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Any recommendations of books or websites on hydroponic gardening? I'm wanting to read up on it more before I potentially give it a shot in my back garden
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Mar 20, 2016 23:27
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Inazuma posted:Any recommendations of books or websites on hydroponic gardening? I'm wanting to read up on it more before I potentially give it a shot in my back garden Any articles or books by Howard Resh are pretty good. He's got a new one called hydroponics for the home grower that I haven't read yet. I'm also happy to answer questions here. Because hydroponics is a method used to clandestinely grow illegal poo poo, it can be a bit hard to find and synthesize good information from googling because 80% of what's out there is coming from a dumbass trying to grow weed in a closet. It took me a good year and a few failed attempts to grow tomatoes before I had any idea what I was doing.
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Mar 21, 2016 13:02
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Inazuma posted:Any recommendations of books or websites on hydroponic gardening? I'm wanting to read up on it more before I potentially give it a shot in my back garden Theres a lot of guys on youtube that actually grows herbs and vegetables. Its where I learned most of what I know. My suggestion would be to just search for "Hydroponic Basil" or something and watch all the videos you find. After a while you will pick up on the different methods of growing etc and help guide your future searches. Also here are a few channels to start you out: http://www.youtube.com/user/mhpgardener/videos (haven't checked this in a while and it seems the channel is turning into a pro trump channel) http://www.youtube.com/user/KhangStarr010/videos http://www.youtube.com/user/IndoorHydroponix/videos
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Mar 21, 2016 14:13
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Texas Zone 8B Setup my 6'x3' raised bed this weekend and various other potted plants. Bell Peppers Spinach Butter Lettuce Red leaf Lettuce Basil Strawberries Cantaloupe German Potatoes Beautiful weather so far. Lots of sun and clear skies. Forecast is set for a low 46 so I took the cold frame off my Lime tree. Then when I wake up, its 36 outside. I'm hoping the flower buds make it, I was planning on nipping them to prevent fruit formation any ways but I love the look of the tree with them.
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Mar 21, 2016 17:10
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jvick posted:Could you draw up a little scheme of your layout on MS Paint or something? I think you should have a 1/2" mainline running between the pots, and the 1/4" spaghetti hose running to each pot. Something like this: Yeah you really should use at least 1/2" tubing for everything but the last few feet. They also make tubing with integrated emitters if you are running a long row. You also need a pressure regulator to keep from blowing the emitters out of the tubing and screen to keep sand and such from your piping from clogging your emitters. I would also get a multi zone timer instead of the single one, and various T, elbow, and straight barb junctions. There are also little plugs for patching the tubing if you decide you don't need an emitter in a certain spot anymore.
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Mar 21, 2016 18:40
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Gegil posted:Beautiful weather so far. Lots of sun and clear skies. Forecast is set for a low 46 so I took the cold frame off my Lime tree. You'll be fine. If anything, the weak buds will die off. Suffer not the weak to live!
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Mar 21, 2016 20:35
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jvick posted:Could you draw up a little scheme of your layout on MS Paint or something? I think you should have a 1/2" mainline running between the pots, and the 1/4" spaghetti hose running to each pot. Something like this: It would sort of be like that pretty much OK, adding 1/2" main line with reducer T's that go to 1/4" at the pots It's only going to be 6 pots total right now, should all be enough.
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Mar 21, 2016 20:38
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Adult Sword Owner posted:It would sort of be like that pretty much Use a barbed coupling, not a T. If I remember right you had a punch on your list. Punch a hole in the 1/2" line at the desired spot where you want the 1/4" hose to come from. Push the coupling in, connect end of 1/4" hose, reel out desired length, cut, finish with desired dripper. Secure in potting soil. But for 6 pots, that may be a lot of work, and you can just use a distributor. On another note, does anyone here have experience with building a lean to greenhouse?
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Mar 21, 2016 21:47
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Rogue posted:Any articles or books by Howard Resh are pretty good. He's got a new one called hydroponics for the home grower that I haven't read yet. I'm also happy to answer questions here. I'm growing a hydro tomato right now and its about 13" tall and pretty established. I'm growing it in a indoor bucket, for fun. Can you tell me what PPM I should be running it at, and what to do to make her flower?
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Mar 22, 2016 01:22
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Adult Sword Owner posted:It would sort of be like that pretty much Six pots? Honestly you might just want to get a kit and be done with it. I did that with the rain bird gardening kit because I was fed up with trying to figure out what I needed and just paying $35 bucks became very reasonable at that point. I'm happy with the results. I think there was another reasonably highly rated kit for container gardening which included a timer.  Grow my pretties! Yeah there is a soaker hose in there too but whatever.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:48
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jvick posted:Use a barbed coupling, not a T. If I remember right you had a punch on your list. Punch a hole in the 1/2" line at the desired spot where you want the 1/4" hose to come from. Push the coupling in, connect end of 1/4" hose, reel out desired length, cut, finish with desired dripper. Secure in potting soil. Those do look better, thanks Shifty Pony posted:Six pots? Any idea which kit you got? I see this one http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2NRUBI?keywords=irrigation%20kit&qid=1458661116&ref_=sr_1_4&sr=8-4 and it doesn't look...great. Those drip attachments look like they go to the end of hoses? And there's T connectors so I assume at each plant I'd have to T off and use one of those drip attachments on the end of another hose? Just seems like way more work than the barbed connectors going to 1/4th inch would be. Plus I think this is 1/4th inch? My water supply is under my relatively high deck so it will have to push straight vertical for a bit.
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Mar 22, 2016 16:42
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I got this kit: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000LO4FFG/ I already had a 4-zone timer and was doing some row crops though. If you aren't feeling the kit my suggestion would be the following: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FJYT1C/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0019THNCE/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000WU5GGQ/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0049C76S4/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004INGS8S/ And optionally: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FJYT4E/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FJYTC6/ What you'll do is put the faucet connection kit after the timer and run 1/2" tubing to where you want water. You can even run a garden down to the the ground and hook up stuff there if you'd rather. Then the emitters punch right into the tubing and have a barbed outlet so you can use 1/4" to feed the dribble where you want it (if the 1/2 tubing is already right by the plant you don't have to do that last bit). At the end of the 1/2" tubing just fold it over and wire it in place, with the reduced pressure in the system it won't blow out. For only a few pots you don't need the installation tool - the emitters are sharpened and pretty easy to punch through the tubing on their own.
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Mar 22, 2016 17:09
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Shifty Pony posted:I got this kit: Nice, thanks What is the difference between that barb fitting and this one? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049C911O?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_4&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
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Mar 22, 2016 17:21
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That one is a smaller fitting for punching into the side of the 1/2" tubing and running a 1/4" line to somewhere. The emitters basically incorporate one of those, you would only need it if you wanted to run a special emitter that needed full pressure at the point of use, like one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0053G9YDK/ I could take some pictures of how I have the emitters run if you'd like.
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Mar 22, 2016 17:31
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Shifty Pony posted:That one is a smaller fitting for punching into the side of the 1/2" tubing and running a 1/4" line to somewhere. The emitters basically incorporate one of those, you would only need it if you wanted to run a special emitter that needed full pressure at the point of use, like one of these: Since it's such a limited space I think the emitters right at the hose will work just fine OK I'll go through with this later today, appreciate it! vvv: That's the one I'm going with Adult Sword Owner fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Mar 22, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 17:58
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You're going to need a pressure regulator especially if your putting your emitters straight into your large diameter tubing, they have a habit of popping out otherwise. This is the most important part to that whole setup, without it poo poo will just keep going wrong.
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Mar 22, 2016 18:31
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Additionally you said you will be going down a floor or so to reach the ground, right? 10ft=5psi so it might be a good idea to put the regulator at the end of a hose that you run down to ground level. The emitters I linked are pressure compensating but less pressure reduces the chance of leaks.
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Mar 22, 2016 20:11
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Shifty Pony posted:Yeah you really should use at least 1/2" tubing for everything but the last few feet. They also make tubing with integrated emitters if you are running a long row. If you've got gravity on your side it helps a lot, as well. And definitely stock up on as many plugs as you have drop spigots, because it's easier to have them on-hand than have to go back to the store for a 20-50 cent part. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 04:04
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Thanks for your help on my earlier questions about starter sprouting and heat mats. I ended up getting this $30 heat mat from Amazon, and got some sprouting action in less than 3 days! Broccoli, peas, and squash all sprouted really quickly, but the carrots and peppers haven't been doing anything at all. But... sprouts either way..   But now, it's time to move them into their own pots. Is there any harm in using regular styrofoam cups until they're ready to be planted outdoors? I'm just trying to be thrifty. And on that note- how long do I need to have them sitting in their own pot until I can plant them outside? melon cat fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 06:10
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dhrusis posted:I'm growing a hydro tomato right now and its about 13" tall and pretty established. I'm growing it in a indoor bucket, for fun. Can you tell me what PPM I should be running it at, and what to do to make her flower? What variety of tomato, det. or indet., dwarf? What size bucket, standard 5gal? Hydroton in a net cup? Early on, EC 1.0-1.5 or so is fine, increasing gradually to 3.0 as the plant gets very large. You don't do anything to make it flower; just feed it with a nutrient that is richer in N than P and eventually it will start to set blossoms. Around that time, switch to nutrients richer in P. You can also look into doing a foliar feeding of dilute Epsom salts around that time. A word of warning - if it's a 5gal bucket and a full size tomato plant, eventually it's going to transpire more than a gallon of water per day depending on the temperature and this will cause big swings in EC and possibly pH. For full size pepper and tomato plants I prefer a Dutch bucket system with recirculating nutrients from a 15-30 gallon reservoir. With your single bucket it'll also be a hassle to add water and check EC/pH often because of the huge root mass that will basically take up the entire space of the bucket once the plant is large. Look up "Resh hydroponic tomato" on google, I think he has a 2 part article on his website with tips. Also, mhpgardener youtube channel videos on Dutch bucket systems and hydroponic tomatoes. e: also I'd love to see pictures!
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Mar 24, 2016 15:13
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Rogue posted:What variety of tomato, det. or indet., dwarf? What size bucket, standard 5gal? Hydroton in a net cup? Awesome, thanks for responding! I am running about 850 PPM right now, water is about 3 weeks old. (General Hydroponics Flora Series). The PH is 5.8 and I currently have about 3 gallons of water in a 5 gallon tank. I started with 5 but it drank ~1/4 to get to this height. I'm going away for a week so I hope it'll be okay, and I'll refresh the water and do a Flower nutrient blend @ 2.5-3.0 EC when I get back. This is my first plant, and admittedly I didn't do much research, so I'm learning as I go. :-) Its a cherry tomato plant, in hydroton in a 6" net pot. 2 airstones feed it with air. It has a ton of healthy roots going. The container is 1 bucket for the reservoir, one for the main growth chamber (with 5meters of 5050 led on the inside), and a light top with a 4 socket CFL fixture that is adjustable up and down to allow the plant to grow all the way up adjusting as you go. As you can see, she's 3/4 the way up the main growth bucket. I have 2 of the 4 CFLs are in use right now. I suspect she can get a little more dense and double her growth. She runs @ approx 75 degrees F and with 40-60% humidity with the LEDs and 2 of the 4 CFLs on.   
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Mar 24, 2016 16:35
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I've been thinking to grow some tomatillos in my balcony planters this year instead of cherry tomatoes and peppers. While it was fun to have some of those, they were nothing I couldn't find at the grocery store so meh. At least tomatillos would be a bit exotic and worth the trouble to grow (though I'm mostly doing this to pretty up my balcony  ).Am I wrong to assume that tomatillos would take a similar amount of space as cherry tomatoes? One of my planters is somewhat narrow and I'd started crowding it with 5 different plants, but after reducing that to 3, it felt somewhat right. I think my tomato plants were indeterminate, though, because they ended up growing a lot by season's end. I was thinking to try (semi) determinate tomatillos with tomato cages. Here's a panorama of what I have available, with two-headed catte for scale:  Also, how well would tomatillos fare in Montreal's climate? Late spring and early autumn have some big temperature extremes, while summer can get pretty drat hot with 30C (85F) days. Jan fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 16:46
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melon cat posted:But now, it's time to move them into their own pots. Is there any harm in using regular styrofoam cups until they're ready to be planted outdoors? I'm just trying to be thrifty. And on that note- how long do I need to have them sitting in their own pot until I can plant them outside? Just make sure that the holes are big enough for excess water to drain out. It isn't so much how big the plant is, it is more the weather. Some plants like peppers and tomatoes can't handle a frost, so I wait until nighttime lows are 50° or above. Also sometimes I wait for my lettuce to be big enough so that if a snail eats a leaf the plant will be big enough to recover. Fozzy The Bear fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Mar 24, 2016 17:31
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Fozzy The Bear posted:Just make sure that the holes are big enough for excess water to drain out.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:48
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melon cat posted:I'll be sure to do that. Thanks for the tips. We've been having some really unstable weather here in Ontario (we just had a mini ice storm), so I guess I'll just have to play it really safe. For reference, in Indiana my tomato plants probably won't go into the ground until mid May. Peppers may wait until June.
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Mar 25, 2016 00:46
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Jan posted:I've been thinking to grow some tomatillos in my balcony planters this year instead of cherry tomatoes and peppers. While it was fun to have some of those, they were nothing I couldn't find at the grocery store so meh. Not that I'm trying to convince you otherwise, but if your cherry tomatoes weren't ten times better than anything you can get in the store, you might want to try a different variety. I grew Black Cherry tomatoes for the first time last year and now I won't grow any other cherries. They have a complex flavor and are very sweet. Jan posted:Am I wrong to assume that tomatillos would take a similar amount of space as cherry tomatoes? One of my planters is somewhat narrow and I'd started crowding it with 5 different plants, but after reducing that to 3, it felt somewhat right. I think my tomato plants were indeterminate, though, because they ended up growing a lot by season's end. I was thinking to try (semi) determinate tomatillos with tomato cages. Last year, I let my tomatillos sprawl and they take up a shitload of space and like to get BIG. They're also commonly trellised, but they'll easily climb 8' if you let em. Keep in mind that you'll need at least 2 plants to cross-pollinate or you won't get any fruits. It's suggested to give them at least a 5-gallon pot, similar to a tomato, so I went ahead and put mine in 10-gallon terra cotta pots, and they still filled them out quite well. I started them late, not planting until late June in zone 6a and I still had to wait until October to pick my fruits. They seemed to take forever compared to my tomatoes.
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Mar 25, 2016 01:07
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Is night time lows of 50 a hard and fast rule? It's been in the 30s here but I'm pretty sure the danger of frost has passed
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Mar 25, 2016 01:07
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Ausrotten posted:Is night time lows of 50 a hard and fast rule? It's been in the 30s here but I'm pretty sure the danger of frost has passed Its only a plant, so if you are ok with it not making it and planting a new one, try it out. That's how you learn in gardening. :-) Depends on the type of plant, brassicas and peas can take cold, but I don't think a baby pepper would live if it hit 36 over night. But I have never tried, so maybe it will.
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Mar 25, 2016 06:29
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Ausrotten posted:Is night time lows of 50 a hard and fast rule? It's been in the 30s here but I'm pretty sure the danger of frost has passed
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Mar 25, 2016 06:37
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how do I make oranges?
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Mar 25, 2016 15:11
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SniperWoreConverse posted:how do I make oranges? Sometimes, when a mommy orange and a daddy orange love each other very much....
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Mar 25, 2016 16:59
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coyo7e posted:If you bought spendy, fancy starts, don't loving chance it. If you don't care and won't mind trying again, good luck son! Nah I've just got a million seeds.
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Mar 25, 2016 17:24
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SniperWoreConverse posted:how do I make oranges? You can't make navel oranges, those are all sterile and genetic clones (for the last 300-400 years), you need to take a cutting of an existing tree. Others are easier.
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Mar 25, 2016 18:50
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F them repulsive mutants. I want like blood oranges and decent ones I can get seeds from by eating the fruit. Any good concepts of how to get them to germinate? I heard if they ever dry out they'll die, but this doesn't appear to be working. Some certain soil temp?
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Mar 25, 2016 19:40
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I think seeds from supermarket food is probably not the way to go.
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Mar 26, 2016 00:53
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melon cat posted:I'll be sure to do that. Thanks for the tips. We've been having some really unstable weather here in Ontario (we just had a mini ice storm), so I guess I'll just have to play it really safe. Rarely, if ever, do I have my plants permanently outside before Victoria Day weekend (which is about when it starts to be 10° overnight, like Fozzy the Bear said).
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Mar 26, 2016 16:23
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dhrusis posted:Awesome, thanks for responding! Cool. I mean you don't need to jump straight to a phosphorus rich nutrient until you see a lot of blossom clusters, and you don't need to jump the EC up so high right away; your plant is still pretty small and it looks healthy, so it's not suffering from nutrient deficiency. It will probably get way too big and bushy to be contained within a few buckets/cylinders, but it'll be cool to see what happens! Have fun!
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Mar 26, 2016 20:50
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Adult Sword Owner posted:I think seeds from supermarket food is probably not the way to go. basically free seeds bro, I'm gonna keep planting them until something takes
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Mar 27, 2016 03:09
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Adult Sword Owner posted:I think seeds from supermarket food is probably not the way to go. Tell that to my supermarket lemons.  Did you peel the seeds? I peeled the lemon seeds and put them between a folded moist paper towel in a ziplock bag. Then I put it on my fridge for a while. Once they had like 2cm-ish roots growing out of them I put them in a hole root down about a quarter inch under the soil.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:43
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PokeJoe posted:Tell that to my supermarket lemons. I don't think you understand what is being said here. No one is suggesting the seeds can't germinate and even grow into trees. What fruit you get off of those trees as well as their size and disease resistance is likely to be wildly different than the trees the supermarket lemons were grown on and the fruit that came off of them. I'm not aware of many trees, especially crop trees, that are grown on their own root stock. Most don't reproduce well at all so "new trees" are typically grafts of old trees that are then grafted onto the desired rootstock for size, water tolerance, disease resistance and probably other selection criteria I'm not aware of.
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Mar 27, 2016 16:43
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