Grow 6

Well it has been a while since we did another major grow in the indoor room. We were busy helping all of our friends getting ready for outdoor spring planting by starting their plants for them in our AeroFlo36 not to mention all the Rion Prestige Greenhouse activities which we call the Berry House. Hey, what are friends for right?

We love tomatoes but I have to tell you, growing them indoors with an eight foot ceiling is challenging - especially if you hang grow lights from the ceiling. We have traditionally grown only heirloom and organic seeds but I am trying a hybrid now out of necessity - height limitations.

We have three tomato plants, two indicate that they are bush tomatoes (Bush Steak Hybrid and Bush Early Girl) and we are also planting a Tumbler Hybrid but it is not a bush tomato (just trying it out).

In addition we have planted Romaine since we eat it so fast, organic cucumber (another climbing wonder), Zucchini (we have had great success with these), Jalapeno, Red and Yellow Sweet Peppers.

Another test is for the Ultimate Plant Cage (http://globalgardenfriends.com/the-ultimate-plant-cage/). We have a challenge with our peppers and tomatoes getting top heavy with the fruits and our Ebb n Gro system does not have nice insets for PVC pipe like the PowerGrower does to help support the plants. We have tried netting, but it didn't work as we thought it would to support the plants from the PowerGrower.

So with the new grow, a new product test and some new plant tests...stay tuned. We planted seeds today and will be back to you soon on the results

Grow Room Update

We are busting at the seams here in the grow room.  The eggplants are taking over with elephant ear sized leaves, we have harvested several zucchini, cucumbers, yellow peppers, and of course fresh romaine lettuce each day.

Our Roma tomatoes are doing much better now that we have raised the pH level to about 6.5 on average and reduced our nutrient levels to the minimum recommendations of Canna.

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.

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.

Grow 5 Planted

We have seeded Grow 5 with 4 Jalapeno, 4 Zucchini, and of course more Romaine Lettuce. Germination should occur over 7-10 days and we will bring you more info then. We continue to harvest the Romaine we plant almost every day. We start several new seeds every few days as the germination rate is quick, and once in the AeroFlo36, we get full heads in about 7 days.

Grow 5 planning

We are documenting "Grows" with new plants we have not germinated or taken to maturity in the grow room. We do sub-grows (like Grow 4a, 4b, etc) each week that are mainly romaine lettuce almost weekly. It is taking about 2 1/2 weeks to go from seed to table with our Romaine so I thought documenting each would be a bit tedious and boring for you.

Grow 5 will have 2 new heirloom plants, jalapeno peppers and zucchini, and of course we will put some lettuce and other fast consumables in the grow. We have the Rockwool cubes soaking now and they will be ready tomorrow. Since we have not grown these plants before, they will start from seed.