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.

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: 

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.