Here's my home-made NFT balcony system. Currently have basil, pepper, cucumber, and tomato's just starting. Using a 500 GPH pump in the reservoir Basil Cucumber Tomato's The lot of em' High and gettin' creative
It's just a conventional hydro setup, got some hydroton the plants are in with a hose pumping water up top. Really looking forward to seeing how this experiment turns out, already have some nice roots at week 1. As far as nutes I got some liquid plant formula from Lowes; that way they're guaranteed a feed with watering.
I'll have some pictures up in a bit, started the babies on about 1/4 nutes (just miracle grow seedling/young plant formula). They responded immediately and have grown thicker and taller at a faster rate than previously. Plants are lookin' great Happy Growin' Y'all
As promised, here's the updates... Tomato's Peppers Tomato, had to prop up the smaller sprout, kept tryin to fall over on me Cucumbers, one on the right is very shallowly rooted and had to constantly be braced by pipe cleaners Pipe Cleaner Crutch on the Cucumber The other cucumber, crutched only to control growth direction (crutch under leaf) Basil really trying to explode Canopy split on this basil comments welcomed!!! Happy Growin' Y'all!
Update on the garden, still lovin' the nutes Basil The cucumbers, curious if the one of the right which was shallow rooted is experiencing a boost in growth because of the constant strive for stability? First sign of the pepper having any interest in being a real plant Tomato's Happy Growin' Y'all
says right in the title hes using NFT. btw what exactly is this "organic" hydroponic youre talking about? ive thought about trying this with compost tea, see how successful it would be in a drip system using coir. btw this looks pretty interesting, man. just hope those cucumbers dont get too big lol. those fuckers can get pretty wild. have you thought about training them to the roof over your balcony, so you can have some nice shade and the cucumbers just hang down for you to pick?
Yea man, thinking about letting them vine up something. Thought about some bamboo or some 2x4's tied to the railing depending on how big they are by then. Then we can hopefully have some cucmber's for the pickin' after a while
just tie up some garden twine to the highest point you have access to, and when theyre big enough, you can just wrap the string around them as they grow. what variety of everything are you growing?
I've thought about that as well, may end up doing that if they're not too heavy. What do you mean by what variety am I growing?
what varieties of each plant? variety = what people call "strains" which is just improper. you have different varieties of weed. or "cultivar" which is "cultivated variety". for example you got Beefsteak, Big Beef, Golden Queen tomatoes, Red Spanish onions, Spancross corn.. also dont worry about the cucumbers being too heavy. thats how its grown commercially in greenhouses. normally it goes straight up, not to the side, but i can tell you from experience the plants themselves are strong enough to take a lot of the weight off the string itself.
I got you on the plant variety; we have Roma Tomato's and the rest are just some random pack form Home Depot. And thanks for the info on the cucumbers, this is my first vegetable grow so any input would be great; I'll be sure to do that string method
missed half the thread but by "organic" hydro i was pretty sure one could buy "organic" bottled nutes at the store, and use them to replace conventional nutes also NFT from my understanding (which mind you is somewhat limited) is just the method of delivering the nutes and water, via a gutter-like setup as he has, this is like saying an ebb&flow system is only limited to one type oif growing ive never tried the whole compost tea idea though ive also thought about it, the best option ive seen for organically growing without soil is aquaponics because of the ease versus brewing a new batch of compost tea all the time i second string method, a LOT simpler than a lot of others man and probably cheaper too
[quote name='"oceansgreen"']missed half the thread but by "organic" hydro i was pretty sure one could buy "organic" bottled nutes at the store, and use them to replace conventional nutes also NFT from my understanding (which mind you is somewhat limited) is just the method of delivering the nutes and water, via a gutter-like setup as he has, this is like saying an ebb&flow system is only limited to one type oif growing ive never tried the whole compost tea idea though ive also thought about it, the best option ive seen for organically growing without soil is aquaponics because of the ease versus brewing a new batch of compost tea all the time i second string method, a LOT simpler than a lot of others man and probably cheaper too[/quote] Yea this is more of an experiment for now, in the future we may switch over to organic nutes for future plants. And thanks for lettin me know about the string method, lookin forward to gettin' them big
nip the cheaters off the indeterminate tomatoes(if thats what they are) to get them to grow up the string a lot better rather than bushing up much
[quote name='"oceansgreen"']nip the cheaters off the indeterminate tomatoes(if thats what they are) to get them to grow up the string a lot better rather than bushing up much[/quote] That's what I'm planning on doing. We had some troubles with then standing up when they were young because of wind and heat so we had to give them support. Once they get above the rail were gonna tie up some ropes
In one of your pics there is a sign that says "MISSION ****** Funeral Home" lol I was just wondering what its like and I figured it was your home since you had the garden.