What Did You Do With Your AeroGarden Today?

[ricksgarden]

SPROUTAGE!
I have 3 sprouts in each pod of my Homeslice and Little Sicily tomatoes, I will thin them tomorrow. 3 seed in each pod, impressed with seeds from Seeds 'n Such.

[scarfguy]

Hi all!   Here's some pics of my  "pepper corner" today. All are sweet peppers (I don't eat food that hurts)

I've very happy with this summer's efforts. All plants are very healthy. No thrips this year, thank God...

... and I solved a problem that has plagued me for some time.  I had distorted, yellowed, crinkly leaves. After adjusting the nutes and suppliments ad nauseam, I finally looked elsewhere for the problem.  Turns out the problem is my room is too hot.  The water in the bowls runs about 80-85 degrees.  This causes 2 problems. Calcium uptake is inhibited. I doubled the cal-mag to 5ml twice a week. ALSO, and more importantly, warm water doesn't carry enough oxygen.  The aerogarden pump can't oxygenate the water enough. SO... I added hydrogen peroxide (10ml twice a week).  H2O2 breaks down quickly and releases extra oxygen into the water.

AND, I added an aquarium air pump and air stones in each bowl to suppliment the work of the pump.

SOLVED THE PROBLEM!

Pepper varieties are:

Doux D'espagne (spanish)

Red Marconi (italian)

Yellow Marconi (italian)
Lesya (ukrainian)

Ajvarski (grecian)

[maskedsonnet]

Every time I’ve tried to save on electricity and up the temp of my house to 76 my plants have suffered like that, too. Now I just grit my teeth and pay to keep the house at 73, which the plants seem to love. Been an ugly hot year. July was the first month with my solar panels fully operational through the whole month though, it’s the first time I’m actually eager to get my bill. I wanna see how much the panels are going to help me with this triple digit heat!!

I hope fall comes soon and cools things off

[lynnee]

scarfguy, I'll have to try your treatment for crinkly leaves. This summer has been very cool in the Bay Area, and we live very near to San Pablo Bay, so my garden room hasn't been as hot as last year, and crinkly leaves haven't been a problem. But idyllic conditions won't last forever!

[slw]

scarfguy--the peppers look great!  I have pepper-envy.   Which reminds me... I have some poblano seeds so hmmmm.  

Today I'm harvesting bok choy for a stir fry.  I'm considering terminating that garden and restarting but I'll see how it looks after a good trim.  

Earlier I moved one small banana pepper cull into a Kratky jar.   I also ordered fresh growing medium for the City Pickers outdoor boxes, so that pepper plant may end up outside if it thrives. 

I'm irritated because our next door neighbor decided to trim his oak tree and a big limb landed on my crepe myrtle and crushed it.   

[slw]

I decided to try out a Kratky trellis (for mason jars) that I bought on Etsy a couple of months ago.  I have a small fajita pepper cull placed in an AG pod and it's looking pretty unhappy right now, so I'm not sure if it will grow in this setup.   This is a quart jar so you can see the trellis is fairly tall. 

[scarfguy]

Don't know nuthin' bout Kratky but it looks cool!

[slw]

I've only done Kratky on a small scale with mason jars.  My first attempt was last winter using AG tomato seed pods and some supplies from Etsy.   The tomato plants did great but they soon got too top-heavy for the jars and wanted to tip over.  I finally had to transplant them into regular pots.   The Kratky "experiment" was the reason I bought the AG 45W light panel.

 

[gingercat]

I may look into that Kratky trellis, slw . I'm planning to transplant one of my AG tomato plants to a kratky set up. What size mason jar did you use? I have a 64 oz jar, but most of what I've read about kratky recommends using a bucket, so I was worried my jar might not be big enough. Also thinking about trying it with cucumbers, though I imagine that will be harder because of the vines.

When I pruned my cucumber plants this morning, I was delighted to find lots of baby cucumbers forming! I have five cucumber plants--all germinated from one AG pod! I'm planning to keep 2-3 in my farm 12 XL and set the others up as kratky plants. I know that's a bit much but I didn't want to throw them out and my outside cucumber has been lethargic, so I was excited about their growth. I do like cucumbers!

I also finally succeeded in getting a healthy head of marvel of four seasons! This one has never worked out for me before.

[slw]

Hi gingercat.  For my Kratky experiment I used quart jars but I believe the 64 oz jars would work much better.   I haven't seen any jar covers for larger jars but I'm sure you can cover the jar with fabric or something to block the light.  The main problems I had with the quart jar was that as the plants got larger and leaned to one side, they became top-heavy and the jars wanted to tip over.  Also, they needed frequent watering because the quart jar doesn't hold a lot for a "thirsty" plant. 

All in all, Kratky is a very simple solution and I still use it occasionally for random stuff.  I had a cutting from an Easter cactus that I wanted to root so it's in a Kratky jar. 

Your cukes and the Marvel of 4 Seasons look great.  I have not had success with the Marvel lettuce so I need to try that one again.   Wow, those cucumbers are from an AG pod?  I remember reading that those are not self-pollinating so how do you plan to pollinate them?  I'm excited to follow along on your cuke progress!!

[scarfguy]

Here's a list of parthenocarpic cucumber varieties that I have been compiling if anybody is interested.

All of these will produce cucumbers without hand pollination.

H-19 little leaf

Iznik

Ronda

Lagos

Socrates

Baby persian green fingers

Chelsea prize

Garden oasis

Mini-me (park seeds)

Your additions would be welcome.

DISCLAIMER: The only one I know for sure is parthenocarpic is the Iznik. All of the others come from google results.

[gingercat]

slw Yes, all from one AG pod! I'm planning to use the the Be the Bee pollinator and/or a small makeup brush. And, this time, I thinned out my Marvel of Four Seasons so there was just one plant growing in the pod--not sure if that made a difference.

That is great info about the cucumber varieties, scarfguy.

[slw]

Aug 2, 2023 13:18:23 GMT -5 scarfguy said:

Here's a list of parthenocarpic cucumber varieties that I have been compiling if anybody is interested.

All of these will produce cucumbers without hand pollination.

H-19 little leaf

Iznik

Ronda

Lagos

Socrates

Baby persian green fingers

Chelsea prize

Garden oasis

Mini-me (park seeds)

Your additions would be welcome.

DISCLAIMER: The only one I know for sure is parthenocarpic is the Iznik. All of the others come from google results.

Is the Mini-me the same as a Mini-Munch?   I believe the Mini-Munch are parthenocarpic.

[scarfguy]

Somebody here has grown the Mini-Munch and can attest to its...  "parthenocarpic-ism"

Shawn? or lynnee?

[maskedsonnet]

Mini munch is what I grow - it does great in AG

[lynnee]

I grew Mini Munch after seeing one that maskedsonnet grew. It definitely doesn't require pollination!

[lynnee]

Today I showed my AGs off to a physical therapist who works with my husband. She loved them! Everyone new to AGs is impressed with the cherry tomatoes.

[patlab]

So I did it… ordered another Bounty since the website has such a good price right now. I presently have a Bounty Basic that has some dragon tongue beans growing. I plan on moving them to the new Bounty with the more powerful light and using the basic for my microgreens which don’t need the stronger light. I’ve recently started making green smoothies and microgreens are a great addition to them.

[slw]

I did some routine maintenance today.  I'm not happy with the tomatoes (AG pods) I put in the SpiderFarmer unit.  They just don't seem to be growing much though they have a nice healthy color.  The leaves look small and kind of wrinkly, though they are blooming and have a few marble-sized tomatoes.  I may bump the nutes and see if that helps.

I'm so weak that I ordered the Farm 12 XL from Best Buy; I just couldn't resist that $249 price... gah.   I have no idea where on earth I will put it.  I guess it's time to take the dining table out of the dining room, lol.  We can use TV trays for the holidays.

[lynnee]

slw, you really did make me laugh out loud--what a great way to start the day!

Not too long ago, I ordered another Farm 12XL from Woot! because the price was ridiculous, and I don't regret it. Some of my Farms and Bounties are idle at the moment (limited time), but there are still lots of fun crops that I want to try. Brussels sprouts! Pickling cucumbers! Green beans!