Tomato growers

And then the newly developed permafrost! And for some reason there seems to be hundreds of frozen Tootsi-Rolls scattered in the gardens.

My 'maters are about three inches high under a large 500W grow light in the basement. We're only growing 80 this year, time to slow down a bit.

Karl

I'm going to try "Mr. Stripey" again this year. It's one hard strain of tomato to grow, but has a better taste than anything I've ever grown. Prone to every tomato disease/blight/rot known from my experience. I'm giving it one more try.

That's a little late for some of us ... I've got almost 50 tomato seedlings , planted back on Jan 24th . Some are over 6" tall now , in a couple more weeks they'll go out into the hotbox/greenhouse I'm building onto the side of the house . The plan is to get a good headstart , by last frost in mid-April I'll have plants a foot tall and hardened off .

I got Fusarium Wilt in my area. I have yet to find a variety that doesn't succumb to it.

Silly person. 500W? Why haven't you moved to fluor or LED grow lights yet?

That's a nasty one. Did you try varieties that are said to be resistant, or did you just try standard ones?

Amelia and BHN 602 are supposed to be among the most resistant. I've never heard of BHN 602, but Amelia is popular around here.

I moved away from flouresent because you can not get enough light intensity like you can with the high pressure sodium. haven't look at LED, bet it would cost a small fortune.

Karl

Correction: That isn't Amelia that's popular here. It's Amarillo, which won a local county taste contest for the past couple of years.

I don't know anything about Amelia, either, but it's supposed to be very disease resistant, including all three types of Fusarium, and it does well in the Southeast.

Thread hi-jack alert

Anybody here into hydroponics?

Limited space and new at this, but started 4 tomato plants

15 Dec. hydroponically. The two Belgian giants are now over 31" tall, the Carbon black over 18" and the Costoluto Genovese (heirloom Italian) about 16". White hab and Thai peppers are also doing well.

Winston was (the other Winston). I haven't seen him for a year or more.

for E27 PAR led lamps see

direct china ship. bought several times from this vendor with good results.

if you have fluroscent fixture available see

never dealt with this vendor, but available from others.

My Serrano and bell peppers are doing nicely , the Anaheims and Jalapenos didn't sprout in 3 weeks so I reseeded them . I never did get Anaheims to germinate last year ... I really want to grow some of these for Chili Rellenos ... got a couple of good recipes for filling . This years tomatoes are mostly San Marzano for sauces and salsa , a few each of Roma , Mortgage Lifter , Beefsteak , and some mutt cherry tomatoes . The Roma and the mutts are from saved seed , the rest are all purchased - and all heirloom , I'll be saving seeds again . Over half of my garden this year will be saved seed from previous years' crops .

Have you had a visit from the DEA yet? They tend to pay close attention to people buying hydroponic systems.

David

I had good luck using the Gro-Dan rock wool starter cubes

in plastic cups in a small walmart bin with a snap on lid covered with a towel to retain more heat over a seed warming pad. One trick [which I have not had to use yet] is to soak the seeds 4 hrs to overnight in a 1 to 5% potassium nitrate solution to simulate passing through a bird's digestive system, which is how the seeds are supposed to be dispersed in nature. see

You might want to try

Good Luck!

===============

Didn't buy a "system," although in retrospect it would have been cheaper. Bought the bits and pieces as I needed them. Biggest cost is the lights and you can piecemeal that if desired, adding lights as the plants grow.

While I am growing on a limited tabletop indoors, hydroponics looks like the "wave of the future" for many outdoor crops as it uses between 5 and 10% of the water and recycles most of the nutrients / fertilizers, minimizing costs and run-off, in addition to eliminating large amounts of hand labor, e. g. weeding, soil prep, etc.

Jeeze, what are you going for? 100,000 lm/mm2?

From US builders, yes. They're ripping us off entirely. Chiwanese imports are considerably cheaper, though. Search eBay for "full spectrum LED" or "grow LED". They abound. Just beware the higher density lamps. Heat kills them far too quickly. Some of them use dual wavelength (both red and blue, 660/445nm) LEDs for their grow lights, others use a more pure white light. I don't know which works better.

Here's a high-watt LED for a penny:

This just in: Charge your phone with a fuel cell?

I tired to find numbers for intensity to compare to LED, no joy.

This grow light is about the same as the high pressure sodium street lights you've seen. You can tell a sodium light by the orange hue.

Standard trick for nursery plants, extreme light intensity, cool air, and a fan makes for a short stocky hardy plant. Not that leggy s**te you see at your wally world spring plant sale.

karl