Hydroponic Gardening DIY

Regarding Durban weather, I pop a frozen 2l bottle everyday into my reservoir to keep the nutrients cool... Plants are now maintain in the heat :)
 
SirFooK'nG said:
My tomatoes fruited for weeks, I easily picked between 30 and 60 a week! Gave so many away, was ridiculous! I swear one tomato plant is enough!

Yip, its been hot lately!
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Lol cool, got 4 going strong now, in soil...growing like weeds, need to stake them now.

They about 50cm high, should i start pinching tips to encourage lateral growth or leave them be?
 
Batista said:
Lol cool, got 4 going strong now, in soil...growing like weeds, need to stake them now.

They about 50cm high, should i start pinching tips to encourage lateral growth or leave them be?
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Tomatoes are no different to other fruiting varieties.
Topping is generally always better.
 
tom cage small.jpg
november 2013

tomcage2 small.jpg
january 2014

comptom small.jpg

aut yellow.jpg

cut-marmande.jpg
autopot tomato left, container tomato right
 
when they get heavy green tape provides support. CDs frighten the birds.
 
Pics of the jalapeños.
 

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My basil is flowering. :) Back from the dead...I kinda neglected the plants during a ridiculous deadline rush.

I think I need some kind of shade netting though. Suggestions? Probably need something 100% synthetic seeing how:

I'm getting an auto garden sprinkler system and am thinking of just sticking the plants in an area that is covered.
 
SirFooK'nG said:
My buckets are 5l. They handled quite well... only issue is the buckets sit too close together, so the vegetation was way overcrowded... Another point to remember is that the 5l buckets kinda "move around" alot due to them not weighing much. So if the wind blows and your plant is topheavy, it falls over very easily. I had to string the shyte out of my tomatoes to keep everything in place.
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Zenbaas said:
Mine are 10L buckets. One or two of my plants are slowly dying but it's because I didn't pick up the high ppm soon enough for high dealt them a death blow I think. Larger reservoir would have helped as well.
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Thanks for the infor guys. Zenbaas, what does ppm in this context mean, did you overfertilise?

maumau said:
in october i planted 5 heirloom tomato seeds (2 x marmande 2 x big yellow and 1 x cherry tomato) in 10 litre pots. once they were ready to go outside i transferred 1 x marmande and 1 x big yellow into 8.5 litre autopots and left the others in their original containers.

so far the autopot tomatoes are the biggest. i weighed the fruit for comparison:
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Are the 10 litre pots also a type of hydroponic system or standard potting soil type planting? Did you fertilise them the same? Oh, and what medium did you use in the autopots?
 
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Carnajo said:
Thanks for the infor guys. Zenbaas, what does ppm in this context mean, did you overfertilise?



Are the 10 litre pots also a type of hydroponic system or standard potting soil type planting? Did you fertilise them the same?
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Parts per million. The tomatoes used up water so fast that the concentration of the nutrients in the water became higher and higher without me realising.
 
Zenbaas said:
Parts per million. The tomatoes used up water so fast that the concentration of the nutrients in the water became higher and higher without me realising.
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Guess I have a lot to learn still, I kind of assumed that the nutrients were mixed in already in the resevoir (i.e. the concentration stays constant).
 
I've read somewhere, on some thread... can't find it... about having your plans outdoors, I remember something about cell development from wind..etc

My question is my "crispy" lettuce is looking very "thick" the leaves almost look like cabbage leaves.. Is this possibly because of to much wind? or are they still going to grow like normal lettuce in the center?

Here are some pics of my little setup... you'll notice that some of the lettuce have a long stark, those are the one which got to hot, but managed to regrow...

Also you'll see my dodgy parsley, only thing which is really struggling...

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1iWLxk-Uj_tBqI9Ws9lEMyq7-mtAOzJTZjj9jgFwUQH8/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1e50MNdQeGpP68AeIEOx94-fowVYRUkYB2oZ_qo_EHf8/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1bCAVHvu7k1zAjBiCK0WoMY_8y5AQ0-ubOAI-Gl2b4YA/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1pAJ51QDLXHFWeW1_ClHpLzGNjL8MD31MM0xxaZ6_Jp4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1SmD_RpSu0V0gjStFjeZmQxVUZHP1rAFMWcqkTFxds4M/edit?usp=sharing

Oh...and snails have been an issue...!
 
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So, you'll ous are trying to grow some indoor hydro zol again?
 
R300 an ounce, it's big business now.. that's according to the glossy eyed guy from the pet shop who sold me my net pots..!
 
Problem is if you get caught growing, you are a distributer... much harsher crime. I'll stick to my tomatoes and cabbage ;)
 
@carnajo the big pots are a very good mix of compost, pro grow (not growpro) potting soil, bonemeal, 2:3:2. Autopot mix is coco peat/vermiculite in the ratio 50:50. With the autopot system the plant food is mixed, say once a week, in a container which feeds through to the roots automatically.

Tomatoes were treated regularly with the biomix organic range. The ones in 10 litre pots were fed every 2 weeks with biomix/nitrosol.
 
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