RootLoops Closet Garden

[epsilon]

I swear I'm having memory lapses from all those nice solid blows to the head.

I could have sworn that I mentioned that you could start introducing some bloom/fruit ferts into your veg mixture. The reason for this is, while I have never heard of veg growth ferts causing flower drop I do know that you see them few and far between. you can run both and the plants will go nuts, in the case of your toms and peppers this'll cause some nice flower/fruit setting while still providing the requirements to add new vegetative growth, plus it should get them to broaden the overall transport network, on the other hand you'll have to start pinching back the herbs and stuff because they'll want to start throwing seeds as well, but normally I think herbs and fruiting plants are run in separate tubs for that very reason.

The other possibility you run into is that your current light setup is inadequate for flowering so there's not enough going on in the energy department actually get the plant to want to produce offspring. It may be that you might need a second set of lights to achieve good flower production. from the pics it almost looks like there's a bit too much blue in your spectrum, which aides in vegetative growth but has little to no impact on flower production. If you're running a fluorescent tube system and hopefully have about 4 tubes you need get half of them in the 5.5k range, that has worked for me in the past.

Aside from that every thing looks fantastic and I'm starting to get jealous over your cilantro. I've restarted several times and none have yet appeared to have germinated.

[RootLoops]

my original plan was herbs only so all i got was the veg half, i'll have to order the bloom in a few weeks when money picks up so i may put this one outside and put another pepper seedling in here so by the time i can get the nutrients it'll be ready to flower. the light is 400w mh, it's turned down to 200w right now though is why it looks that blue, when it's on full power it's a lot whiter. i've got an hps bulb for it also. i had read somewhere about nitrogen and pepper blossom drop, how correct that is i have no idea. i've grown tomatoes mostly this will be my first year with peppers in earnest so i still have a lot to learn.

the cilantro grew flowers already and i cut them off, are they a one time only plant? the one in the closet looks to be trying to grow flowers again, i have 2 big cilantro plants outside in a bucket that are growing flowers as well. i'm pretty new to herbs also, i've got more cilantro seedlings up outside in the shade with some other herbs and yellow squash

[epsilon]

Apparently Cilantro, is a time sensitive herb. So as it get's warmer it'll just continue to bolt. which sucks for us wanting to extend it's availability. it does seed readily so it'll be back in the mea time I would let the plant bolt because , then you have more seed for the herb, and you now have your own coriander spice.

I can see after several growth periods you might have enough of both to cover your salsa making needs for ever.

[RootLoops]

that's good to know! i'll probably take it out and put something in it's place, probably a tomato i've got a couple good sized ones in the other tub that need to come out, i lost all the tags somehow along the way so i don't know what most of the tomatoes are other than possibly cherry, betterboy, or random heirloom. i've decided to turn the other tub in the kitchen into a lettuce/herb factory once the plants in there go outside and i planted a dozen or so buttercrunch seeds in there yesterday in ultrasorb. tomorrow i will try to get more pics of everything when the phone is here

[RootLoops]

pics from today. i moved the pepper outside a few days ago, it's in the shade but never wilted at all going from hydro to dirt

it's going on three weeks now without a reservoir change i'm wanting to see how long i can stretch it, at three weeks between the cost of the nutrients is very low. the other big tomato broke in half so i stuck it in the other hydro tub and it's growing roots now. i left the stump in there and it's now beginning to grow new vegetation from the remaining nodes





i started a bunch more seeds, nasturtium, marigold, moonflower, and pumpkins



and the other seedlings still look good

[HydroExplorer]

I'm a fellow hydro gardener. Nice setup!

I did my first year of hydro last year using a 400W flourescent light and 2 DWC raft system tubs. I didn't know what I was doing and it was mostly a failure.

I will never plant mint on a raft system again. The mint's rhizomes didn't penetrate the net pot but the roots spread all through the res and choked out 3 pepper plants. At one point my peppers dropped all their blooms.

I also like DWC.

I'm experimenting with Kratky method for the first time this year. I have been cutting the tops off 1 gallon jugs and using a 3.5" net pot. I currently have several of them growing purple cauliflower and basil. So far I'm finding that Kratky uses a lot less water, electricity and time. I suspect it would be considerably harder to execute on fruiting plants like tomatoes because you have to do water changes without choking out the high oxygen roots that form with Kratky.

If you want to do Kratky using a shared res I would recommend you watch this video first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYeffYcVkY
Jump to 6:30 and see what he says about mixing plants that grow at different rates. I've found MHP Gardener to be a really good resource for tips on hydro.

Anyway, nice setup!

[HydroExplorer]

Consider putting your mushroom bags above your garden. CO2 is heavier than air so it will sink unless it is hot. CO2 from combustion will rise because it's hot but CO2 from grow bags will sink.

That said, someone who knows more about this than I do told me that your plants will generally get most of their CO2 needs just by running a small fan to blow air across their leaves. He said you will see an improvement in yield if you use a grow bag though.

I haven't personally used a grow bag yet. I tried to build one by cloning some oyster mushrooms but it got too cold in my basement this winter and it wiped out my grow bag (or at least that's what I think happened).

[epsilon]

I love moon flowers,

Also that's a little bit of serendipity, with what happened to your tomato.
all in all two for the price of one . Awesome!

[RootLoops]

this is my first time growing any flowers, i can't wait to see how they do outside. the irises are blooming now it's always nice to see those

[Delerium]

I see someone has upgraded to DE media. Rootloops, you should also try the granular version - that's the one i prefer over the fine particle DE like Ultrasorb. Also its cheaper 6 bucks for 25 lbs.

So when do you get to move your plants outdoors? Starting tomorrow we are getting 3 days of 90f+ days then back to 70's.. Not looking forward to blossom drops especially with the tomato plants blooming like crazy now.

Everything looks great!

[RootLoops]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

I'm a fellow hydro gardener. Nice setup!

I did my first year of hydro last year using a 400W flourescent light and 2 DWC raft system tubs. I didn't know what I was doing and it was mostly a failure.

I will never plant mint on a raft system again. The mint's rhizomes didn't penetrate the net pot but the roots spread all through the res and choked out 3 pepper plants. At one point my peppers dropped all their blooms.

I also like DWC.

I'm experimenting with Kratky method for the first time this year. I have been cutting the tops off 1 gallon jugs and using a 3.5" net pot. I currently have several of them growing purple cauliflower and basil. So far I'm finding that Kratky uses a lot less water, electricity and time. I suspect it would be considerably harder to execute on fruiting plants like tomatoes because you have to do water changes without choking out the high oxygen roots that form with Kratky.

If you want to do Kratky using a shared res I would recommend you watch this video first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDYeffYcVkY
Jump to 6:30 and see what he says about mixing plants that grow at different rates. I've found MHP Gardener to be a really good resource for tips on hydro.

Anyway, nice setup!

dont know how i missed these posts! thanks for replying, i may try a kratky bucket in the closet i'd be interested to see how it does. i've got two mushroom bags now but theres no way to put them above the plants in the current setup, soon i'm gonna expand the kitchen garden and i'll move this stuff out of here

delerium- i'll look into the coarser de when i have some cash to get some, i want a bigger piece size for a hydroponic medium

[Delerium]

Yeah i need to go search for DE that's the size of Hydroton balls. Would make a good alternative to Hydroton that seems to be quite expensive. Either that or net cup alternative that I could use the course DE to hold.

[RootLoops]

you can make a party cup into a net pot pretty easily, i left the pot on the pepper to keep from tearing the roots and then used a party cup to replace it. just poke holes in the bottom and sides with something, a wood burner works pretty well just have to do it outside

[Delerium]

I guess i could also add some holes with 4 inch square pots. Got a ton of those that i could reuse.

[RootLoops]

should work fine