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chucklehead
Super Villian
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Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs
#363548 - 02/13/10 12:23 PM (15 years, 12 days ago) |
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I checked the rules for this forum and I didn't see anything that said I had to talk about Weed. So I thought I'd do a little grow log about my other plants. I discovered last summer that I really enjoy gardening. I find it relaxing and rewarding. I do a lot of cooking and fresh tomatoes, peppers, and herbs are fantastic in your food. Really I can't buy tomatoes that taste as good as my home grown ones.
Last year I grew a cherry tomato plant in a pot of strictly cocoa coir and vermiculite. It was a pain because I had to water them really really often but they thrived. Had the same problem with growing them in just Posy Power. I found the plants that required the least work and did just as well were the ones I had a nice mix of peat moss vermiculite perlite sand and manure heavy on the peat. Seems like it held water longer. Also these plants grew amazingly well in just half gallon, gallon, and two gallon pots. Of course the bigger the pot the less often watering was required.
About a month ago I started getting bored with only having oregano growing in my window and weed in my basement. I've been missing green plants around since this winter has been bleak and snowy. So I set up my shelf for my indoor green house and started a bunch of tomato seedlings in some jiffy pellets. Man that works fast. the only problem was the plants were really stretch because they pop up over night and race for the light which I wasn't providing. I repotted those stretchy plants in a bunch of dixey cups using whatever soil I had handy. Ferti-lome cactus soil, seedling soil, and ultimate soil. I put them under an florescent shop light that is 80W I think. Well that wasn't enough for me so I planted still more tomato seeds and some globe basil and some red basil. Then I started seeds for some marigolds pansies and petunias. As you can imagine all of those plants started taking up a lot of space so I had to move a bunch to a lower shelf and add more lights. I had some small grow lights and other short florescent lights at around 15-20W each. I noticed a lot of stretching happening with some of the early on tomatoes so I added still more lights. I put in a couple 26W CFL. They were 6500K daylight bulbs. Eventually I'll start switching out all of the long tubes for the CFLs. I think I get more bang for my buck from the CFLs. Plus it will make more sense space wise. Right now I don't have money in my budget to get any more lights. So that will have to wait for a few weeks or more.
Some of the above plants needed repotted . So I had to pick up more soil. I picked up some Espoma brand Organic cactus mix and seeding mix. I'm pleased with them so far too. I'll be using the Espoma cactus for my Nirvana grow. What I like about the Espoma brand is it doesn't have a wetting agent which ironically seems to repel water. So far the plants seem to really like it. I haven't fed plant food to a single plant yet but I'm about to give the oldest tomatoes a little shultz plant food in a 1/4 dilution.
The last frost doesn't come here until about the first or second week of May. So I will be challenged to keep these plants alive and well until then. I'm going to have to buy more CFLs and probably put up another set of shelving to hold everything once it all starts to get bushy.
Here is how it looks as of today.
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chucklehead
Super Villian
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: Dephect]
#364876 - 02/15/10 06:40 PM (15 years, 10 days ago) |
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Thanks everyone.
Top shelf stuff is coming along nicely. Makes me wonder how weed would do under a couple of the 4 ft shop lights. btw incase anyone was wondering the 4ft shop light only cost me $10 at lowes a few years ago that was with the tubes included.
I over watered quite a few of these and they are getting droopy plus I think some of them could use a little food. I know they need repotted but I don't have any bigger pots. I'm saving my gallon and half gallon milk jugs and cutting off the tops and poking holes in the bottoms so I can repurpose them like I do my used dixie cups. So the very larges plants will get repotted soon but the others will have to hang in there until I drink my water myself.
Ok these short florescent tube lights are for the birds. The plants are stretching out really fast and now they are through the shelf and between the lights. I'm going to have to get some decent lighting in there sooner than I anticipated. The 4ft shop light is working way better and the CFLs better still. If my 'friend' that 'owes' me comes by with some cash this week I'll go pick up some better lights. If not the poor bastards on the bottom shelf are going to have to suck it up and stick it out a little longer.
I wonder if you can 'top' a tomato plant the way you can 'top' weed to make it bush out more and not grow quite as tall.
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Last year three basil plants was all it took to get me through all summer and fall and I still have plenty to dry out at the end of the season. I'm excited about giving most of these herbs, plants, and flowers away once they get a little bigger. I like the idea of these little plants in the windows of my friends and family brightening the world around them. (I can make the world a better place one seed at a time.)
Globe Basil
 Marigolds
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chucklehead
Super Villian
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: chucklehead]
#367718 - 02/18/10 09:03 PM (15 years, 6 days ago) |
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Not much news. I've neglected a few plants and they are dying. I'm going to do some repotting over the week end. Some of these plants are in desperate need.
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chucklehead
Super Villian
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: chucklehead]
#371726 - 02/23/10 06:14 PM (15 years, 2 days ago) |
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These are from a couple days ago.
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The really tall plants are going to a green house tomorrow night. A friend of mine has a green house and is willing to take a few of these plants off my hands. I really must get rid of quite a few since I'm quickly running out of space.
I started some more seedlings. I'm planning to start yet another tray as soon as there is space. I'm messing around with various techniques for starting plants. Plus I really would like to get some more of certain kinds of plants going. Particularly shorter plants. So I'll be trying to get some more sage going and more flowers like marigolds etc. I am starting some more tomatoes again but this time I'm going to control them a good bit more... I hope.
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chucklehead
Super Villian
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: chucklehead]
#373516 - 02/25/10 06:03 PM (15 years, 2 hours ago) |
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Ok lots of changes going on now. I got rid of most of the tall plants. Those went to the green house yesterday. This is what it looked like before I took out the tall stuff.
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So since I got rid of all that stuff I started a shit load of new stuff. This time I used labels so at least I have some clue as to what I started. I planted 16 Sun Gold yellow cherry tomatoes. I planted 8 yellow Tumbling Tom's cherry tomatoes but I dried those myself and I only have had three sprout so far. I planted 16 mixed red and yellow Jelly Bean grape tomatoes. I planted 32 Golden Beats. I planted 16 Danish Flag Poppies and 16 Laurens Grape Poppies. I did three more marigolds those are from my own stash of seeds I dried last summer. I planted 27 more seafy sage plants. I did 8 purple petunias. I planted 20 mixed pansies.
Most of this stuff is going to get given away come spring time. I just don't have the room in my outdoor garden for all of that but my relatives do.
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: chucklehead]
#376906 - 03/02/10 12:55 PM (14 years, 11 months ago) |
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Word. This is for you though.
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Thats whats left of my garden after my cat jumped on the table they where on and they flipped over. The plywood was on a bucket. Lots of my plants snapped in half or died. Silly cat.
At least I still have my eggplants 
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I just topped them
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chucklehead
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Re: Garden Grow -tomatoes-flowers-herbs [Re: Dephect]
#380866 - 03/09/10 08:15 PM (14 years, 11 months ago) |
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Looking good man!
Here is the latest in my indoor garden.
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chucklehead
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I wanted to finish this thread off. I did in fact get almost all of the plants I started to finish all the way through hardening off. The majority of the plants when to farms and friends. Sadly many died after that. I guess when you give people free stuff they don't respect it much. A great ammount of the plants I started this year were for other people. So my indoor project when very out of control.
Here is my plan for next year. I'm not going to start anything until March. I'll use the cold frames again (basically repurposed mono tubs from shrooming). I will grow only plants for myself. I.e. I will only start the types of plants I want. I will not do beats next year. Nor will I try petunias again. I probably won't do marigolds or poppies either but I may. I will do sun gold tomatoes. I will do Red tumbling Tom Tomatoes. I will do Jelly Bean Grape tomatoes. I won't do super sweet 100s. I plan to do three basil varieties. I will do mammoth basil, globe basil, and red basil. I will also start dill again. I will do pansies again. Those turned out beautiful. I haven't decided on the brocoli. It gets so tall. If and only if I have left overs after I plant people may have the remaining plants.
So hopefully next year will be less work and less space and less cost but still meet my needs.
Anyhow here is my patio. I'm very happy with this result. I'm about to go have coffee and sit on my patio enjoying my plants.
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