Update: 1/12/16

Coming up into my second season with this system.  It has been amazing how well it has done so far.  I wish I had a greenhouse but here in Phoenix I managed to get through most of the grueling summer and only had to cover my system a few days this past winter.

While replanting at the end of summer I noticed that the Coco Coir does break down some.  I added about a 5 gallon buckets worth of Perlite back into the grow barrels.  And in the last new grow barrel, now up to number four, I didn't use any Coco Coir in it at all.  In stead I used a mix of Large Perlite and Clay balls.

Here are some pictures from this morning.  This should be coming out of our colder winter days and getting into our real growing season.  A few of the plants are looking a bit stressed but over all I think I have a good head start.  :-)

Into week three.

So since finding plants this time of the year in Phoenix is not so easy I decided to try restarting a couple of things from the produce area in the store.  The celery stock is finally showing a bit of new life (maybe) the center is starting to push up a bit and it looks like there is a bit of leafy growth in the center.  I think it has been going a couple of weeks now.

New from seed this past week are some Chinese Cabbage and some Pickling Cucumbers.  I went with the Pickling Cucumbers since the fruits are smaller so I am hoping that they will be easier to support.  Even though I have a nice trellis to train them to I am thinking that weight will be a big factor in successfully growing plants with this system. 

 

 It already looks like it is time to thin both of these plants.

I also cut another nice sized sprig off of the Rosemary last night to use with a pork roast I made for pulled pork sandwiches.  Yummy!  

The second of the plant I am trying to re-root is a Romaine Lettuce.  It is not doing as well to start with.  I had just bought the head and put it into the bottom pot on my stand (whole).  I probably should have cut the lettuce leaves back and used just the stock like I did with the celery.  But I was thinking that the lettuce might keep for a bit longer this way.  But it seems like without some roots already started the plant just wilts fairly fast.   So I did trim the leaves way back this morning but not all the way back.  Lets see if it will do better with less leaves to support.  

 The Philodendron cuttings that were the first plants I started with in my hydroponic experiment kept falling out of the top bowl as I worked on the system.  So I moved them down to bottom.  I am now seeing more roots finally starting to show on them now too.

Project wise: I built a shelf up under the systems so I would not need to move them to change the water.  I am using a siphon to empty the buckets so I wanted them up off the floor to make starting a siphon easier.  I also didn't want to move the system once plants start to climb onto the trellis.  

I also built a second system from my third gen ideas.  Still having a bit of problems with the air pump chamber but I think I have it worked out now.  Also I cracked two of the bowls trying to drill through them this time.  I need to be more careful I guess.  I will need to replace at least one of them now.  I also want to get four three inch net pots to put into the lid of this system.  I added a six by five inch rectangular basket on the first one.

Hopefully I will be writing up instructions to build this system here shortly.  I took lots of pictures with this second build.

Found a Rosemary plant.

While I was out and about last weekend I stopped in at Whitfield Nursery to look and see what veggies might be had.  They said it was much to hot out for them to carry much but I did find some Rosemary.  This is a trailing type that should do well in the hydro system.  But I will need to keep it trimmed back.  This is the same type of Rosemary that I had on the pool equipment planter wall at the old house.  It cascaded from the top of the four foot wall all the way to the ground.  

I did actually take a bit of it to put into some chicken and dumplings last night. Yum!

#plants #rosemary #hydroponic #hg