4 Week Update

General Hydroponics/Organics BioThrive Grow and Bloom

Healthy tomato leaves

First two heirloom red calabash tomatoes!

New basil plant :)

 Two new tomatoes, brandywine and red calabash

Some healthy roots

Drainage piping and algae, eek!

All the tomatoes 

The next three shots are in sequence:

WEEK 0 

WEEK 2

WEEK 4

(added more piping)

Or look at them side by side:

Week 0

Week 2

Week 4

This is about 6 days of growth of BioThrive Grow (probably 14-16 inches)

Tomatillos

Red okra coming up for the summer

This is chocolate mint and it is tasty!!

Little purple basil reaching for the sun

Keep checking for a review of general hydroponics biothrive bloom formula with some tomato bloom pictures.

Hydroponics vs Soil

In Early April, I bought a 6 pack of Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes. I planted 2 in my first home-made hydroponics system, and the rest in soil. Let's see how they are doing now.

SOIL: Pros: Shot up quicky and bloomed quickly Easy configuration, just plant in a large pot Cons: Doesn't seem to be growing much after a few weeks All potted tomatoes are growing at different rates - inconsistent
Hydroponics: Pros: Growing very quickly and consistently (once I found right nutrients) Controllable the nutrient flow Blooming like mad with Bloom nutrients Cons: Somewhat more expensive setup Figuring out configuration that works can be a bit time-consuming

Head to Head Comparison
Media	Soil	Hydroponics
Number of major stocks	2	8
Number of bloom/tomato clusters	5	18+
leaf quality	thin, yellowish light green	thick, healthy, and a deeper green
Other Notes: Soil plant seems to be more susceptible to bug attacks than the hydroponic plant. This may be because healthy plants tend to resist bugs and diseases on their own. Soil plant was outgrowing the hydroponic plant until I applied General Organics BioThrive Grow nutrient, in which case the hydroponic plant shot up faster than a weed. Verdict: I'd say the hydroponically grown cherry tomato plant is the clear winner. It's about 4-5 times the overall size, and is producing about 4 times as many tomatoes. Setting up the hydroponic system is more cumbersome, but so far it has been worth it. My recommendation is to build a circulating hydroponics system that supports many plants to make the effort a worthwhile investment.