned. We are only 6 weeks from germination. Now hold your breath that we do not get BER or something and the little guy falls off. Sorry for the rant, I am pretty excited.
Larry <
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I got the camera card so we have pictures now. Let's start with blossom shots becauae that is what it is all about anyway. We moved our air pump supplying the air to the bubbler tubs to try a pseudo bumble bee trick on the flowers. This pump vibrates a lot and if it sits on the floor it will often move across to rest against a table leg and make an awfull racket. Holding it in my hand feeling the vibration we got an idea. Put it on the wire screen and vibrate the plants to polinate the flowers. It vibrates the whole screen slightly and you can see the tips of some leaves shaking at a high pitch. isn't bumble bee vibrations or electric tooth brush simulation supposed to work? It is a lot quieter too.
p>
Zach and I have both noticed the plants in the poultry sreen are pretty ugly. A lot of leaf curl spots and the leaves and generally not as pretty as the control big boy plant in the regular pot. We attribute this appearance and general stress to how hard we are pushing the plants. Now don't get me wrong, they are still growing like some form of mutant banshee, but they are ugly. A shot of phosphorus today and bloom set spray will only continue the mad dash. We are speculating that once the tomatoes start fruiting it may slow the aggressive growth a bit, which is a good thing. We do not want to fill the screen next month. Now the plants need to concentrate on fruiting.
The control plant is absolutely awesome. It is about a foot tall, super stocky and a real nice looking plant. We are supercropping it vigorously, even the suckers that we choose to keep.
A Stem shot with our good old # 2 pencil.
The rest of the plants are doing great as well. The spinach is awesome but it has developed a really weird problem. Every once in a while entire mature leaves are just gone. For no reason and part of the leaf stem is still there. We are not sure what the affliction could possibly be. Take alook at the pic and notice the empty leaf stems. Any ideas out there?
It is real weird. Oh just a minute, I believe we have isolated the problem.
If you can not tell he is smiling, I believe we have solved the mystery.
One of the other real succeses has been our Bougainvillia. It had 5% of it's leaves left right after I brought it inside from the patio. It has come back with a huge vengence.
We had the same problem with our Lantana Tree. These are annuals usually used for boarders etc. They can be trained and pruned to simulate a dwarf tree. Here is the flower and one of the overall plants. We may clone some of these over the next few months and use them for a border area in the yard. Build a cloner, I am sure we can squeeze that in this week-end.
Our basil and bell pepper starts are doing great too. The peppers have been super cropped and seem to do well with it.
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Basil
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Sorry for the long update, but I did not want to leave anyone out and hurt their feelings. Enjoy and happy gardening.
Larry
Blooms are open today!
Is that a thing of beauty or what? 24 degrees theis AM, 11 below 0 this week and below 0 almost all day. The tomatoes are happy .
Larry
Larry
A big day today with the discovery of our first flowers. Upon closer inspection, all the crowns and suckers have flowers on them. Even the regular big boy in the typical pot has flowers starting. Now on to polination and maybe our first tomato. Wow!
Tomorrows agenda is a nice corn cob ash tea to really kick off the flowering cycle. Next week end Superbloom and the flowering hormone. This is pretty fun.
As an added benafit Orchids are blooming in the tomato room. Pretty nice
<
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Larry
^first pinch the stem adjacent to the wire where the shoot has come up similar to the supercropping process. However, do not pinch and rotate and do not pinch from multimple directions as usual. You want to flatten the stem slightly so that it easily beds over the adjacent wire so that it looks like this:
^Obse
rve the flatness just above my left thumb. Next you will bend the plant over the adjacent wire as shown below. It should give quite easily due to the flattening process, if it doesn't, re-pinch and start again.
^bending^
Now that you have gotten the stem at a 90-ish degree angle along the "boarder" wire that separates the hole in the screen the shoot grew up through from the adjacent hole you are aiming for you can begin to pull it through like this:
^pulling^
Be careful during this step and bunch up the leaves so that they don't tear on the way through. If you did it right the hard part is over and the plant should now look like this: 
^neatly tucked beneath the screen^
Note how I've managed the leaves, pulling them through adjacent holes and letting them come to rest on top, the opposite of what is done to the plants that this technique was developed for. Now all that is left to do is poke the top of the crown through the next hole over, the third one involved in this process: 
^the completed weave^
Jobs a good'un. You may want to sort out the smaller leaves near the top of the crown and get them laying on top of the screen where they belong. Also, once the crown is in its final position I like to supercrop all of the horizontal stem section except for the very top node to lock the vine into place and toughen up the stem to avoid any abrasive effect that the wire might have on the skin. Now the crown will soon resume growth and turn upwards towards the light. Once it has gotten 3 or 4 inches tall we will repeat the process and the cycle will continue indefinitely. I hope this has been informative, good luck and happy gardening!
-Zach
^ I added a week five picture above in comparison to week 4 just below. Gives a good perspective of growth in 6 days^
Well, here we are at week 4 and what a change. That is 4 weeks from germination! Wow! So far Big Boy and Fat Momma have been growing at a fairly even rate, slowly, methodically, biding their time until I wasn't looking. They've packed on more above-ground plant mass over this past week then they've generated during their first 3 weeks, really getting into their stride now. They where slightly dehydrated when we got back, it wasn't bad, they where just a little wilty which shows in the pictures. 
Yea 
Fat Momma has gone nuts, what where tiny little sucker starts when we left are now massive out-of-control shoots that have stretched well past the height of the main stem and begun to penetrate the screen. A little supercropping has halted the taller one in its tracks and it should assume a slower, stockier growth rate from here on out. Still, I am impressed with how thick it is without any help from me. This is the "learning" I have been alluding to, although it obviously hasn't helped the internodal gaps any, they're HUGE. 
^Momma's little suckers before we left^ 
^Momma's suckers today, holy crap!^
As impressive as this growth is, it has come at a price. Big boy's suckers haven't shown nearly the development of these and there is a reason for that: 
This is a shot of the stem leading up to Fat Momma's crown. Before we left I got a little over-zealous with the supercropping in a bid to make sure she didn't get too out of control whilst we where gone. As a result her main stem has made almost no progress other than packing on extra leaves and general girth. Happily it has scabbed over quite well and looks to have recently resumed development, so all is well. Because of the super-streachy suckers Momma has already penetrated the screen level and I have been able to pull a couple of leaves through as seen below: 
This is the very beginning of her training regiment, though it will still be a little while before the stems have grown long enough to go into their first step of the "weave"
Big boy on the other hand has stuck much more closely to what we're traditionally looking for. 
Big, bushy and with massive leaves, look at this thing! 
His stem has also caught up to Momma's quite nicely, even surpassing hers in some places: 
He was bigger than his twin brother last week, but now he's really pulling away! 
^A perfectly healthy plant, just fine by all standards, but absolutely puny compared to his twin brother.
Well, thats about it, I'm sure this update was more fun, more pictures and fewer boring explanations. Tune in next week to see new pictures and track their progress, though at the rate they're growing I may sneak in a few pictures before then. We'll have additional updates related to this grow soon including DIY remote ballast HPS lamps and the all-important potassium-rich corn-sob ash tutorial. See you then and happy gardening!
-Zach
The rest of the pants are doing very well also, our very sad basil has really made a come-back after a long stagnent period.
^Very Sad Basil Recovering^
The pepper plants that just had their first leaves are now in to a second and third pair. We are not sure if supercropping will work on them, but we have 3 per pot so we will guinee pig at leaste one to see how it does. We have both bell and jalapeno varieties.
^Jalapeno Starts^
The spinich looks so good the iguana is eying it already. He is only 4-5 feet away, so he probably wonders about the jungle growing around him. We watered when we got home and I was happy to see the humidity above 60%.
^ Spinach^
One other really impressive thing about our well lighted grow room is the plants that are just supposed to be wintering over.are going absolutely nuts! I was hoping not to kill them off and they look 100% better then when I brought them inside. One in particular I had given up for dead after it dropped 90% of it's leaves. Maybe somebody out there knows the name of this plant as I do not know and there is not a tag anymore. Besides the destinctive flower shown below, it has dark green waxy leaves and nice long pointy thorns. Any input from the experts out there?
^ The first person to ID wins the big Prize^
That is about all for now. Enjoy Larry
12-30 Update:
No ID on the plant yet
1-5 Update
Holidays are over and it is back to work. The tomatoes are growing well and are starting to go through our screen. The supercropping and high light levels are still keeping the plants very stocky. This helps in our overall strategy as well. Short internodal gaps create several suckers below the screen and close to the root system which is favorable for good nutrient flow. The plan is to have the crown and 3 suckers per plant weaving in the poultry netting. All other suckers will be removed. Both plants already have 3 suckers and the main vine, so everything else is removed as it develops. Here are a couple of pictures showing the height above the netting and overall plant size.
Since
We have such good vegitative growth, we will add a HPS light to our mix and start pushing the plants to flower. That is a combination of HPS light, flowering hormone and potasium and potash in our fertilizer. We will see if we can get a few of the yellow gems to show up over the next few weeks.
Larry
Greetings garden lovers! After much searching I believe I have found a community that will take some interest in our gardening exploits. I have been deeply disappointed by places like the gardenweb forums, which are quite large and have many members, but seriously lack long-term interest, pictures and grow diaries. They do have many expert growers over there, but they are all terribly entrenched in traditional convention and are not only unwilling to experiment themselves, but also reluctant to discuss experimental ideas. I have started this grow diary once already over there and am now officially moving it to GardenGuides. Along with being a lover of gardening I am quite a potography enthusiast and will be posting regular updates with lots of pictures, I hope many of you enjoy them. There are two people whom will be using the hautions11 username; myself, Zach, and my father Larry. We will specify who posts what for the sake of clarity. Now, on to the good stuff!
(the following was origionally posted by Zach on the Garden Web Forums on Sun, Dec 21, 08)
I do not see a lot of specific techniques or experiences documented on too many forums. I often see some interim pictures but rarely a complete grow. Please excuse me if this has been covered, but I have not been able to find good info up to this point. So let's get to the basics..... I have struggled even outside to grow good tomatoes in my very well shaded and heavily tree infested yard. Lots of attempts and a few minor successes. So fall came and went cold weather is upon ( 3 degrees F tonight in mid Indiana )us and I have the gardening itch. I have seen a variety of attempts with both florescent and HID lighting to grow tomatoes. I see some random pictures of very leggy 6'-7' tall plants with few (5-10) tomatoes on them.
Here is my set-up... a 3 season porch with lots of single pane glass. left to it's own devices low 20's or teens in cold weather. I often try to winter over patio plants to save the $100-$200 dollar annual investment. Perfectly south facing window that gets an honest 6-7 hours of direct sun. First problem is heat and then the light issue. Some cheap Lowes window shrink plastic covers and 3" air gaps solved the basic insulation problems. A small 500w heater keeps the room at appropriate 60 night to 70 daytime temps. Here is an overall shot of my set-up with a 400w metal halide light in place.
As you can see there are quite a few plants gathered around my single light source. With most of them I'm not looking for an aggressive growing situation, just some minor bushing and an increase in overall vigor so that they're ready to really take off when they go back outside in the spring. You may be wondering about the big weird-looking screen suspended above the rear plants. Its made out of poultry net mounted in a 3 by 6 foot PVC pipe frame. This would yield an 18 square foot growing area, but due to the 11 inch deep curve in it you end up closer to 23 feet. I will explain the exact function and methodology of this screen and its use at a later date when I've actually started to use it. The main attraction here is these guys.
To the left we have a Burpee Big Boy hybrid, which is a large Beefsteak type tomato. The the right is Burpee's Big Momma hybrid, which is a large Roma type. Both plants are just finishing their 3rd week of life in the tubs, 4 weeks from seed. You may note the somwhat unusual looking containers in which they are planted, especially if you noticed the blue aquarium air hose snaking out of the left one. Let me explain:
Inside the tubs is a unique growing medium consisting of coconut moss, vermiculite, pearlite and compost resting on a 4 inch bed of lava rock. The rock is completely submerged in a water bath. The depth of the bath is maintained by a side overflow drain which sits at exactly 4 inches from the bottom of the tub. This allows me to water them with a can the traditional way but maintains the water level and makes sure the medium above never gets "soupy". At the bottom of the bath rests a 12 inch aquarium bubbler wand that constantly injects the bath and the medium above it with air. This oxygenates the entire medium, encouraging the growth of beneficial aerobic bacteria and killing off pesky anaerobic bacteria; technically making it a hydroponic system. However, unlike most hydroponic rigs it is mostly compromised of organic matirial and is thusly capable of supporting a full-fledged Mycorrhizae fungal colony which lives in a symbiotic relationship with the tomato roots. The fungus chelates all of the minerals for the plants, prevents dehydration, balances the PH and acts as a secondary immune system to fight off unwanted intruders. All of this makes for furiously aggressive growth from the tomatoes, it is an optimum environment for nutrient uptake, water retention and oxygenation. I feel that it has advantages over both traditional soil growing and hydroponic setups; the best of both worlds. It is much lower maintenance than most common hydroponic setups as most of the nutrients are loaded into the medium up front. I use organic nutes almost exclusively: Blood meal, coffee grounds, wood ash, garden sulfur, fast-acting lime and an organic mix called Bio-tone starter plus (contains feather meal, grab meal, guano, greensand and bone meal). The medium contains two special additives: Soil Moist granules to help it retain moisture (very important due to the light spongy nature of the medium) and Hydro Organics' Mycorrhizae Super Pack (a form of dry fungus spores). Over the course of their lives the tomatoes will receive fish emulsion for a nitrogen boost, corn-cob ash for potassium (very important) and bloom burst (my only salt fertilizer, just one teaspoon per season) for phosphorous. Other than the dry mycorrhizae spores (which aren't completely necessary because the Bio-Tone mix comes pre-loaded with a small variety of beneficial spores) all of these materials are readily available to anyone from a variety of local sources. I have gotten everything from Lowes, Ace Hardware and my local pet store.
Aside from my fancy bubbler tubs and the screen I use one other special technique I have yet to see others use in tomato gardening: Supercropping.
This is a shot of Big Momma's stem, which is far bigger around than the #2 pencil I forgot to include in the shot for scale. It is positively monstrous for a 4 inch tall plant, bigger than stems I have seen on 12 inch plants from my local nursery. This is achieved through the technique I referred to as supercropping. Its a simple practice though it intimidates many growers who are frightened of the potential harm it could do. It takes a little practice but let me make this clear before I even explain it. Supercropping will not kill your plants. It won't, really, honest, I promise. All you do is once the sprouts have become established in their final grow medium, around the one week mark usually, take the stem section between your thumb and forefinger and squeeze gently while making a slight alternating twisting motion. There will be a tiny crushing sound and you will feel the phloem (the veins that carry things downstream towards the roots) give way and be crushed slightly. The plant will droop and look very sad and you will feel horrible, which makes it all the more difficult to continue doing this all up and down the main stem section. However, if you didn't wuss out, when you come back the next day the plant will have righted itself and the stem will have grown noticeably thicker. You must continue this practice as the plant grows new stem sections. If you are diligent this is the result:
You will note that the distances between each leaf (the internodal gaps) are very short, always less than an inch and in some places as little as a quarter of an inch. This is somewhat attributed to the metal halide lamp I'm using, but the extreeme degree to which it occurs is all down to the supercropping. You can see in the main stem section right above the two suckers where it tapers down significantly. This is a spot that I had not crushed yet so as to illustrate the difference in diameter between pinched and non-pinched stem sections. You will also note that where I hadn't crushed it is far and away the largest internodal gap on the plant. Diligent supercropping results in more vigorous plants that do a better job of holding themselves up and most importantly don't get to an out-of-control height in the limited space of indoor growing.
The lamp currently in place is a 400 watt Metal Halide high bay acquired from a local business currently in the process of replacing all of their HID lamps with more efficient T5 florescents. In a few weeks it will be swapped with a pair of 400 watt high pressure sodium lamps. I will write more on the lighting in the coming weeks as it becomes more pertinent. And now, some additional pictures:
^Fat Momma^
^Big Boy^
^Wide shot^
Dad was skeptical that my bubbler tubs would make an appreciable difference over a traditional pot, so I conducted an experiment. This is Big Boy in the foreground and in the background is a tomato plant that is identical to him in almost every way. It came from the same bag of seeds and was sprouted on the same day. They have been given the same nutrients, bathed under the same quality of light, treated with the same Mycorrhizae spores and even have roughly the same growing medium. The only difference between the rear plant and Big Boy is that Big boy lives in one of my bubbler tubs and the other lives in a traditional pot, yet the size difference between the two of them is huge.
Well, thats about it, I've covered most of the general things that I feel sets my grow apart from others and/or may interest you guys. Feel free to ask any questions about specifics, comment, criticize or congratulate at your digression. I'd be happy to answer any questions about construction or the acquiring of materials to anyone who would be interested in employing some of these techniques themselves, or to anyone interested in why exactly I think this way is better.
(UPDATE for December 25th 2008 by Larry)
I am a complete incurable scrounge and I freely admit it. When I was driving home for C-mass, I stopped along the way to pick up an Ebay treasure. It was a 400w digital HPS ballast and reflector($31). I looked it up and it is of German manufacture. After taking it apart this afternoon it appears very well made and has seen very limited if any use. I took the opportunity to use some lamp cord, a Lowes electrical box, a little solder and some shrink tubing to convert this to a remote ballast set-up. $4 later and an hour of work I was done. Don't give up on HID due to cost. With a little ingenuity you can avoid the $300 system.
Below is the top view of the reflector. This unit had nice rubber gaskets to seal all the joints for potential moisture in the grow area. The reflector unit, bulb and electrical box does not weigh more then 2-3 lbs, which makes it easy to hang. I will install a simple bracket as a hanger.
(UPDATE for December 27th 2008 by Zach)
Just for fun here are some shots of the other plants which are benefitting from scatter light off of the powerful HID lamp being used on the tomatoes:
^Furious Cat Nip!^
^Spinach for my brother Max's iguana Chuck^
The very saddest basil in the world :( We took too long getting it transplanted from the sprouting medium (which contains barely any nutrients) into the grow medium and as a result they turned yellow and stopped growing. You can now see them returning to life as the areas around the veins begin to green back up and the chlorophyll fills back in.
That's all for now, we'll have a nice photo update of the plants for you guys on monday when we get back from our holiday.
Dad update 12-28
I had to add another picture of some real stretchy basil that I found at my sisters house. Talking about internodal gaps between leaf sets, these gaps are 2 to 4". Now this plant has just gotten filtered light on a window sill, so it's condition is understandable. Good light REALLY helps.
~October 3rd, 2008~
Below is part of an email I sent a friend. It's an update on how my summer went. I don't have time to re-write it because my daughter is keeping me super super busy! She's now 22 months old and is hitting the "terrible-twos". "Fun, Fun, Fun".
GARDEN UPDATE:
My garden was nearly a failure this year. The weather was so strange, my soil must not have been decent enough to grow seeds well, and overall it just didn't seem to work. I was really frustrated with it. The only thing that I feel positive about is the fact that I learned a lot this season. I learned tons about starting seeds indoors as well as how I would like to plant my garden next year. I realized that the recommended spacing on the back of seed packets is sometimes too far apart to make a nice looking/layered/full flowers. Also that tomatoes need TONS of water (read a GREAT article in Mother Earth News Magazine regrading growing tomatoes). I bought lots of perenials so we will see how they do over the winter. I hope they come back next year because if they do, I will have a nice looking garden (getting more full as the years go buy) "The Beasts" that got my garden last year didn't return until late in the season (August). By the time they actually started attacking the flowers, it was too cold and my flower began dying off (super early, August here is normally a really nice warm month)
I can't believe that it is already the 23rd day of September. Life is chaotic right now, and if it were not for my dad, my son's birthday party would not have had a cake, invitations or really anything except the bounce house/bungee run. My son turned 11 on the 18th but we had a party for him on Sunday, he wanted the bungee run from the inflatable bounce house company. So I did schedule that! But without me dad going to the store and buying the cake and frosting and party invitations, we would not have had a party. Then Saturday came, I was going to bake the cake that night. But my son had a football game to go to at 1:00, so ofcourse he dinked around and made us late! Which is something that I really don't like! But the stress of trying to get him ready was not good and so I got a migraine, granted not a full blown one, but enough that I was out of it that night. Then Sunday my son and I had to go and sell popcorn in front of Raley's Supermarket from 10-1, and his party was at 2. So sould have been fine. And it was because my dad baked the cake, got hamburgers ready to barbeque, had hotdogs ready also!! If it was not for my dad these last couple of weeks, I would have more gray hair and constantly stressed.
Other than that, I harvested the garden tomatoes, received a good 3 dozen!! some really nice big ones!! I was going to take pictures, and I just realized that I have not done that yet!! I will get them taken either today or tomorrow and post them. We also harvested our lone pumpkin. So I will get a pic of that also.
Well, I need to get back to work, just wanted to ramble for a little.
Merry Mabon!!! (I know a day late!)
Dragonlady ~Tina~
My tomato bushes are so full the branches are breaking and the downstairs neighbor is ducking green tomatoes. They don't seem to want to ripen. Will they ripen okay if I just pick and bag them?
S
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