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applestar
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Applestar’s 2019-2020 Winter Indoor Garden

OK. We had low of 29°F overnight — with DDs’ help yesterday, most of my container collection have been migrated inside for the “winter”. Only ones still outside are zone-borderline/large trees/plants that I need them to go dormant so I can put them in the unheated Garage “Siberia” — Figs and pomegranates, Lemon Verbena — pushed together by the garage door where it’s too dark for proper photosynthesis. They will get extra “insulation" of flattened appliance-size cardboard boxes and fleece blankets in the depth of the winter.

Most of them are pictured in the collage (few small plants added to the Winter Paradise shelves and the previously photo’d Garage V8 Nursery were omitted today). I also gave up on the idea of digging up and overwintering the eggplants since they were even harder to overwinter than tomatoes in my prior experience. I will concentrate on the few tomato plants I have started in the Garage V8 — some are struggling already and may not make it.

Image


While relocating the container figs to a sheltered spot, we discovered this egg-heavy female (I think?) Carolina Praying Mantis on one of them. DD1 concluded that it can lay her eggs on the blackberry canes among which the figs will be nestled until they are moved into the garage.

Image


...I had to uppot the Turmeric and still needed to remove/harvest these fingers. Also picked up some Trifoliate Orange ‘Flying Dragon’ fruits and last of the blushed tomatoes... and one of the ripe Aji Dulce Amarillo got knocked off the plant.

Image

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How do the trifoliate oranges taste? We use Henaran trifoliate orange only for root stock. It is a slow grower and does not taste very good.

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applestar
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It’s can be puckeringly astringent from significant resin in the peel, making the cutting tool sticky and useless until cleaned off.

But if you can cut just the circumference of the fruit without cutting through and introducing the resin into the interior, then it’s possible to carefully juice them while avoiding approximately 25-30 seeds. I’ve frozen this lemon-like juice in recycled frozen herb cube tray — approx. 1cm/1g cubes — and used for flavoring tea.

I have also made whole fruits "tinctured" in white vinegar for cleaning the floor and bathroom, and in apple cider vinegar with ginger stems and leaves for hair rinse, and in unscented liquid Castile soap for the kitchen sink soap dispenser.


I am trying to get organized enough to grow some seeds for citrus rootstock. Flying dragon is a natural dwarf — only about 6 ft tall at maturity, and confers dwarfing and cold hardiness. I don’t have any citrus worthy of grafting so far, so it’s been a back-burner project. I do have one seedling growing in a pot and another one recently volunteered in the VGA bed. :()

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applestar
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I spent the day “communing” with the container plants. I’m misting them with willow leaf and stick “infusion”. I would sit under the canopy of taller plants and am reminded how I enjoy having these plants in the house during the short days.

I could really meditate— maybe more oxygen?

I also spent some time pruning and training the branches of some of them.

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TomatoNut95
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I know what you mean. If I had a large, sunny indoor room full of plants.....you'd NEVER see me again! I will have probably turned green and blended in... :lol:

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Please excuse the mess. I have very limited amount of room whittled out of the garage for my V8 Nursery, and, today, we just stuffed any handy space with things brought indoors ahead of the expected 23°F hard freeze at dawn (which has already arrived — the temp not the sun) Consequently, things have been moved around willy-nilly to just fit them inside ....

Image
I now have two buckets of water and saved goldfish — a beginning of my aquaponics experiment — the two buckets have been linked with a siphoned tubing, and I moved my little airlift rig and drain tubings from the 1/2 gallon juice bottle to one of the buckets. The goldfish don’t have to have dedicated aeration (they didn’t out there in the summer), but the air-lifted water should benefit the them as well.

As soon as I can, I’ll fit the plant trays in the 2 Garage V8 shelves with drain holes and lines to link them together so they can be flood-gravity drained to the siphon drained tray, then switch the air pump to a somewhat larger volume one than the tiny one being used now :-()

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applestar
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I let myself get too chilled on Friday and can’t shake feeling cold all the time. I couldn’t work in the garage, so I have been tinkering with the 2nd aquaponic/flood and drain experiment set up for the "Winter Paradise" shelves. Can you spot the first Winter Indoor Tomato to set fruit among the collage photos? :wink:
^^tap/click for full view^^
^^tap/click for full view^^
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...After making various adjustments, the little 33ml vial fills up in 12 minutes, which is still too slow. So I still have more tinkering to do, but whatever design improvements I come up with for this system can be duplicated for the Garage V8 and vice versa, though the Garage V8 Nursery currently has the advantage of deeper bucket reservoirs and higher volume air pump which already increases the airlift pump performance.

I need to find my other higher volume aquarium air pump. I’m still trying to decide if the using pond air pump (which has been taken off for winterizing the pond) indoors during the winter would be an overkill.....

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I see it. Top row, 2nd picture from the left.

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TomatoNut95
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I see it to! :) What variety is that, and am I seeing things or is that an orchid in the top right picture? Don't you get too cold now, @applestar! Whenever I go out in temps under 50's I layer myself in clothing as needed. Even if I must wear a jacket over a jacket over a sweatshirt. Even sweatpants over sweatpants. Even two pairs of socks! Including scarf and gloves.

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applestar
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LOL — yep layering is the key Image

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applestar
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I lost one this summer, but I still have 3 orchid plants. One is here because it hasn’t sent up a flowerstalk yet... the other two are in the Family Room Winter Wonderland (I should take a new pic — yellow one is starting to bloom)

...here’s the latest Winter Paradise setup after more tinkering — (sorry about the annoying shift ... not sure how to fix that)
^^^ click/tap for the full view ^^^
^^^ click/tap for the full view ^^^
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TomatoNut95
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What kind of tomato is that? Have you ever tried growing Sub-Arctic Plenty (or World's Earliest). Baker Creek has it, and it claims to be able to produce in lower temperatures than most varieties.

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applestar
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That’s my Shimofuri — though these aren’t showing that much variegation, there are some on some of the leaves. These are from the one plant that seemed to be showing shorter internodes and tendency to droop rather than try to grow upright. The curled leaves are also typical of a heart-shaped fruited varieties.

I’ve heard of subarctic plenty but flavor reviews aren’t that great. Try Bloody Butcher or Manö or oh what was the other one ? ...something Cabin? Nope — Beaverlodge Slicer.

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Lol, I've never heard of those varieties. Bloody Butcher rings a bell, but I'd want to change that name....

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So, I realized that by adding the tiny under-powered fountain pump in the Winter Paradise system — and we are talking teeny tiny — I believe this was the pump that originally came with a pet waterer recirculating, charcoal filtered fountain (it can only lift maybe 6 inches in a 3/8” tubing), it was suddenly vitalized in combination with the airlift pump injection from the equality teeny tiny air pump (originally came with a bubblegum machine design goldfish aquarium) to bubble the water up to the top shelf. I still haven’t established exactly how quickly the whole system cycles, but current bottleneck is in the siphoned water-level equalization from the 2nd tub to the 3rd/last tub and the siphoned drain back to the water reservoir.


I took the concept and adapted it to the Garage V8 Nursery with a small fountain pump rated for 3ft lift in 1/2” ID tubing since yesterday’s attempt to get the aquarium pump to airlift the water up to the upper shelf in the 1/2” tubing did not work....

Bwahahaha! This thing is now cycling so fast I almost didn’t get the last drain siphon assembled in time, and the main drain back to the water reservoir buckets had to be upgraded with extra inlets since it couldn’t keep up with all the water being pumped. I tried setting up the timer for 2 hr on-off cycle, but reduced the interval to 1 hr. I’ll find out if that will work out tomorrow. (I got too cold in the 45°F garage since I thought I didn’t need a jacket....) I left the system fully drained with the drain siphons working from all trays (I think) so I don’t think I will find a flooded garage in the morning....


(I’m thinking I might apply this concept to my pond project in spring.... I had been stuck trying to figure out how to upgrade the airlift pump for the waterfall. The beauty of it all is that you don’t need a whole lot of power — just a little bit of water pump action to boost the airlift by creating momentum 8) )

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applestar
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By on-off interval, I meant on for 1 hour then off. But with this 24 hour timer at current setting, it will run twice a day. It’s possible to set it to run once a day, but ideally, the flood will occur every 3 or 4 days since this is not an actual aqua/hydro system — it’s automated irrigation with goldfish inhabited water reservoir. I intend to expand on this next year in the outside garden (Patio Kitchen Garden, maybe Apple Guild (summer vaca container) Garden, too) with the pond and rainbarrels as the reservoir — a subset of my back burner project.

Now that the Garage V8 system is working on overdrive, I’ll probably put a better timer on it that can handle 7 week schedules. I have one on the one inside (not currently being utilized yet), but it’s only a 2-prong and can’t support the heavier duty fountain pump.

For now, I can just turn it on manually — I have to do that anyway until I can fully time how long it takes for all of the trays to fill and the whole thing to drain.


...I was thinking... that the water is super aerated since the air is pumped into the main water tube to create the lift/pump effect and air is also sucked into the tubes during the siphoned draining. So only plants that actually don’t like too much water should be negatively affected. I don’t think anaerobic soil and root rot conditions will be present.

I suppose it’s possible the plants might try to grow water roots in response, though,

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TomatoNut95
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Here's my indoor 'garden', ha-ha! It just opened this morning.
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applestar
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It’s a darling! :D

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Was tinkering all day since I had some lightbulb moments yesterday :-()

Here is the new look for the 2 Shimofuri Winter Indoor Tomatoes — I was too pre-occupied to take photos during the build, but what I did was
- divided the tub front and back,
- filled the front with last of my hydrotron and some aquarium gravel.
- I cut 2 rectangular juice bottles in half and cut holes all over them, then laid the 4 halves, cut side down in the back part of the tub (on top of the egg crate panel),
- then transplanted the two tomato plants, adding Dolomitic lime and Citrus-tone to the fresh organic potting mix (I think this is Gardener’s Gold mix)

The design should act like SIP with air space maintained by the half bottles, and the gravel.hydroton section should keep the tubing from clogging up, as well as act like a gravel bio-filter.
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* I ran a cycle and the siphon drains have activated without help from me.

* Since the one reservoir was nearly pumped completely out during a cycle before, I added a second tub, and that 1/2 inch pvc rig is supposed to be keeping the water levels even. The turkey baster lets me activate the siphon if it fails (I’ve been using this design for almost all of the siphon drains using plastic pipets.)

* For good measure, I introduced some (about 1/2 doz) wormyworms from the garage vermicomposter — the organic potting mix+fertilizer should be enough to keep them happy for a while, and if there IS any root decay going on, they can take care of it. Plus they will add good microbes in addition to what is already in the potting mix.

Close-up photos of green fruits and developing variegation in the leaves
Image
Last edited by applestar on Fri Nov 15, 2019 6:39 am, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: JUST HAD TO add some more details and thought it would be better to edit this than as separate post.....

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TomatoNut95
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Wow! Great job there, @applestar! I don't get very many 'lightbulb moments', lol! I see the fishey swimming about, which reminds me, how is Frwoggy? :)

I love that Shimofuri! I only hope those expensive variegated tomato seeds I bought this year will be as beautifully splashed!

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applestar
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DD caught two of the goldfish we brought inside to keep in the Garage V8 reservoir buckets so I could put them in the WinterParadise reservoir tub. I also took this opportunity to put Marimo in the tub with them to hopefully derive benefit from the oxygenated moving water (and not get eaten by the goldfish....), and released Fwoggy in the Winter Paradise Penthouse orchid.

At first Fwoggy didn’t want to come out of the vase and dove into the water ... and held onto the anacharis ... to keep from being taken out....so I ended up taking Marimo and anacharis out FIRST :lol:

Image

Once the vase was half empty of water and the obscuring vegetation, DD caught It easily and released in the orchid pot. :wink:
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applestar
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On 2nd thought, I don’t think that’s an anacharis — it’s probably Coontail
:arrow: FS1236: Coontail (Cerstophyllum demersum), a Native Aquatic Plant of New Jersey Waterways (Rutgers NJAES)
https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1236/

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applestar
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Did you see Fwoggy jumping at - and lapping up - the rollypolly that was wandering around on a orchid root? :twisted:

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Lol, he is precious! Sounds like you had him spoiled in his habitat! :lol:

Rollypolly is the term my kid cousin used to call those insects. I call them Pill Bugs, but isn't the right name Sowbug? Do they really eat plants? I though they ate dirt, or nasty stuff?

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Sowbugs/wood louse and rollypollies/pill bugs are cousins — sowbugs don’t roll up. There is a spider that specializes in eating both kinds that we have here. It’s sort of pink and soft-looking and always gives me a pause, then I remember.

Sowbug Killer Spider
https://www.insectidentification.org/in ... ler-Spider

Those are detritus eaters but they will eat spoilage started by slugs, etc. and won’t necessarily discriminate between soft/mushy parts, making what was just a scrape or tiny hole worse and turning into big gaping rotting holes in leaves, roots, fruits.

I sometimes find them rolled up in holes in strawberries and tomatoes.

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TomatoNut95
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Ick, what a creepy spider! Hope I don't get nightmares.....most spiders scare me.

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Well where you live there ARE some scary ones. Here maybe one or two species are only concern.

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The only two poisonous spiders I've come across are Black Widows and the Brown Recluse. The Brown Recluse will pop up in the house and it scares me to death to find one unexpectedly resting on the walls.

My Aunt told many years ago that the Daddy Long Legs was poisonous, it's just that their fangs were not strong enough to penetrate human skin. I don't really believe her. I don't even know if the Daddy Long Legs is even an arachnid. All I know is that they are VERY easy to find in my backyard, they're cute, and they drown in my rainbuckets a lot. They're definitely not aggressive, they drop and run if you so much as blow on them. And if need be I pick them up and move them out of the way. They don't form webs, but on rare occasions I'll find several DLLs wadded up together up in a corner. With all those long, thin legs they look like a clump of hair, LOL!

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I really shouldn’t be watering them every day, but I tested both the Winter Paradise and the Garage V8 systems again today. All the trays "flooded" (filled until the siphon drains kicked in or were activated), then all the trays drained, and the double reservoirs maintained equilibrium via their siphon connection. Yay. So simple but very satisfying that they work. :)

The only issue was that the Garage V8 siphon drains did not activate on their own — it's possible I was too impatient and didn’t wait long enough, but it’s also possible that the overnight cold temps caused the plastic components to contract, pressure/slip-fitted connections to fail, and they lost air-tight pressure/suction/vacuum.

... it occurred to me that I might actually try aquaponixing using raft in the reservoir or net pots in the gravel substrate supported by holes in the lids In the front section of the tomato tub. So I checked on the spinach seeds I had been trying to pre-germinate In the refrigerator, and these 5 had pale sprouts/seed leaves already. I’m going to see if they green up under the lights and grow water roots.

- if those spinach seedlings don’t work out, maybe I could make use of these Tokyo Bekana and lettuce seedlings
Image
- trying 3 different siphon connections for the Garage V8 reservoir buckets...

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The spinach seedlings are greening up. I should find out if they are even suitable for hydro-culture....
Image

~~~

As per learned experience from previous years, I went ahead and ordered predatory mites to start eliminating any hitchhiker pest mites that came inside with the container plants BEFORE the steadily falling indoor humidity and general stress create ideal conditions for a pandemic. Usually I buy from one of two west coast outfits that sell them on Amazon, and buy a mixed species in as large quantities as I can afford, but this year, I ordered from Arbico, which is generally more expensive. But they have been sending email newsletters and promotion notices, and they have a very comprehensive informational website.

I picked a single species this time — Neoseiulus (= Amblyseius) californicus — since my indoor conditions seem to suit this one the best, and it’s possible that the other species in the mixed batches did not really thrive. The package was securely shipped in what I would call a medical supply mini cooler — pretty impressive compared to previous shipments from the other places (a small vial in a bubble envelope), and they came in a larger container even though the actual number of predatory mites were less. I suppose that means more carrier materials for possibly more widely distributed release, and possibly better/less stressful shipping conditions for the mites.

Image
... there have been some signs that there are already pest mites at work, so they should have plenty to eat and recover from their trip.... I scattered extra all over the Shimofuri tomatoes because a I’ve been wondering if I seeing some russetting near the base of the plants (this is how it usually starts... I *think* I’m seeing russetting ... those stems looks kind of powdery and not as green/fresh as they should be ... are there really mites? I wonder if I should do something about it ... and couple weeks later and next thing you’ll see is the entire plant powdery and russetted and the growing tips and side buds are already overwhelmed)

...the aquaponics experiments going on should help with maintaining the indoor humidity in the “green” for a while...

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Lol, what cute little newborn Spinach! Too bad I can't grow it either. Question: what kind of heater are you using in your V8 indoor garden? I'm in the market for a new heater for my greenhouse next year, and just wondered what kind you use? I'd definitely want one of high quality, because I don't want to feel afraid of it sparking, flaming up and burning my greenhouse and house down, and I'd be suing the heater company. The heaters I've used over the years were small indoor room heaters by Pelonis. Thing is, the store I used to get them from quit carrying them.

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V8 Nursery hugging the insulated inner wall in the unheated, semi-insulated, attached 2-car garage isn’t heated unless in the absolute depth of winter when outside temp drops to single or negative single digits and nor’easter blows constantly, dragging the garage temp down to below mid-20’s (late December to mid-January).

Tend to block open passage to the garage doors, and cover the V8 nursery set up with plastic sheeting first. I leave the lights on 24/7 for limited local temperature protection from the lights/electricals.

When absolutely iffy — low-20’s inevitable, I turn on a ceramic space heater with serious misgivings. By this time, only plants in the garage are ones that are left to live or die. I’ve lost many plants, but have learned that the dormant figs seem to be able to survive by the garage doors and lemon verbena can also handle the unprotected location. Strawberries are OK. Tomatoes and most peppers left in the garage past this period have not survived.


This year, my plan is to put an aquarium heater in one of the reservoir buckets with the pump in it, and see how long the system can keep going.


...the outlets in the garage are GFCI.


...eta... fwiw — the heater I’m using is an older model edenpure infrared space saver that was demoted from in-house use since newer remote controlled unit superseded it.

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applestar
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TomatoNut95 wrote:Lol, what cute little newborn Spinach! Too bad I can't grow it either.
As for the spinach — I haven’t been able to grow them either. It’s one of my hard-to-grow Veg — every year I try in spring and fall and either have nothing come up or maybe 2 or 3 out of all the seeds I sowed that grow into actual plants, then maybe get to harvest some baby greens and have them either fail or bolt.

That’s why I try new/different methods. :D

- I do know they grow best when it’s cold — colder than I'm comfortable.
- The 2 or 3 spinach seedlings/plants overwintered well in the Garage V8 last year and I harvested some over the winter.
- They do not overwinter well here outside so far, even the hardier varieties meant for winter growing — maybe with better protection, it will be a different story. I do think it’s important to differentiate between warm-weather bolt resistant varieties and cold-weather frost.freeze resistant varieties, and plant them at appropriate times of the year.
- Something — probably slugs — REALLY like the baby seedlings and I lose a lot of them when direct sown outside
- But even before that, I have had a hard time getting them to germinate/sprout in early spring and especially for fall. — So I’m really encouraged by this latest successful trial of pre-germinating in the refrigerator.
Image
...old Giant Winter Spinach seeds marked as 9/1/15 by Fedco and packed for 2016 season. Soaked with paper napkin-lined condiment cup and then put in top door shelf of fridge on 10/21. Assuming it took 3 weeks to germinate/sprout, which is typical for outdoor sowing. >> I should be able to expect high percentage germination with fresh seeds <<

This morning, I noticed the little seedlings have grown roots into the water and are peeking above the rim of the cup.
Image
...I need to decide how to proceed — raft in the reservoir or cut a hole in the tomato tub lid and let the roots grow into the front gravel. I recently saw a video in which they said tomatoes grow best in gravel/hydrotron substrate rather than any of the watery syndrome methods.... I wonder what spinach likes? Is it like any other leafy greens and will do well with watery methods?

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TomatoNut95
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I guess I'll never understand hydrponics. I prefer planting my stuff in dirt. Knowing me, my stuff would die no matter where I planted it...

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Apple, I have never been able too grow spinach outside, either, spring or fall. I think is has something to do with the highly unpredictable temps we have here - both above and below average. Most of the Asian greens do much better for me.

I have something new in the hydroponics this year - Japanese Spinach. Any experience with this? It's another that did not do well for me outside. It is sort of leggy inside, but probably because of the shade from the lettuce.

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I grew “Japanese Spinach” called ‘Sharaku’ in 2015 as winter indoor crop. The seeds were round mustard type and not real spinach. There are other Japanese Spinach that are true spinach though.
Subject: 2014-15 Winter Indoor Tomatoes... + sugar snaps and cucumber
March 18, 2015
applestar wrote:A little update on those Winter Indoor Sugar Sprint snap peas:

TOP LEFT: Peas in ice cream tub was ousted to the garage to make room in the warmer indoor location.
TOP RIGHT: New plants in the OJ container extension for Utyonok tomato are starting to bloom.

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BOTTOM RIGHT: Peas planted in the same container after Tatjana tomayo went down has fully mature(and probably starchy) peas. DD likes the peas more than the pods and prefers to let them mature. Tatjana grew a new vine from the stump and even fruited, but it's been overwhelmed by the TRM again.

BOTTOM LEFT: The peas in the KFC containers are pretty much done, but the Solstice broccoli and Japanise Sharaku "spinach" I planted are growing wild. I'm not expecting the broccoli to form heads under the limited condition, so I have been harvesting and eating the leaves when they get too close to the lights as they are now. Next year, I think will plant Kale and maybe spinach instead.

pepperhead212
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The Japanese spinach I got was from Renee's, and they were definitely spinach type seeds - I was wondering if it was going to be something else, too.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Uppotted the 3rd/last Shimofuri in two 1/2-gal rice milk cartons with bottoms cut off and overlapped/connected end-to-end —> effectively a one-gallon container. This one will be aggressively pruned and will be in the last tub in the Winter Paradise series, which has a siphon drain that readily activates to maintain approx. 1/2 inch depth and drains dry between cycles.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Update view of the Winter Paradise interior shelves —

- when I tried to remove the predatory mite container which I had left on its side, I could see there were still many more mites crawling around in the inside of the back-lit bottle, so I tried setting the bottle over a leaf inside to encourage them to transfer
- separated and uppotted the two Aztek micro-dwarf tomato plants from the shared 4” square pot to individual 1/2 gal milk cartons. I was hoping to try crossing them this winter, but the micro-dwarfs have been growing very slowly for some reason. Hopefully they will take off and bloom in time before Shimofuri plants are finished blooming.
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- Two Shimofuri in the tub are blooming and setting more fruits

...Arbico is doing free shipping promo this week — so I ordered 1500 ladybugs to patrol the Winter Indoor Garden. The aphids are already starting to show up on the peppers. :evil:

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TomatoNut95
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What breeds of micro-dwarfs do you have and are they heirlooms? I was really disappointed in my Micro Tom for having such bitter fruit flavor. But I had no idea there were other mucro-dwarfs out there.



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