Recent content by spicy.curry

Tomato plants grew above the height of the shelf and above the lights. They had outgrown the solo cups and were top heavy. Plants are about 2 feet tall. I did some re-potting into grow bags and slightly larger small plastic pots. Last frost date is April 23 here. A bit annoying to repot this...

The problem with using the word “chili” or “chilli” is that chili is a beef dish. Pepper isn’t a perfect description either, as it could also refer to the unrelated black pepper. Capsicum sounds too scientific for casual use. The fruits from the most common types can just be refered to by...

Plants are looking reasonably good. I think the UV-B light may be helping.

I set up a fluorescent UV-B lamp tonight. Tested the placement with a normal bulb before placing the UV-B bulb in the fixture. Starting with 15 minutes per day for the weekend then will increase further next week. Bulb isn’t very close so hopefully nothing gets sunburned.

A few of the tomato plants are looking less healthy this week. Growth has slowed, leaves are looking bad and some lower leaves are dropping. Peppers and basil look perfectly healthy still and are growing appropriately. I think this is probably the same condition that I have struggled with the...

I don’t see Early Jalapeno discussed much, but it seems to be the standard to which the commercial hybrid peppers are compared. I plan to try growing it eventually.

Tomato seedlings are looking good. I started some culantro seeds yesterday.

Set up new plant saucer today that drains into a pipe. Now I can water with hydroponic solution and have the excess drain away. If I ever do another winter grow, I could set up a recirculating system with a pump from a reservoir in the bottom. I may order a second saucer.

Tomato seedlings all sprouted. Most look good. The brandywine seedling does not look healthy. I’m thinking maybe it got too much light but not sure. When seedlings look unhealthy, I always worry that it might be a virus or fungus that could spread to the other plants. Sometimes I throw them...

My grow light had two thirds of the led bulbs burnt out and I noticed eventually. It was one of those red and blue led fixtures that are painful to look at, so usually I turn it off before entering the grow tent. Not sure how long it was partially burnt out. I bought a couple of grow lights...

What numbers are recommended if using a light meter?

Usually the grow lights come with instructions regarding distance to plants and coverage area. I use that as my starting point. I’m interested in trying one of those light intensity PAR meters in an attempt to be more precise.

I like sweet slicing tomatoes that aren’t too watery. I wasn’t impressed by Cherokee Purple or Kellogg’s Breakfast tomatoes last year. Both were a little soft and watery. Cherokee Purple was good, but only mildly sweet, and didn’t really stand out. Kellogg’s Breakfast was sweet, but not as...

I started my tomato seeds 2-29-2024. This is my third year growing tomatoes. Last year was very successful, growing in Bato buckets with 100% perlite. We had way more tomatoes than we needed. The tomatoes were good, but not quite as delicious as the year before when I grew different...