mike
The Pepper King
Posts: 3,661
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Post by mike on Feb 6, 2024 18:45:14 GMT -5
Great looking peppers, SLW.
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Post by lynnee on Feb 7, 2024 10:22:18 GMT -5
Wow, those are fabulous bell peppers, slw!
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Post by lynnee on Feb 7, 2024 10:25:40 GMT -5
pfunnyjoy, do you by any chance have a gas range? If so, that may be the reason why your plants won't grow in the kitchen. Natural gas is anathema to houseplants, so turning the burners on and off may be releasing just enough gas to affect them.
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Post by lisatnp on Feb 7, 2024 11:17:04 GMT -5
i agree those are beautiful peppers. do you like the micro greens kit?( i didn't even know they had them)
i just used cheap trays from amazon when i grew some.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Feb 7, 2024 15:23:11 GMT -5
pfunnyjoy , do you by any chance have a gas range? If so, that may be the reason why your plants won't grow in the kitchen. Natural gas is anathema to houseplants, so turning the burners on and off may be releasing just enough gas to affect them. Nope, electric. The cilantro is continuing to have issues in my office. Leaf tips are darkening, curling, and drying. So, even though it's only two days since I rinse and refilled and moved them, I checked pH. And that was an eye-opener! It had risen back up to 8.0 without any interference! I'm not so sure about adjusting "in tank" but I just now added 0.6ml of pH Down and will see what happens in a half hour or so. Normally, I adjust the nutrient pH and any water I use for watering and things generally have been growing OK with the tomatoes, kale, and Italian dandelions (knock on wood). So I'm not sure what happened or why. Once it's back to 6.0, I'll trim the affected leaves and see if things go better. The office is not over-warm, because I closed the heating vent, so it's around 68-70. House thermostat is at 68F. I've moved my little garden thermometer over by the cilantro to see what it says. (It read 70F over by the old 6E+.)
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Feb 7, 2024 15:27:41 GMT -5
I'm getting my seed starter decks ready to start tomatoes, summer squash and cucumbers for my outdoor raised beds. So excited about that!!
My bell pepper plants are doing great; several peppers are about ready to be harvested.
This one was a "cull" from one of the pods in the first pic. This is why I hate tossing the little culls.
The peppers are gorgeous! When you harvest, do they have nice thick walls? It's been years since I did peppers in an Aerogarden, but mine always seemed to have thin walls.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Feb 7, 2024 15:34:25 GMT -5
I haven't given up trying to grow on my kitchen counter yet. The microgreens are germinating, hopefully those won't be problematical.
As I recall, lettuce was doing OK until the one month pH debacle that also took the first Tatsoi attempt on the kitchen counter. So I terminated the ailing parsley, sanitized the garden, and put four AG lettuce pods in (old style with lettuce varieties on the labels). Just water for the moment, pH adjusted to 6.0.
I think I want to see what happens with the pH for a few days with just water in the tank.
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Post by scarfguy on Feb 7, 2024 17:26:56 GMT -5
TODAY...
I ordered a DWC bucket.
My cantaloupes in the bounties at maturity have always been just about to the limit with regard to root space. I realized that the amount of root mass seems to be somewhat determined by the variety. I've now got 1 plant (a small french melon) that has way more roots than the other two. I think I'm severely hampering its growth. The 5 gallon size of a DWC bucket will certainly give them more room.
Does anybody have experience with DWC (Deep Water Culture)?
With DWC, you start your seeds in something else until they are fairly large seedlings. Specifically, I would like to know if I can start the seeds in an AG pod and simply transfer the whole plastic pod, sponge, label, and seedling directly to the DWC and pack the clay pellets around it.
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slw
AGA Bounty
Posts: 775
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Post by slw on Feb 7, 2024 17:30:25 GMT -5
Thanks everyone! I wish my poblanos looked as good as the bell peppers!!
lisatnp -- I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't tried the seed sprouting trays yet. Honestly I'm wondering why I bought them, lol. I'll probably end up giving them to one of my kids.
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slw
AGA Bounty
Posts: 775
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Post by slw on Feb 7, 2024 17:32:12 GMT -5
TODAY...
I ordered a DWC bucket.
My cantaloupes in the bounties at maturity have always been just about to the limit with regard to root space. I realized that the amount of root mass seems to be somewhat determined by the variety. I've now got 1 plant (a small french melon) that has way more roots than the other two. I think I'm severely hampering its growth. The 5 gallon size of a DWC bucket will certainly give them more room.
Does anybody have experience with DWC (Deep Water Culture)?
With DWC, you start your seeds in something else until they are fairly large seedlings. Specifically, I would like to know if I can start the seeds in an AG pod and simply transfer the whole plastic pod, sponge, label, and seedling directly to the DWC and pack the clay pellets around it.
I have no experience with DWC, but I use the AG pods in Kratky jars and they work great. Seems like it would work fine to me.
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slw
AGA Bounty
Posts: 775
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Post by slw on Feb 7, 2024 17:35:18 GMT -5
The peppers are gorgeous! When you harvest, do they have nice thick walls? It's been years since I did peppers in an Aerogarden, but mine always seemed to have thin walls. Joy, this is the first time I've grown this variety (AG pods) so I'm not sure what to expect. They are weighty, though. I have grown a different type of bell pepper and also the AG fajita peppers which were smaller but I don't recall them being thin walled. I should be harvesting at least one soon to see what it looks/tastes like.
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Post by lynnee on Feb 7, 2024 18:41:28 GMT -5
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Post by scarfguy on Feb 7, 2024 19:13:17 GMT -5
Thanks, lynnee! you always come through with good information!
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Feb 7, 2024 19:40:12 GMT -5
The peppers are gorgeous! When you harvest, do they have nice thick walls? It's been years since I did peppers in an Aerogarden, but mine always seemed to have thin walls. Joy, this is the first time I've grown this variety (AG pods) so I'm not sure what to expect. They are weighty, though. I have grown a different type of bell pepper and also the AG fajita peppers which were smaller but I don't recall them being thin walled. I should be harvesting at least one soon to see what it looks/tastes like. Weighty sounds like exactly what a bell pepper ought to be. I did (back in the day) the mini or maybe it was called baby bell pepper AG kit, and was not impressed. The pepper walls were on the thin side. They produced well enough, it's just that the eating part was less than satisfactory, because they weren't nice and heavy and juicy. At some point, I'd like to do a pepper again. However, I don't want to try with the old fluorescents, so I need to wait until I have another Bounty.
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pfunnyjoy
AGA Bounty
Made more grow room in my office!
Posts: 621
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Post by pfunnyjoy on Feb 7, 2024 19:43:56 GMT -5
Insofar as my pitiful cilantro is going, the 0.6ml of pH Down has done the trick, they are back at a reasonable pH of 6.0 this afternoon. I cut the damaged stuff off, and will see how it goes.
Meanwhile, I'm planning on a rinse and refill for the ground cherries. I don't like the look of the leaves and I think they have a nutrient deficiency of some sort going on.
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patlab
AGA Sprout
Gardening is cheaper than therapy…. And you get tomatoes!
Posts: 80
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Post by patlab on Feb 8, 2024 18:22:45 GMT -5
I’m starting a tray of bunching onion seeds in an old Harvest seed starter. I stuffed the pod baskets with coco coir and it amazingly stayed put because the baskets have narrow holes. We will see what happens after the deck sits in the base for a few days. If it works it will save a lot of money on purchasing replacement pods… I have 3 new seed starter kits.
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Post by lynnee on Feb 8, 2024 21:40:50 GMT -5
I’m starting a tray of bunching onion seeds in an old Harvest seed starter. I stuffed the pod baskets with coco coir and it amazingly stayed put because the baskets have narrow holes. We will see what happens after the deck sits in the base for a few days. If it works it will save a lot of money on purchasing replacement pods… I have 3 new seed starter kits. Have you experimented at all with removal of the cocoa coir and seedlings? The one thing I don't like about the AG seed starters (the newer plastic ones) is that it can be difficult to remove the sponges and seedlings when you're ready for planting. I had to insert something into the sponges to slide them out.
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Post by lynnee on Feb 8, 2024 21:45:17 GMT -5
Today I performed R&Rs (2 weeks late) on 3 Farms and 3 Bounties. That's 9 gallons of water to tote, just for refills.
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patlab
AGA Sprout
Gardening is cheaper than therapy…. And you get tomatoes!
Posts: 80
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Post by patlab on Feb 8, 2024 22:35:56 GMT -5
I’m starting a tray of bunching onion seeds in an old Harvest seed starter. I stuffed the pod baskets with coco coir and it amazingly stayed put because the baskets have narrow holes. We will see what happens after the deck sits in the base for a few days. If it works it will save a lot of money on purchasing replacement pods… I have 3 new seed starter kits. Have you experimented at all with removal of the cocoa coir and seedlings? The one thing I don't like about the AG seed starters (the newer plastic ones) is that it can be difficult to remove the sponges and seedlings when you're ready for planting. I had to insert something into the sponges to slide them out. No I haven’t. This is all new to me. I don’t think they will be hard to remove because the coir is not as compressed as sponges.
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Post by scarfguy on Feb 9, 2024 12:38:40 GMT -5
TODAY...
I ventured into the world of DWC (Deep Water Culture).
My cantaloupes have been growing in bounties so far. This round, three melons are fruiting but they are all getting very root bound. They are each maturing a single fruit while other pollinated flowers are not growing. My theory is that because of the root issues, they only have the energy to support the production of one fruit at a time.
SO... I'm trying one in a DWC bucket. Although they are billed as "5 gallon" buckets, they actually only hold 3.5 gallons of water. Which is still quite an improvement over a bounty. It has an external pump and provides both an air stone and drip irrigation.
I agonized when to do this. The plant was starting to get quite big and I didn't want to wait any longer cause I didn't know how much problems I would have getting it out of the bounty deck.
ON THE OTHERHAND... The young plant hasn't reached the size necessary to start producing tendrils so I'm struggling to support it until it starts grabbing the trellis netting.
So far, so good. We'll see if it dies over the next few days!
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