Grow Guy

Winter is over, the weather is starting to warm up and I finally cleared out my dutch buckets ready for the new growing season. An early start will mean that I can experiment with more types of vegetables and different growing methods this season.

My courtyard does not get enough sunlight in winter to grow throughout the year but I thought it would be interesting to show how the root structure from last seasons tomato plants. The roots are very fine without a strong taproot and spread throughout the vermiculite and pearlite mix. Initially I thought my buckets might be a bit small for tomato's but I am going to reuse them for tomato's again this season as well as other plants. Surprisingly the mix was still moist despite having not been watered for a couple of months which shows how effectively vermiculite retains moisture.

Things I struggled with last time include powdery mildew, red spider mites and poor accessibility to the plants. Planting too close together resulted in pests and disease spreading very quickly and the poor access meant that I could not treat the plants with spray effectively.

Due to the low height of my greenhouse roof I am going to grow my tomato's in the open courtyard this time where height and access to the plants is not restricted. I will be covering the buckets with lids to stop and excess water from entering the system rather than the layer of stones I used previously.

I let my suckers get all out of control and had to really cut back my tomato plants. They were really smothering each other and I just could not get the spider mites under control using organic pesticide. Thinning the plants to allow more airflow seemed worth a try. I asked at the local nursary and they said the lower winter temperatures and rain should also help as spider mites don't like winter months.

So what is a sucker and why should they be removed? There are two types of growths off the plants main stem. One produces the leaves and the fruit and the other grows another stem that produces fruit and more suckers. Allowing suckers to grow means that the plant has to use more nutrients for growth when means less for fruit production. I have seen a few growers online that grow single stem plants that produce an amazing amount of fruit. Check out this video over on Bobby's MHPGardner channel

I noticed fine silky webs with red specs on my plants for the first time this morning. A quick look on the interweebs and they are Red Spider Mites! An early sign of these pests is the plant leaves start to turn a speckled yellow or white. This is because spider mites sit on the underside of the leaf and sip the plant fluid removing the chlorophyll. More advanced signs are a silky web appears on the leaves with small red insects and they can cause real damage if left unchecked. There are various ways of dealing with them. One way is to create a humid environment with good airflow which will prevent spider mites from appearing and the other is to use a insect spray. I opted for an organic insect spray made from canola oil and garlic and applied it to the plants but in the future I will try the preventative approach by ensuring good airflow and humidity.

More about spider mites:

• They like courtyards where the climate is hot and dry, if you have a greenhouse in the courtyard they like than even better.
• They like plants that are placed up against the wall where airflow is restricted.
• Can hatch in as little as 3 days. 
• Become sexually mature in as little as 5 days.
• Can live between 2 and 4 weeks laying 200 eggs a day. 
• One female can lay up to 20 eggs per day and can live for 2 to 4 weeks, laying hundreds of eggs.
• Accelerated reproductive rate allows spider mite populations to adapt quickly to resistent pesticides.

I noticed that a few of my tomatoes had black bottoms. By my understanding this is from inconsistent watering where the calcium is not reaching the fruit (My grow solution may also be too weak for the plants at this stage in the growth cycle). There are other factors that may cause this problem but I have been a little irregular with my watering so it seems a likely cause. Why have I been irregular with my watering? I collect my water from a nearby spring a short distance travel by car but sometimes the plants draw the solution up really fast. There were a couple of occasions when the plants went without water for a day or two at a time. I thought that I may have been over watering them so I was not really too concerned if they had occaision to dry out. Obviously this was incorrect so I will chalk it down as a lesson learn't. The affected fruit is generally higher up on the stem which supports that the calcium is not reaching the fruit  Any affected fruit should be removed as there is not way to save it.

My tomatoes are ripening enough for me to pick a couple every two days. The sizes vary but they are a good round shape, have a nice smooth skin, and they taste great! I have not had any issues with bugs and the mildew seems to be under control. The plants are still producing new leaves and I am trimming off the dead leaves as they dry out. There are a couple of things that I will change in the system next time but overall I am happy. I think I placed the buckets to close together which I think might have an effect on the amount of fruit that is produced but I willI keep a record of the daily harvest and I will post the figures once the plants have stopped producing fruit. I probably could have been more aggressive with the grow solution but I will only know once someone tells me if the plants underproduced or not?

I noticed that a couple of my tomatoes are finally turning red and rippening. I am actually going to taste one in the next day or two. The leaves on the lower parts of the stem have started to turn brown and die. I think is the natural growth cycle of the plants because there is new growth on the upper stems of the plants. All of the red fruit is on the lower section of the plants and the higher sections have lots of flowers so I hope that once I pick the ripe fruit some of the nutrients will then start to produce fruit on the rest of the plant.

We have been doing some building work at home and I noticed that the tomato plants leaves had grey  powdery spots on them. I thought that it was the cement dust that was causing it and as access to the plants was difficult I left it be. Pretty soon it became obvious that it was some kind of fungus, quickly spreading between the plants. The lower leaves were the first to be affected and going untreated the upper leaves started to show signs of mildew. Searching online all that I could think was that the cause is either blight or powdery mildew. I found an organic spray that you can make up from stuff that you already have in the kitchen.

• 4l Water
• teaspoon of vegetable oil
• 3/4 tablespoon of Sodium Bicarbonate

My tomato plants have come along very nicely, lots of flowers and green fruit. Something that I think is worth a mention is that my reservoir is twenty liters and when the days are hot these four plants can very quickly use up all the solution. This becomes a little more labour intensive in summer when we have loads of hot days in a row. I have been collecting our water from a natural spring some distance away and we also use this as drinking water I have to drive out to refill regularly. I think that two plants to a twenty liter reservoir will be a easier to manage next time. Having two plants to one reservoir will also allow me to grow more varieties and stagger the growth stages.

If you dont already know from my previous post I got my mix wrong and as a result I may have damaged the plants so I decided to start my dutch bucket tomatoes again from scratch. To ensure that I learn the most that I can from each failed attempt I pulled out my current plants and checked their roots. I was surprised to see just how rooted the plants had become and happy to see that there is no algae growth on the roots themselves. That tells me that the system is keeping any unwanted sunlight away from the grow solution limiting the growth of algae, that's a good thing. The roots were warmer than I had expected so as soon as I get a thermometer I will start to keep and eye on the temperature around the roots. I read that the ideal water temp is between 18 and 27 degrees C which I am sure my reservoir falls between because it is always cool to the touch. Hopefully getting new seedlings in the next day or two.

After seeing one of Bobby's how to videos on MHPGardner on Dutch Bucket Tomatos I decided to make my very own dutch buckets. This is a 4 bucket system that I built so that I can learn more about hydroponics and growing my own food. The dutch bucket system is an active system meaning that the nutrient solution is automatically delivered to the plants. The plants then take what they need and the rest of the solution drains back to the reservoir to be reused. The constant recycling will cause the pH of the nutrient to fluctuate so it needs to be monitored often.

I used four 10 liter black builders buckets which I painted white on the outside. The white helps keep the temperature low by reflecting sunlight while the black interior reduces your chances of algae. I then used some irrigation piping, pvc piping and elbows along with grommets to reduce any water loss to deliver the nutrient to and from the reservoir. I am also using a small 5v pond pump which sits inside my 20 liter reservoir. Currently this is working off power but eventually I would like to power the pump via a small solar panel. I am use a 50/50 mix of perlite and vermiculite as a grow medium covered by some pebbles to reduce water loss to evaporation. To further reduce water loss I have pushed the feeder pipes below the surface of the pebbles.

When the water returns to the reservoir it drops between 15cm and 20cm which is how I am hoping to get around using air stones. I have the system running on a timer which turns on and off at various times throughout the day.

You can definitely make a cheaper system than what I made that will perform just as well.

My tomato plants have just not been experiencing the kind of growth that I had expected due to the fact that I misunderstood how to mix the grow solution. I bought two mixes one is mix A which I thought was for flowering plants and the other was mix B which I thought was for leafy plants. Visiting the HortiShop this morning confirmed that equal parts of BOTH solutions needed to be added per liter, only providing mix A will result in poor growth and yellow leaves as can be seen in my photos. Mix A and mix B can not be mixed together in their powder form because they react with one another.