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.

Review: General Hydroponics [Organics] BioThrive Vegan Plant Food

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try out General Organics (same as General Hydroponics) BioThrive Grow plant food. The results were absolutely amazing! The price was about $18.50 after tax from Texas Hydroponics so I recommend buying online from amazon at $12/litter. The growth results I saw after adding BioThrive convinced me to try out some of GH's other plant foods. A review of BioThrive Bloom will be coming soon. The nutrient contains only 2% non-plant foods so you know that you are getting a great value for your buck. I highly recommend BioThrive Grow to anyone that is just starting out in hydroponics and wants to get a good feel for how things should work. For the price, you can't beat it.
Feeding Schedule is provided on GH's website: http://www.generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/feeding_charts/GO_MYSF-FeedChart.pdf

This is the same tomato plant after 2 weeks:

(Red Calabash) 

This is the same cherry tomato after 2 weeks: 

Here are some of the tomatoes currently ripening:

 

The same angle shot after 2 weeks on BioThrive Nutrient: 

2 Week Update

It's been a while but I have a 2 week update from the last photos. There are some MAJOR improvements on all of the tomato plants.

 

Some new plants :)

Zucchini!

Sometimes I toss leaves on the surface to shade the soil so 

the transplant can adjust to it's new environment without drying out. 

Strawberries!

I planted these in some large cat litter containers with mostly leaves and grass clippings on the bottom and a top layer of worm castings from Earths Outlet and some kitchen scraps that I composted last year. I use this mixture because I am too cheap to buy potting soil for all the pots I put together. The majority of the mix (leaves) are free because I drove around the neighborhood and pick up loads of bagged leaves off the curbside from people cleaning their lawns. The compost on top allow the plant to settle in to it's new environment easily and the worm castings provide the right microbes to decompose all of the leaves and scraps in the lower section of the pot. Provided there are plenty of drainage holes in the bottom, earthworms will find their way into the pot and breakdown the leaves into basic nutrients for the growing plant to utilize.

Added more buckets + major changes

Photos from 04/08/2010.. will update with new photos and new tomato growth soon!

Top View

Water is pumped into lines that drip onto plants.

Top View

PVC pipe from pump loops in a circle to maximize water pressure for even drip.

Return Lines

 Water drips into bucket, fills up to the exit port height, and excess drains back into reservoir.

To do this - Drill hole in bucket, install a rubber grommet, insert plastic barbed hose fitting into grommet and connect return hose to the return line. I used 1/2" threaded barbed hoses tees that screw into a threaded PVC fitting that pours into the return reservoir (below).

Return Reservoir

Recirculated water drips into first reservoir and filtered before it flows into reservoir that contains the water pump.

Young Tomato Plants

photos taken 04/08/2010

First Red Calabash (heirloom)

A heirloom variety from Seeds of Change

First Red Calabash (heirloom)

top view

First Red Calabash (heirloom)

BrandyWine

Also a heirloom variety from Seeds of Change

Purple Basil

 

Cherry Tomatos

Cherry Tomato Plant

Start of my hydroponics tomato garden

I've constructed a hydroponic system that i will be growing tomatoes in this summer. So far I have seven systems with 14 tomato plants. Soon I'll have 30 or more systems with 60 or more plants.

It starts with the pump, that supplies water to a drip irrigation system. The water drips into a dried clay-ball medium that houses the tomato plants. The water runs past the roots and into the bottom of the bucket, then flows back into the reservoir with the water pump. This system is superior to using soil because you can conserve much more water. Each plant may use a total of 1/2 gallon per month, much less than watering soil ever other day in the hot dry summer. The roots are always aerated because the water is constantly dripping and the clay balls are formulated promote a healthy environment for the roots. Nutrition is conserved because there is no run-off loss.You can also monitor the PH balance and nutrition level and adjust accordingly. I am using pure worm castings mixed in the water to have a completely organic system. I may mix in bat guano later on. I built a horizontal chain link fence that the tomatoes will grow into and will hang onto when the fruit weighs them down.

The system uses 20 watts of electricity for 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off in the peak of the day and then less often over night.
Probably 5-10 gallons of water per month.
Probably just several handfulls of worm castings or compost per month.