Strawberries, Blueberries, Raspberries, and Blackberries

The Rion Prestige "Berry House" is in production.  We have 26 strawberry plants, 6 blueberry plants (3 varieties for better pollination), 5 raspberry and 5 blackberry plants.

When we planted the strawberries on Tuesday there were no leaves on any of the plants, just roots and sticks (old runners).  We now have leaves (yes, plural) on every plant.  We are very happy to see this.  We are using a different nutrient manufacturer (General Hydroponics) than we used in the indoor grow room (Canna) to give something new a try.  We still remain pleased with Canna too, a little expensive, but great results.

We know that the rasp, blue, and blackberries may outgrow the space we have them in now but with a second greenhouse under construction, we will have plenty of room to expand.  There is very little to no information on  growing these plants hydroponically so we are wandering in the dark.  We are following basic berry growing principles of each of these types of berries so we will see how we do.

Rion Greenhouse Officially In Production

It has been a little over a month (not every day), a lot of sweat equity and learning experiences.  We are live in the house !

We got the cracked manifold replaced and continued our water test.  We had a minor setback on two of manual control wires.  Rain Bird wires controlling the same valves were fine, manual switch wires had an open circuit.  Had to replace the wires, and we were back in business.

The Merlin Pro R.O. system has been working hard and produced all the R.O. water we needed to fill the production tanks today.  We added nutrients, tested pH, EC, and Temp.  We were ready to plant.

We got 26 strawberry plants in the ebb and flow (flood and drain) trays, and 6 blueberry plants (3 varieties) planted in one Monster Ebb and Gro system.

Tomorrow, Raspberry and Blackberry plants go in.  We will then video the production house for you to see.

Inches away from the finish line

We made it through the day washing hydroton, finishing the Monster Ebb and Gro system connections, plumbed in the nutrient mixing tank, moved the stacked ebb and flow tables in place and connected the pumps/drain/overflow, and we even ran a little test on the system pump. What a great day.

What is left?

1. Install the greenhouse gutters
2. Complete water test through all grow systems
3. Chiller test
4. Plant !

Rion greenhouse just about completed

We have our first greenhouse almost ready for production. We have our chiller installed, water tanks and grow systems plumbed and ready to go. The misting system is installed and tested. We still need to connect the grow pots to the Monster Ebb n Gro systems.

The Rain Bird sprinkler controller has been programmed and passed all system checks on valves and wiring. All wiring in the main control panel has been tested. We still have a lot of hydroton to wash and need to move in our ebb and flow (flood and drain) tables.

The only "test" left is.....water. We will be doing the complete water test in the systems Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully it will be a good day.

Monster Ebb n Gro

We installed the plumbing lines to the Monster Ebb n Gro system as well as the construction on the flood and drain (Ebb and Flow) tables yesterday. Two more things from the punch list are done!

Today, program the Rain Bird system, connect the R.O. system to the main water storage tank, and install the gutters on the greenhouse.

Chiller and Main Water Storage Installed

We installed the 1 1/2 HP chiller and 300 gallon main water storage tank today. All electrical connections are now finished. We have finished plumbing on the chiller, Main tank, and three ebb and flow tables.

We reduced the size of the tables from 3x6 ft to 2x4 ft, and decided to double stack the ebb and flow tables. We get more growing space in a smaller footprint. We have plenty of height to ensure ample sunlight to the grow tables and the plants are low height (strawberries). The 75 gallon water tank serving each 2 stack table will still be more than sufficient. A few "field engineering" changes to the tables which we had not built yet, and an order for a few more trays and fitting, and done.

We still have a punch list of items to complete:

1. Plumb 3 Monster Ebb n Gro systems into the system
2. Install greenhouse gutter system
3. Build Ebb and Flow Tables for growing trays
4. Program Rain Bird and grow system timers
5. System Test
6. Wash Hydroton
7. Plant !

Grow Room Video Update

We posted some photos of the peppers, eggplant, and zucchini today but also wanted to give you the broad view of the grow room.



We are ready to fill out our PowerGrower and the remaining two spots on our Ebb and Gro system with the Jalapeno peppers and Zucchini we just transferred to the AeroFlo36 system.

Changed the water and refreshed the nutrients on both PowerGrower and Ebb n Gro systems today. Taking out the Cherry Tomato plants was bittersweet but we had eaten so many that I felt it was time to move on. We did clone the plants and also started another from seed so it won't be long before we have more.

Holy Eggplants Batman

This is our first attempt at growing white eggplant and all I can say is, WOW !  These things are getting huge in a very short time.  We can't wait to see some flowers.

There is another white eggplant in this picture (about 11 o'clock) that is equally as large. 

We eat eggplant a lot in Italian recipes we make and are looking forward to seeing how this white variety does.  The fruits are round like softballs on steroids versus the elongated pear shaped purple variety.

These plants are in our Ebb and Gro system which we recently expanded due to its success in our grow room.

Grow Room Cleanup

We took out the cherry tomato plants and one Italian Parsley plant today so we could clean the PowerGrower system and make room for the Grow 5 zucchini and jalapeno pepper plants that we transplanted to the AeroFlo36 today.  We now have 5 openings in the PowerGrower and 2 openings in the Ebb and Gro systems.

The nutrients were refreshed in both the Ebb n Gro and PowerGrower systems to support more flowering and fruiting.  The Canna products continue to perform very well for us as you can see by our video and photo updates.

The fennel, mint, leeks, and a cherry tomato plant were transferred from the AeroFlo36 system to the Ebb n Gro system to support their size and expansive growth.

Cucumber Blast Off

The cucumber plant has exploded with flowers and is now about 3 feet tall after two weeks in the Ebb and Gro system. We have tied it to a stake as it grew to support the main stem as its tentacles found their way to the stake and neatly wrapped themselves around it.

We have about 15 flowers on this plant already and the urge to clone it is killing me but I think I will wait until it gets to the point of producing fruits. 

The water and nutrients in the Ebb and Gro system was changed today from an early flowering stage supplement to support an intermediate stage flowering / beginning stage fruiting nutrient base as the Roma tomato plant has also put on a lot of flowers and now has a few budding tomatoes.  The peppers in this system have also produced a lot of small bell peppers so the Canna Boost nutrient and PK 13/14 were added.

Hydroton Test Results

Those of you that have experience know that it is dirty and has to be rinsed before use.  Yes, it takes time.  We all want to save time, but as we found out, some time is just well spent.  STG has some great products and we love their hail product for our AeroFlo36 system.  For the PowerGrower and Ebb and Gro systems, Hydroton rocks! (no pun intended). 

The test we conducted on the STG inserts for the Ebb and Gro system proved that Hydroton (the suggested medium for the system) was the better medium.  Plants in the STG inserts didn't grow as fast or as strongly as the ones in the Hydroton.

We will be using Hydroton in the Ebb and Gro and PowerGrower for all future transplants.

Ebb and Gro has arrived

The Ebb and Gro system arrived and we were excited to get it up and running.  It is an Ebb and Flow system made by C.A.P.  We have 12 modules that we plan on using for our larger plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, etc.  The Power Grower is doing great as a drip system but we wanted to expand, and try a new system at the same time - with an LED light.

Although we don't have the SuperNova LED yet, we went ahead and installed the Ebb and Gro yesterday since we had all the electrical work finished.  The instructions were easy to understand, the system was easy to install, and our water test was successful - aka - no leaks !

The instructions indicate that the system was designed for Hydroton.  We are going to do another experiment.  Sure To Grow (STG) designed a product with their medium to work specifically with this Ebb and Gro system so we are going to try it.  We really believe in the concept that STG has for their Hydroponic medium even though the seed germination product just isn't working as well as the traditional mediums of Rapid Rooters or Rockwool (at least it isn't for us).

Our strategy is to plant one STG and one Hydroton module of each plant type from the same Grow to see how each medium works in the Ebb and Gro system.   More to come on this...

New System Experiment

We will add an Ebb and Flow system (Ebb n Gro) to our grow room in the newly reclaimed space.  We are also going to do an experiment with both Hydroton and STG Deluge which is designed specifically for the Ebb n Gro buckets.   It will be interesting to see which medium does better with our plants. We have an eye on the red and yellow pepper plants currently in the AeroFlo36 as potential transplants to the new system.

As heat is becoming an issue for us (or certainly will in summer), we have also chose an LED lighting system.  We selected the Super Nova Enhanced Spectrum light.  It sports a nice function of custom selecting blue and red spectrum mixes to support the cycle of your plant's growth.  The manufacturer also provides a three year warranty, first year 100%, second and third prorated.  Look for that warranty on LED lights you are considering and be careful of the knock-offs on EBAY.

The Super Nova we selected provides light output for a 3x3 area that is supposedly greater than a 600 watt HID.  It will be interesting to see if that is true.  I am really excited about little to no heat output from the light and 1/8th of the amount of energy usage in the grow room.