TERMINATED: Tatsoi in the 6E+

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 36

Plants still looking happy! I really do think they've grown just a little! Water level is down a quarter inch.

Looks like PH was indeed the problem, and it also looks like I caught it just in time! (Knock on wood!) 

It would be hard to blame the 15-year-old GH Flora series for the issue, looking at how green these plants are! 

I plan to start another round of Tatsoi in the Classic 7, this time with 3 plants (2 rear, 1 front) and use the new GH MaxiGro nutes for comparison sake. 

[lynnee]

Those look fabulous! Congrats for figuring this out.

[pfunnyjoy]

It's a fact. BOTH plants are growing. The difference is REALLY noticeable today! And they had drunk a bit of water, the water was down about 3/4" so I added 1ml of PH Down to the water jug and watered them.

You know, I looked up high PH symptoms, and almost nothing matched what I was seeing. Just one of those crazy things! Now I just need to get a new PH test kit in here before I run out of drops in the old one!

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 37

Yep, not my imagination! They are both growing!


Since I'm planning a 36 hour fast starting this evening, I opted to go ahead and do my first harvest!

Harvested the right-hand plant fairly heavily. Instead of using snippers, I followed some advice I'd seen to gently break the leaves off. It's a little trickier, but I was getting the knack. It certainly leaves the plant looking a lot neater! I even got 4 leaves off the left-hand plant! 

44 grams of Tatsoi! I tossed them in with some eggs spiced with turmeric, curry, and chili powder and scrambled in a teaspoon of butter. Then they went in a bowl with an avocado and I sprinkled some lemon juice, salt and pepper over and enjoyed every bite.

[pfunnyjoy]

After the harvest last night:

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 39

Another nice little harvest of 43g. The plants are looking more even now, as I harvested the right-hand plant more heavily. I lowered the light again, and, because the room was feeling warm, turned on the fan on low. But I plan to keep an eye on them!

The greens went into my scrambled eggs again, lightly cooked, and absolutely delicious!

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 40

After the harvest.

I lowered the lights a notch. I also put a nicer looking label on the garden. And added a label to the top of the hood to let me know when I'd last added nutrients, just to be on the safe side. They are old electronics! Gotta love blue painter's tape! I label my water and coconut kefir with it too.

[lynnee]

Blue painter's tape is every bit as essential as duct tape!

[pfunnyjoy]

Nov 14, 2023 16:49:20 GMT -5 lynnee said:

Blue painter's tape is every bit as essential as duct tape!

No kidding! In 2022, we had a week of 110F heat wave ... and our AC decided to go out at the beginning of it! All repairmen booked up, as it's a small town and options are a bit limited in that regard anyway.

I grabbed all kinds of cardboard boxes slated to be taken for recycling, cut them to fit, and blacked out ALL our windows with those and wide blue painter's tape! It wasn't pleasant, but it did help keep the temps in the house from rising above 90F. Which it would have without the blackout measures. And it was easy to remove a blackout panel at night in order to use a window fan to suck slightly cooler air in.

And left no residue when we had the AC unit replaced and I was able to rip it all down again!

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 41

Took an EC reading last night, rather low at 0.5. I think the plants are hungry, though otherwise they look fine.

They have grown some, but I don't think I'll harvest again just yet. However, as I didn't think to go ahead and fill some jugs with filtered water, I'll have to do that and it takes time, as the Big Berkey only filters a gallon and a half at a whack. 

As a hedge, I watered them with some leftover nutrient water from the Chicory/Dandelion garden, in case I don't get to the R&R today. It's 10 days since the last one. (Yay, blue painter's tape labels!)

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 42
Rinse and refill!

Referring to my old GH Flora series mixing chart, I increased the mix from "Mild General Purpose" to "General Purpose," so instead of a 1-1-1 teaspoon to gallon mix, I went to a 1-1.5-1 mix. Micro, Gro, and Bloom in that order. If the Tatsoi goes through that before 14 days is up, I may move to "Strong General Purpose."

EC now measures a solid 1.4. According to Google, this is low end EC for hydroponic Tatsoi, but I figure a gradual increase in nutrients is better than an abrupt one, given the plants don't look nutrient deficient, even though they did go through their nutrients in 10 days. 

In spite of the very low EC reading yesterday, the photo shows they've grown outwards a bit!


I've raised the light a notch, and it's looking like I should consider harvesting again soon, but not today.

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 43

I charged into the office once the cats were fed, because I wanted to see if the raised nutrient level had done anything untoward to the Tatsoi or whether the Tatsoi would have doubled itself or what.

ACK, something did show up!
Blotches. On two leaves of the right-hand plant.


So, since the PH test kit was handy, I promptly took PH.

7.0! The nutrient mix I added yesterday was 6.0.

Brought the PH Down upstairs, added, as best I could tell, about 0.75ml. Clearly, I need to add a 5ml glass dropper, as the lowest measurement on the 10ml droppers is 1ml.

I went and did other things, like reading EC and testing PH on the south 40 gardens.

And another shocker! PH fine at 6.0 in the lettuce garden, but up to 7.0 in the Tatsoi garden! Now, the upstairs and downstairs Tatsoi are NOT running on the same nutes! Upstairs is GH Flora series, downstairs is GH MaxiGro. But both nutrient mixes tested at 6.0 a half hour or so after mixing.

Anyway, looks like frequent monitoring of PH may be a good idea for Tatsoi in my home. I took it again, and the PH had come down, but not quite enough, so I added another 0.75ml of Down and will check again in a few hours.

Touchy Tatsoi! One thing you can say for it, it tells me rather promptly when it is unhappy with high PH!

[pfunnyjoy]

Day 47

Last night I harvested a nice 55g off the two plants and lowered the lights. The photo is from this AM. There have been no further leaf blotches.


I checked EC and yep, they are going through nutrients like wildfire! Down to 0.8 today. I have done a rinse and refill with a "Strong General Purpose" GH Flora series mix according to my old chart. (6.2ml Micro, 10ml Gro, 5ml Bloom per gallon).

Also, I discovered that our water is NOT hard. At all. I used a hard water test and it came up just the other side of hard. I used the Bluelab truncheon to check the tap water and the measurement is ZERO! So I decided it might be a good idea to add a little CALiMAGic, see how it goes. Because my plants probably aren't getting much from my tap water.

Figuring out Tatsoi one day at a time!

[pfunnyjoy]

Later this afternoon, I checked, EC is at 2.0. That should keep the plants busy for a while! Whether it'll last 2 weeks, I don't know.

[pfunnyjoy]

12-2-2023 day whatever.

And nope, not quite 2 weeks for the Flora Strong General Purpose mix. Been low EC (0.8) for a couple of days now, I just didn't have time to get to an R&R until tonight. These are HUNGRY plants! And looking it, as they are a little paler than normal.

I harvested them again tonight before the R&R, sautéed the greens with onion, garlic, and some grape tomatoes in olive oil/butter. And ate as a side to scrambled eggs. Yummy!

So, now I will try the AGGRESSIVE growth mix from the old chart and see if that can carry them a full two weeks. I'd rather have a schedule where I can feed when the AG add nutrient light goes on, rather than these random FEED ME requests! 

1.5 TSP Micro
3.0 TSP Gro
1.0 TSP Bloom
1.0 TSP CALiMAGic

PH of nutrient mix: 6.0
EC of nutrient mix: 2.6

The Tatsoi are, so far, the only thing I've been able to grow completely successfully. And it was sure iffy at the beginning!

[pfunnyjoy]

12-5-2023 day whatever

The plants have enjoyed the GH Flora "aggressive growth" formula. Time to harvest yet again!

PH 6.5
EC 1.8

[pfunnyjoy]

Got a generous 75g harvest on these on 12-05 or possibly 12-05, don't remember, and tonight, they are grown to almost the same size again. I may harvest a few leaves tonight, and juice them for a change, as I'm planning to make a green juice shortly.

Very pleased with Tatsoi, it's a producer! 

[pfunnyjoy]

2023-12-17: Day whatever
Whoops! Must’ve forgotten to reset the nutrient light, as it didn’t go on. Fortunately, painter’s blue tape note saved the day. Plants were looking a bit pale!

I checked EC and it was 0.8. Rinse and refill! I’m repeating the GH Flora aggressive strength mix until the plants bolt. The left-hand plant is looking considerably less rosette-like, I don't know if that's a sign of bolting being near or not. Might be. The garden is 3.5 months old ... I can only keep harvesting and wait and see.

PH of nutrient mix: 6.0
EC of nutrient mix: 2.7

[pfunnyjoy]

The harvest eats of 2023-12-15:
I'd actually already eaten some before I thought to take a picture, so it was a more generous bowl than it looks here.

[pfunnyjoy]

2024-01-18: Day whatever
Rinse and refill, several days late! The Tatsoi weren’t growing much, though enough to provide some leaves to a harvest last night. They can still be harvested again today.

I have, since the downstairs Tatsoi is doing well on MaxiGro, switched the nutrients over to that formula.

Nutrients (per gallon):
2.0ml CALiMAGic
1.0 TSP GH MaxiGro
5.0ml 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1.0ml pH Up

PH of nutrient mix: 5.5–6.0
EC of nutrient mix: 2.2

The Tatsoi just keep on giving! Beginning to think it might be wise to terminate before the trunks of these Tatsoi trees get much larger! Still, I'd like to see just how long they can go before bolting...