My fall/winter indoor garden

[OmahaJB]

Finally getting back to indoor gardening after poor results in years past due to poor lighting. Was able to find a cheap HID lighting system on Amazon for $116.05 with free shipping, so thought why not give it another shot. It's a 600-watt HPS/MH system so should have enough lumens and proper color spectrum to produce some tomatoes and sweet peppers. I'll be using the MH (metal halide) for vegetative growth, and the HPS (high pressure sodium) once the plants are big enough and are ready to set flowers.

While picking up bags of soil at Home Depot I bought 15-30-15 time release fertilizer to use once it's time for flowers to develop. Would appreciate thoughts on whether that's a good combination for tomato and pepper plants, although I do know the second number needs to be higher for fruiting, just not sure if the first and last being 15 each will be too high for some reason.

As usual I over did things and started seeds for more varieties than I should be growing under a 600-watt system. General rule is it covers a 3.5' x 3.5' or at best 4' x 4' area, however I'll see how well they do and take some out if I need to later. Also, I didn't know what would germinate (some were old seeds) so wanted to make sure I had enough. It's just hard to throw good, healthy seedlings away so very few have been so far. I kept a couple waiting in the wings in case transplanted seedlings don't survive.

To clear things up from the start, yes, I know my pots are too small, and that I have way too many, and that I probably shouldn't grow indeterminates inside. I like to see how far I can push it, plus, I need to work with what I have as far as pots go. I have most of of my indeterminates in 5 or 3.5 gallon buckets, and the dwarves in 10" pots, which as I said I realize it small. They'll have to do.

Considering my main goal with tomatoes this time around is to play around seeing if I can make crosses (inspired by the dwarf project), production isn't my main concern, although desired of course.

If at some point I can either figure out how to transfer pictures from my cheap Tracfone to the internet, or I buy a digital camera, I'll then try to figure out how to post photos of the setup and garden.

For now here's where I'm at:

Wednesday and Friday I transplanted a total of 10 plants broken down as such,
Aunt Ruby's German Green
German Pink
Italian Heirloom
Kellogg's Breakfast
New Big Dwarf (2)
Rosella Purple (3)
Elephant's Ear (pepper plant)

Within two or three weeks I'll also have,
Dwarf Arctic Rose
Riesentraube
Chervena Chushka (pepper plant)

Would love to get the extra Italian Heirloom and German Pink seedlings into the garden also, but it would be foolish at this point considering I already have too many plants for a 600-watt light. I also have an extra two Aunt Ruby's G.G. but they are sloppy looking because they were too far away from the 2' shoplight I used for the seedlings. They would shape up I'm sure if I transplanted into pots, but again, too many plants. Good problem to have.

Reasons for planting some of these:
Dwarves
------------
Dwarf Arctic Rose for productivity. Would like to cross with Italian Heirloom which is also said to be very productive. Goal would be to get something as close to I.H. as possible as a dwarf.

Rosella Purple people rave about the taste so crossing that with anything is the goal. For instance, imagine crossing it with Kellogg's Breakfast, both great tasting.

New Big Dwarf I just think would make a good dwarf to cross with thanks to it being a strong plant with decent sized tomatoes. That's my take from reading comments from others on this site and elsewhere.

Indeterminates
--------------------
German Pink I definitely would like to cross since it was one of the first two tomato varieties that Seed Savers Exchange had when they started. I've read their blurb enough to know, but if I'm wrong I'm sure I'll be corrected. Believe they also said it came from Bavaria in Germany so that has special meaning to me since I served there for three years during the 1980's, and many of my ancestors came from that country. Would like to create a dwarf version as close to the same traits as the tomatoes from the indeterminate.

Italian Heirloom. Another one I've looked at many times in Seed Savers Exchange's catalog I've wanted to grow since its productive and a red tomato which I'd like to find a good one of.

Kellogg's Breakfast. Really only the second heirloom variety I'd ever tasted, Czech's Bush being the first, and KB blew me away. Subtle but very complex flavor that didn't hit the taste buds all at once. It was incredible. Growing environment must have been perfect that year. Would really like to cross that with Rosella Purple or maybe New Big Dwarf.

Aunt Ruby's German Green sounds like a great tomato, and I'm finally on the road to trying it out and possibly making a cross.

Riesentraube sounds like a really good cherry tomato so would like to cross that with one of the dwarf varieties, possibly New Big Dwarf.

And maybe I wont be able to cross anything. All depends on timing, and my lack of experience making crosses could gum up the works. But at least I'll have some maters to eat.

Peppers
------------
Chervena Chushka, more than anything I was trying to find a replacement for Elephant's Ear when I bought the seed, and the size was similar so I wanted to give it a try. The description made it sound very good, so that is another reason for growing it.

Elephant's Ear. Off the top of my head I don't recall who sent the seeds within the last year, but it was a kind lady here at TV, I believe we had a trade maybe a year or so ago. Fortunately, I was able to get one seed to germinate. Love this for it's productivity and they taste great as well. Alex P. originally shared some with me which I've always been grateful for.

Love sweet peppers for pizza, omelets, eating fresh, and making stuffed peppers.

That's the run down out of the starting gate. Will see how quickly things change as we move into the winter months. Hopefully, my landlord wont get wind of my 600-watt lighting system and consider it a fire hazard. Wouldn't surprise me, he's a bit of a tyrant. Can be a nice guy, but think he must have high blood pressure or something that makes him unreasonable at times.

Now, about my Samsung Tracfone...will see if I can figure out how to move pics to the internet. Guessing I need to buy a memory card.

Will try to update this from time to time.

[Tormato]

For fertilizer, use composted Brown's offensive/defensive game plans and a sprinkling of draft charts.

My 2016 watermelons- BOOM!

The Patsie's are again peaking too early.

[OmahaJB]

The season has not gone as planned, that's for sure. Browns D was supposed to be the strength of the team. A little surprised the DC is still around.

As long as the Patriots have BB and Brady good chance they make the playoffs each year.

[OmahaJB]

Looks like I wont be able to attach pics for awhile. Took a couple with my phone and first they were too large at 800 x 600 so I resized, then there were too many kb. In other words, pics taken with my phone can't be used it seems.

[Sun City Linda]

Sounds like quite an exciting project do keep us posted!

[OmahaJB]

Definitely will Linda. Not sure how well it'll turn out having so many plants under one light, but will find out. After a couple years of not being able to grow outdoors or in, had to do something. Hard looking at everyone else's great gardens not being able to have one myself. That's why the dwarf project makes so much sense. People with little space now have so many choices they didn't have before. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute in ways I was unable to when I participated growing project seeds out several years ago. Actually making crosses using some good or even great varieties will set me up for possibly finding something worthwhile. I believe the project stopped accepting new crosses a couple years ago, so will work on this by myself until I find something great, or I get busted by my landlord.

And of course, this is all predicated on me being able to actually make crosses, something I haven't been successful at before, although I was using very poor lighting so believe there really wasn't much pollen to work with, if any in the flowers I tried getting flowers from. Humidity may have been a factor also but think it was more of a lighting issue.

[taboule]

Originally Posted by OmahaJB

Looks like I wont be able to attach pics for awhile. Took a couple with my phone and first they were too large at 800 x 600 so I resized, then there were too many kb. In other words, pics taken with my phone can't be used it seems.

You can resize to shrink file size as well as # of pixels. If you don't have it, use IrfanView program, free download.

[luigiwu]

I saw you mentioned 'bags of soil' - I only container garden and I swear the bag has to say
POTTING MIX' (not garden soil etc. etc...) for best results

[OmahaJB]

Thank you taboule. I was able to shrink it down to 600 x 600 using Paint in Windows 7, problem is kb size of each pic is over the maximum limit of 97 for this website. When I have time maybe later today I'll look into it further. Maybe the site you provided will help.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I also posted them on Shutterfly so maybe I can manipulate them there to get the kb size down, if that's even a possibility, or just post a link to that album.

[OmahaJB]

Originally Posted by luigiwu

I saw you mentioned 'bags of soil' - I only container garden and I swear the bag has to say
POTTING MIX' (not garden soil etc. etc...) for best results

Funny you mention that. I was so happy to find Home Depot having their Garden Center still open that I just picked up the Miracle Gro I found on sale not paying much attention if it was potting soil or just garden soil as I normally do. Some was potting soil, some garden soil. The garden soil looked very rich and said it feeds for three months, but I know it needs a little perlite or vermiculite added and fortunately I've had some perlite sitting in my closet for a couple of years that I'm able to use now.

Will see how it all works out. I do have the 15-30-15 to use a little later. I added some in the bottom third of the 5-gallon buckets so when the roots reach that far it'll help, plus I'll add some to the top few inches of soil once they are ready to flower.

[jillian]

Sounds like a good plan, would like to know how that lighting system works out. I have a T5 for seedlings but thinking about getting another for indoor growing.

There are a few of your mentions that are on my list for next season as well. Aunt Ruby's German Green, Dwarf Rosella Purple, Dwarf Arctic Rose, and KB.

[OmahaJB]

I'll make sure to update this from time to time. If I was more disciplined with this and only grew a few plants I'm sure the 600-watt would work fine. Since I'm pushing the limit it'll be interesting to see how so many plants do under the light. So far the ones I have under it are growing quickly, with the exception of one of the New Big Dwarfs which I think may have transplant shock. I have an extra NBD seedling that looks good so may replace the under performing one.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by OmahaJB

Looks like I wont be able to attach pics for awhile. Took a couple with my phone and first they were too large at 800 x 600 so I resized, then there were too many kb. In other words, pics taken with my phone can't be used it seems.

800 x 600 isn't too large -- best guess is that the overly large file was caused by your color settings or possibly your file type.

FWIW, I usually use .jpg files, 1024 x 768, high color-- 16 bit, for uploading pictures with postings here. Not saying that's the limit, just that it works for me. If you can post using those specs, then you could experiment with changing specs as you wished to find limits that would work for you.

Obviously, doing all resizing and other experimentation with a copy of the pic you want to post.

[OmahaJB]

Good info JlJ. When I tried to attach a photo it told me 600x600 was the limit along with 97kb. Maybe that's just for the Album function in the control settings. Will try again when I have more time and I'm not so darned tired.

Most of the plants are growing well, although a couple are either nutrient deficient or too close to the light as some of the leaves look a little too light. Considering some of the other plants on the outer edge are nice and green it's probably the light affecting them, Need to raise it apparently. This will be a learning experience.

[Gerardo]

Originally Posted by Tormato

For fertilizer, use composted Brown's offensive/defensive game plans and a sprinkling of draft charts.

Awesome. Good one. The worms seem to like the Chargers too.