hydroponic Hydroponics and Tomato Cages?

theboogeyman · May 22, 2017

Hi all,

Long time lurker and first time poster. As you'll see in the pics below, I'm trying to grow a dozen or so plants in my hydro setup in my basement. I've jerry-rigged 5 gallon buckets with 6" Net pots and clay pellets, intending to find something further down the line (such as a tomato cage) to stabilize the plant. That's when I ran into my first problem with the plants:

Namely, they exploded.

The Pepperoncini, Poblano, and Jalapeno M on the right side of the pictures grew so fast that I never had a chance to attach something to stabilize them (apparently this hydroponics thing really works). The Pepperoncini has probably thirty or more pods on it, and the Poblano has a bunch of tiny pods developing already...I'm beginning to worry about the weight and the plant falling over.

The question I have for all of you is to let things go, or to butcher the plants and attach the cages, with the hope of them regrowing and catching back up. I really hate to hack up the plants as they're just starting to produce, but then again this is going to be a year round grow, and I'm hoping that they'll survive and flourish.

What say you?

And just for giggles, the smaller plants coming in the pipeline, and my Omar's Lebanese that are about to go outside:

Now if I could only get any of my superhots to pop/live long enough to be a plant.... :banghead:

The_NorthEast_ChileMan · May 22, 2017

`

`The only thing I can think of is wrapping the bucket in Steel Poultry Netting leaving the "curl" of the fence (Don't flatten it when cutting.) to naturally encircle the plant.

`

theboogeyman · May 22, 2017

Thanks for the welcome NE Chileman....it's an idea I'll have to explore. Only problem being the plants are already twice the diameter of the buckets lol. I had a dwarf tomato plant grow six inches over night last night. For a cheapo setup, it sure does seem to be growin' some plants!

U)<now · May 22, 2017

If they are soft/flexible enough still, you could wrap a rope around them about half way down or so, slowly tighten it to pull all the branches up and together, then slide the cage over, and release the rope.

solid7 · May 22, 2017

I used to do my DWC plants with tomato cages. Just drill holes radially spaced in the net pot lid, and insert the wires of your cages. Might take a little bending, but that's really not a problem.
.
If you really want to get them into a cage without damaging them, the best bet is going to be to wrap a towel around them, until you get the diameter reduced to sufficiently fit inside the cage. Will it do some damage? Most likely. If your plants are growing fast, though, what's the better option? (letting them continue to grow unsupported, out of control, or break a little, and let it grow back)

theboogeyman · May 22, 2017

Hmmmm....I guess there's my answer then. Wrap it somehow and try to get it into the cage. The DWC + Tomato cage is exactly what I was thinking. While I'm at it, I think I'm gonna drill some holes in the lid for rubber stoppers, and hopefully I'll be able to test PH and PPM that way. Thanks for the answers, guys.

solid7 · May 22, 2017

theboogeyman said:
Hmmmm....I guess there's my answer then. Wrap it somehow and try to get it into the cage. The DWC + Tomato cage is exactly what I was thinking. While I'm at it, I think I'm gonna drill some holes in the lid for rubber stoppers, and hopefully I'll be able to test PH and PPM that way. Thanks for the answers, guys.

You may want to coat the metal wires inside the bucket, though... You don't want any type of corrosion that contaminates your solution. (galvanic corrosion) Or just buy the ones that are powder coated.

theboogeyman · May 23, 2017

solid7 said:
You may want to coat the metal wires inside the bucket, though... You don't want any type of corrosion that contaminates your solution. (galvanic corrosion) Or just buy the ones that are powder coated.

Out of curiosity, other than drilling holes in the lid, what method did you use to secure the cage to the bucket?

solid7 · May 23, 2017

theboogeyman said:
Out of curiosity, other than drilling holes in the lid, what method did you use to secure the cage to the bucket?

Some I did, some I didn't. On some of them, I just secured the cage to a fence post or other support with bailing twine. On the ones that were free standing, I used shorter cages, and shortened the legs of the cage, so that the first loop bottomed out on top of the net pot. In doing this,, I was able to drill supplementary holes, through which I could run zip ties.
.
Do you understand what I'm saying by all of that? (because I'm not sure if I still have pics)
.
I will warn you, though... You definitely want to think about supporting that cage. One day, I came home and found 3 tomato plants at the bottom of my pool. 2 died, and one went on to be my best producer of the season. But that's not a typical result.

theboogeyman · May 23, 2017

solid7 said:
On the ones that were free standing, I used shorter cages, and shortened the legs of the cage, so that the first loop bottomed out on top of the net pot. In doing this,, I was able to drill supplementary holes, through which I could run zip ties.
.

Yeah, makes perfect sense...wondering why I didn't think of that lol :doh:

Thanks for the info. Now to get it done without killing my plants.....