2025 gardens and such

[jjannie]

Well here's a pic of our Hydroponic garden we keep running all year. At first we had a difficult time maintaining a balanced ph. We finally figured that out. Then it was trying different seeds that could handle getting their roots trimmed off. We figured that one out as well. Learning and growing we feel is all a part of the process and good for mental IQ as well. Next came with there are no bugs, including having pollinators. So, since some things are wind pollinated, so we now have a small desk fan to provide a bit of 'wind' each morning. So far that has really helped out with production. We can easily apply a gentle breeze as we wave it around where it's needed. Sure keeps us in salads. We even grow the mini lunch box peppers that we like sliced up in salads and in stir fries. 

This stand is in the kitchen eating area. Its easy to grab salad fixens from here. The plant that has gone crazy all over is a Heartbreaker cherry tomato. It's a container tomato plant so that is helpful. 

The base is a 20 gal water reservoir that pumps water from here, up the center then it sprays down the like rain down past all the plant roots to recirculate it. Lights and pump are on separate timers and each week we add water and fertilizer, and once a month we trim any roots that have gotten too long. Wouldn't was roots to get into the pump intake, LOL. 




( Note: Sitting on the floor beside is our rosemary plant. It comes in for the wintertime and has yet to get moved outside for the summer. )

[wiperhunter2]

Very nice Jil., as long as that vine is, you can tell it's been there for a while. Very impressive. How often, if ever, do you have to replant the tomato and lettuce plants? What kind of fertilizer do you use?

[2knots]

That’s pretty cool, are the roots just in water all the time (pump running 24/7)

[jjannie]

I already have new tomatoes started so eventually those crazy ones will get replaced. We use Root Riot starting plugs that you can find on Amazon. They are made for starting cuttings but for seeds I just use alongside the center holes. They fit very nicely in the little grow basket that then goes into the lettuce grow. Each section holds 6 baskets. Those not being used, you plug by putting practice golf balls into the grow baskets. This way no light gets inside so no algae build up happens. That way I can adjust different seeds to whatever depth they require. 

We can start harvesting lettuces by removing the outer leaves. Lettuce usually sprouts in 10 days. So, we plan around that timeframe. Spinach takes longer to germinate, but we use spinach and broccoli leaves in our salads. 

Pumps run for 15min every hour, the lights are on for 16hrs a day. We did have many lights fail at the connectors as they run inside where the water is. Jeff's sister who has the same set up never had this happen to hers. They're supposed to be waterproof. After the 3rd time it happened, we needed to come up with a solution. We did. and haven't had failure since. But now our lights are done externally instead. It's hard to explain this, I can post a few pictures of the failures if you're interested in doing this. I will say to their credit, customer service was very good at replacing our failed light rings each time. It will require simple electronics work and I can give you our solution if interested. We got the parts from Amazon of course, but they are not expensive. Luckily, we both have the background for doing this, so it wasn't too big of a deal to do it, maybe a little soldering is the toughest thing. Note - I do stained glass work, so we have great soldering irons, and flux access.

[Kent]

Impressive. What is the height and width of the Hydroponic garden?

[jjannie]

Impressive.  What is the height and width of the Hydroponic garden?

Height, while sitting on a rolling caster base is aprox 6ft, width 22-24in. Its round so kind of difficult to measure exactly. We have the hardware to make this a 36 plant tower but found we didn't need to add in the last section and lights as it gives us enough production using only 30 plants - actually when plants get large we tend to 'golf ball' a few of them so everything gets good light. The rolling caster just makes for capturing any water (I always drip when filling each week) but also allows you to move it easily when/if needed.

[jjannie]

We're still getting too cold at night so we're covering everything that's NOT in the greenhouse. We already lost 2 of the tomato plants, so we'll just have to replace those. It didn't frost but apparently, they didn't even like being chilled. We've got covering down pat now. anything small enough to move we just brought inside. Tonight, should be our last night of 30s, fingers crossed. 

Today in the greenhouse we did a deep cleanup after tilling and prepping the beds. All drip lines were checked before we got the plants planted.

[wiperhunter2]

We're still getting too cold at night so we're covering everything that's NOT in the greenhouse. We already lost 2 of the tomato plants, so we'll just have to replace those. It didn't frost but apparently, they didn't even like being chilled. We've got covering down pat now. anything small enough to move we just brought inside. Tonight, should be our last night of 30s, fingers crossed. 

Today in the greenhouse we did a deep cleanup after tilling and prepping the beds. All drip lines were checked before we got the plants planted.

Wow, it's amazing it's still that cold there but that being said, it was 42 degrees overnight here, so you guys are around 10 cooler there?  With the warmer temps ahead, I plan on removing my GH covers this week.

[2knots]

Bummer on the tomato loss, I made it past the 2 days of freeze warnings without any damage or loss

[jjannie]

Bummer on the tomato loss, I made it past the 2 days of freeze warnings without any damage or loss

Hopefully we're good from here on out. Last night was supposed to be 42 but it went to 38, however, everything had survived it. Lows tonight are supposed to be 47, so fingers crossed it just keeps getting warmer each night from now on

[jjannie]

Tonight, we're supposed to get down to 40 degrees, and since last night it 6 degrees colder than forecasted we are nervous about getting frosted. Fingers crossed. 

We've made the big decision to reduce our large pond to an almost pond less one that we can still run our waterfall for aesthetic reasons. Keep watch on the for-sale board some plants. We just cannot keep them all. 

We haven't seen any tomatoes set fruit yet in our gardens, ly. Luckily the hydroponics is still producing some. I started some bush bean seeds. We didn't start them ahead of vacation, but since we typically grow them at 2-week intervals we felt there was still time to get something from them. 

Hope your gardens are doing better than ours, so far.

[wiperhunter2]

That's too bad, hopefully it doesn't get that cold up there. How tall do your bush beans get, do they start producing quicker than pole beans?

[jjannie]

That's too bad, hopefully it doesn't get that cold up there. How tall do your bush beans get, do they start producing quicker than pole beans?

We survived the low got to 37 here last night. Maybe a little cloud covered helped us out this time. 

We do a reset every 6 months on the hydroponics garden. Spring and fall usually, because we give it a good power spraying. The fertilizer is two parts dissolved into the water. One is minerals and one is calcium. I also have learned of good phdown maker that really works better for our water to maintain its ph levels. Even with water softened it still was really high, but this new stuff seems to work really well. After a reset it takes quite a bit to bring it down to right ph, then each week when I add more fertilizer and water, I only need to add couple tablespoons to maintain the balance. It works.

[wiperhunter2]

That's too bad, hopefully it doesn't get that cold up there. How tall do your bush beans get, do they start producing quicker than pole beans?

We survived the low got to 37 here last night. Maybe a little cloud covered helped us out this time. 

We do a reset every 6 months on the hydroponics garden. Spring and fall usually, because we give it a good power spraying. The fertilizer is two parts dissolved into the water. One is minerals and one is calcium. I also have learned of good phdown maker that really works better for our water to maintain its ph levels. Even with water softened it still was really high, but this new stuff seems to work really well. After a reset it takes quite a bit to bring it down to right ph, then each week when I add more fertilizer and water, I only need to add couple tablespoons to maintain the balance. It works.

Oh, you are growing your bush beans indoors? I was thinking you grew them outside. I'm just having a hard time with my green beans this year and was thinking about trying something different especially if they grow quicker than pole beans. Maybe I can get some to produce before the year is over.

[jjannie]

That's too bad, hopefully it doesn't get that cold up there. How tall do your bush beans get, do they start producing quicker than pole beans?

We survived the low got to 37 here last night. Maybe a little cloud covered helped us out this time. 

We do a reset every 6 months on the hydroponics garden. Spring and fall usually, because we give it a good power spraying. The fertilizer is two parts dissolved into the water. One is minerals and one is calcium. I also have learned of good phdown maker that really works better for our water to maintain its ph levels. Even with water softened it still was really high, but this new stuff seems to work really well. After a reset it takes quite a bit to bring it down to right ph, then each week when I add more fertilizer and water, I only need to add couple tablespoons to maintain the balance. It works.

Oh, you are growing your bush beans indoors? I was thinking you grew them outside. I'm just having a hard time with my green beans this year and was thinking about trying something different especially if they grow quicker than pole beans. Maybe I can get some to produce before the year is over.

 No I grow bush beans outside in the pots garden area. The best thing about bush beans is you plant seeds every 2 weeks to extend the season. But you get larger harvest at one time. Once a bush has been harvested, pull it and plant another seed in its place. Nice for getting larger harvest to freeze some at the same time. Easier to clean up the garden after the frosts start happening.

[jjannie]

Weird, my bush beans are not producing any beans this summer, nor are they even staying as bushes, they are starting to develope vines instead. They are new seeds, but I have no idea as to why these are behaving like they are. My guess is, perhaps they got the wrong seeds in the wrong package. But I am also not getting any blooms to get any beans. I've never had an issue with them. 

We've completed the reworking of our terrace. (I'll post pics tomorrow) Instead of having a bark mulch we switched over to having gravel along a paver pathway. Running gravel by the bucketfuls up onto the terrace was exhausting work. Now were clearing a bunch of over grown shrubbery from around the house and garages. Thank goodness we own chipper shredder. Our side yard is all done in bark so we have place to there to run it.

[2knots]

Weird, my bush beans are not producing any beans this summer, nor are they even staying as bushes, they are starting to develope vines instead. They are new seeds, but I have no idea as to why these are behaving like they are. My guess is, perhaps they got the wrong seeds in the wrong package. But I am also not getting any blooms to get any beans. I've never had an issue with them. 

We've completed the reworking of our terrace. (I'll post pics tomorrow) Instead of having a bark mulch we switched over to having gravel along a paver pathway. Running gravel by the bucketfuls up onto the terrace was exhausting work. Now were clearing a bunch of over grown shrubbery from around the house and garages. Thank goodness we own chipper shredder. Our side yard is all done in bark so we have place to there to run it.

Our peas didn’t do much either, never took off and few blooms. It’s been a funny year for growing, just got our 1st tomato which is about 4 weeks late from what we’ve seen in the previous years and we were planted earlier this year

[wiperhunter2]

Weird, my bush beans are not producing any beans this summer, nor are they even staying as bushes, they are starting to develope vines instead. They are new seeds, but I have no idea as to why these are behaving like they are. My guess is, perhaps they got the wrong seeds in the wrong package. But I am also not getting any blooms to get any beans. I've never had an issue with them. 

We've completed the reworking of our terrace. (I'll post pics tomorrow) Instead of having a bark mulch we switched over to having gravel along a paver pathway. Running gravel by the bucketfuls up onto the terrace was exhausting work. Now were clearing a bunch of over grown shrubbery from around the house and garages. Thank goodness we own chipper shredder. Our side yard is all done in bark so we have place to there to run it.

Our peas didn’t do much either, never took off and few blooms. It’s been a funny year for growing, just got our 1st tomato which is about 4 weeks late from what we’ve seen in the previous years and we were planted earlier this year

Not sure about the higher elevations where you two live but I blame the early heat wave this Summer on why some things in the garden did not or have not done so good this Summer. In years past we would be getting 4 to 5 hundred green beans each time I pick them, this year the most I've got in one picking is 37 and that was yesterday.

[jjannie]

Guess that's just how its going to be this year.

Here are the final pics of us reworking the terrace and back wall. We used to have it covered in bark, that is now all graveled. We do a ton of weed seeds from back fields and the 5 community cats we have around here help spread seeds when they bring down their catches - it's a trade off after losing our whole backyard to voles one winter once the snow melted away. No before pics but it was full of weeds and overgrown shrubbery. Now it's all cleared. Guess we'll just have to invest in a lot of Preen to prevent seeds from germinating and be better about weed spraying anything that starts growing. It'll all look even better next year once we put out all the flowerpots, a trellis and a new gated arbor between the yard and terrace steps that we plan to have flowering annual vines growing on it.

[wiperhunter2]

Looks great Jil, you two did a lot of hard work on that project this Summer.