Sher
AGA Farmer
Posts: 7,025
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Post by Sher on Aug 4, 2020 9:50:29 GMT -5
After reading your taste test, ERR0R1755 , I definitely want to try growing them when I have an available machine!
P.S. I just ordered seeds from Renaissance Farms.
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Post by ERR0R1755 on Aug 9, 2020 20:47:26 GMT -5
Going to be ending this project in the next few days, since most of the tomatoes are ripe (or have started ripening and can be removed).  |
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Sher
AGA Farmer
Posts: 7,025
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Post by Sher on Aug 9, 2020 21:27:32 GMT -5
I'm glad you told us about them!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2020 9:33:56 GMT -5
Thanks for chronicling this project. It appears you did get a quantity of good toms.
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Post by ERR0R1755 on Aug 10, 2020 22:16:08 GMT -5
Ended this project tonight. Here's my self-survey: Plant Grown: Orange Hat Tomato Grow Method: AeroGarden Harvest Time to Germinate: 5 days Time to First Harvest: 65 days Time to Last Harvest: 74 days Plant Spacing: 4 per Harvest (67% usage) Final Height: 5 inches Would I grow these again? Definitely! I'd just need to find someone who likes tomatoes more than I do, or grow enough of these to make a sauce. I would probably grow one in a Sprout next time, or multiple Kratky mason jars. If I grew it in a Harvest again, I would only do two plants. Lessons Learned: If I overdose a plant, I need to check the PH after a few hours. I also learned that I don't like cherry tomatoes any more than I like regular tomatoes. Here's the second/final harvest, not including any tomatoes from the previous one:  |
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Sher
AGA Farmer
Posts: 7,025
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Post by Sher on Aug 10, 2020 23:51:43 GMT -5
I really enjoyed following this project, ERR0R1755 .
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girl90048
AGA Sprout
Gardening Novice
Posts: 65
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Post by girl90048 on Aug 12, 2020 22:54:08 GMT -5
I have a lot of little buds on my tomato plant but only one bloomed and turned to fruit. The rest never opened up. Do you think I should be adding more nutrients? I've been adding nutrients every two weeks. What type of tomato do you have? If you have a determinate tomato (like this one), it will set all of its flowers around the same time. If you have an indeterminate tomato, then the flowers will open up over a longer period and you don't have anything to worry about. The advantage/disadvantage of determinate tomatoes is that they don't continue to produce tomatoes - they do it once, then die off. It's nice if you want to grow another plant there, but if you want to keep a tomato plant alive for a long time and continue to harvest tomatoes, then you would want an indeterminate variety. (alternatively, do you have a PPM meter? You can use that to check the amount of nutrients in the tank and adjust accordingly. If you want suggestions for a cheap one, I use this one from VIVOSUN) So I bought the PPM meter you suggested. When I set it to PPM and when I stuck it into my AG unit, it said 260. This was about a week after I added the two caps of nutrients that is suggested by AG. Looking at your chart, my AG seems to be over 1K short of nutrients. Am I doing it correctly? Also, my plant is almost up to the light even though I've been pruning it. It seems to be growing more and more leaves. I have noticed more flowers though. None of them have completely bloomed though.  |
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Post by ERR0R1755 on Aug 12, 2020 23:07:29 GMT -5
So I bought the PPM meter you suggested. When I set it to PPM and when I stuck it into my AG unit, it said 260. This was about a week after I added the two caps of nutrients that is suggested by AG. Looking at your chart, my AG seems to be over 1K short of nutrients. Am I doing it correctly? Also, my plant is almost up to the light even though I've been pruning it. It seems to be growing more and more leaves. I have noticed more flowers though. None of them have completely bloomed though. I think the chart applies to full grown tomatoes - mine seemed to be happiest around 900 PPM. I wouldn't recommend going over 1200, since my plants were definitely dying at 1700... I didn't prune mine at all until well after there were tomatoes, aside from the occasional leaf that looked bad. |
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girl90048
AGA Sprout
Gardening Novice
Posts: 65
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Post by girl90048 on Aug 12, 2020 23:10:23 GMT -5
I think the chart applies to full grown tomatoes - mine seemed to be happiest around 900 PPM. I wouldn't recommend going over 1200, since my plants were definitely dying at 1700... I didn't prune mine at all until well after there were tomatoes, aside from the occasional leaf that looked bad. So should I add more nutrients until it reads 900 PPM? Do you try to move the water around in the unit before measuring? |
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Post by ERR0R1755 on Aug 12, 2020 23:42:59 GMT -5
So should I add more nutrients until it reads 900 PPM? Do you try to move the water around in the unit before measuring? How big is your plant? I would recommend getting it up to the 500-700 range, at a minimum. I always add a small amount of nutrients and wait at least 30 minutes (running the pump once manually after I add nutes) so it can balance back out. Once you get the hang of it, you'll realize "oh, the PPM is currently this, and this unit is this size, so I need to add x ml of nutes" |
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girl90048
AGA Sprout
Gardening Novice
Posts: 65
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Post by girl90048 on Aug 15, 2020 3:59:32 GMT -5
So should I add more nutrients until it reads 900 PPM? Do you try to move the water around in the unit before measuring? How big is your plant? I would recommend getting it up to the 500-700 range, at a minimum. I always add a small amount of nutrients and wait at least 30 minutes (running the pump once manually after I add nutes) so it can balance back out. Once you get the hang of it, you'll realize "oh, the PPM is currently this, and this unit is this size, so I need to add x ml of nutes" My plant is about 1 1/2 inches from the light. I've been pruning it but maybe not enough. It got tall. How did you get yours to stay short and grow wide instead of high? By the way, I added another cap of nutrients which I think helped it. the buds seem to be opening vs before where they just fell off. I'm supposed to clean the unit tomorrow so I think I'm going to mix nutrients into the water and measure before I put the top back on. I may be easier... |
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Post by ERR0R1755 on Aug 15, 2020 9:03:20 GMT -5
My plant is about 1 1/2 inches from the light. I've been pruning it but maybe not enough. It got tall. How did you get yours to stay short and grow wide instead of high? By the way, I added another cap of nutrients which I think helped it. the buds seem to be opening vs before where they just fell off. I'm supposed to clean the unit tomorrow so I think I'm going to mix nutrients into the water and measure before I put the top back on. I may be easier... Mine stayed short because the Orange Hat Tomato is a determinate variety - so it gets to a set height and puts out all of the fruit at once. The only pruning I did was to remove dead/damaged leaves (mostly after it had already set fruit), although I'm willing to bet that if I had been more careful with the nutrients, I wouldn't have needed to prune at all. |
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girl90048
AGA Sprout
Gardening Novice
Posts: 65
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Post by girl90048 on Aug 15, 2020 23:32:15 GMT -5
My plant is about 1 1/2 inches from the light. I've been pruning it but maybe not enough. It got tall. How did you get yours to stay short and grow wide instead of high? By the way, I added another cap of nutrients which I think helped it. the buds seem to be opening vs before where they just fell off. I'm supposed to clean the unit tomorrow so I think I'm going to mix nutrients into the water and measure before I put the top back on. I may be easier... Mine stayed short because the Orange Hat Tomato is a determinate variety - so it gets to a set height and puts out all of the fruit at once. The only pruning I did was to remove dead/damaged leaves (mostly after it had already set fruit), although I'm willing to bet that if I had been more careful with the nutrients, I wouldn't have needed to prune at all. I think I know why mine grew so tall. I have a second one growing in a different AG unit. The lights are at its lowest level because I've been using it to start seeds and then removing them to grow Kratky method. I just noticed they are not growing tall. They're still pretty short compared to my first set which was growing under higher lights because the lettuce was growing so quickly, I had to move the lights up. I also found two new tomatoes growing after pruning. Neither were pollinated by me as they were hidden by all the leaves. Interesting that they turned to fruit without me helping them along. Sharing this in case it can help someone else. |
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