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Next to My Chair Again

Baby plants again!  Down on the floor again next to my chair in my little library.  Here's how it looks right now.  I've got seeds in the germinator moving to cups every day now, will end up with another dozen or so seedlings under the light.   
 
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I'm scaling back from the 20+ plants I had last year to seven or eight plants, some in Kratky containers of various sizes, others in fabric pots with dirt.  The list: 
 
10G D - Sugar Rush Peach - WDC
10G D - P. Dreadie - CD
5G D - JPGS - WHP
5G D - 1208 Red - UE
5G K - 1208 Red - UE
5G K - 7 Pot Jonah - WHP
32G K - Haskorea - PtMD989
1G K - Rocoto Arequipa Giant Red - CD
Bonchi start - 7 Pot Yellow - BB
 
Kratky will be Botanicare CNS17 Grow and bottled spring water at first, tap water later.  Dirt will be a mix of pine bark fines, potting soil, and perlite with fish pellets.  Dirt will occasionally be watered with Kratky solution. 
 
I'll be growing out on the deck again on the north side of my house.  I'd love to have a wide open space with southern exposure, but this will have to do. It works. I've got a decent means of hanging shade cloth ready to go. I'm good. 
Thinking about sticking a plant in the ground over where the ill-fated Siv's Plant once made a valiant effort to survive a completely unfair transplant, too..  Will see.
 
Any and all comments or criticisms are very welcome and I thank you all most warmly for having me and schooling me and reading my noodlings!
 
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I wanted a pretty purple plant to grow next to my chair this season. This Naga Smooky Rainbow unfortunately doesn't quite fit the bill, all tall and goofy.  I keep raising the light and he keeps stretching up toward it.  I'll cut him if he gets any taller; I'm not raising the light any higher.  Several pink flowers have opened, but no pollen yet. 
The smaller one I left in the Solo cup too long and it stunted him or something - the growth tips at the top all quit and now he's growing only from lower nodes. 
 
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Daughter spotted this guy on the hydro JPGS this morning. Tough to focus on him. 
 
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Are baccatums supposed to have multiple buds per node? This is my SRP.
 
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Dammit, that got up there twice. 
 
Uncle_Eccoli said:
My hydro JPGS is putting out lots and lots of buds and dropping every single one.  Frustrating.   :confused:
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We might be in the same boat here, with a
couple of days in the high eighties. After that,
I’m hoping that the temps stay around 80F for
a couple of weeks so flowers hang on long
enough to set.
 
Uncle_Eccoli said:
My hydro JPGS is putting out lots and lots of buds and dropping every single one.  Frustrating.   :confused:
Click to expand...
 
E, did you move the light? My indoor hydro turbo pube started to get a little hot so I moved the light up and it dropped all the flowers. I was watching a video and it seemed to suggest that flowering requires a greater light intensity than veg growth so by moving the light higher I made the intensity less so it went back to veg growth. It's been a week or two, he's grown a bit taller and now there are flowers again.
 
Siv said:
 
E, did you move the light? My indoor hydro turbo pube started to get a little hot so I moved the light up and it dropped all the flowers. I was watching a video and it seemed to suggest that flowering requires a greater light intensity than veg growth so by moving the light higher I made the intensity less so it went back to veg growth. It's been a week or two, he's grown a bit taller and now there are flowers again.
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This plant's outside in a 5g Kratky bucket. 
 
The Naga Smooky Rainbow is next to my chair. His flowers seem fine except for the apparent lack of pollen. I've been moving his light up as he stretches toward it, but I've stopped to see what he'll do. 
 
This again.  I saw this all last year and now I've just found it on four plants.  I'm not completely sure of it, but I'm fairly certain I've only ever seen it on Kratky plants.  It doesn't seem to affect growth or fruiting, but the leaves eventually yellow and drop if it gets bad.  Last year it seemed to be worse on plants that got more shade.  Any ideas, thoughts?  
 
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Faced with a choice between cutting him and moving him outside, I stuck the tall NSR in a bag of dirt this afternoon and put him under the shade cloth on the deck. I'll plant him in the ground on the east side of the house in the spot where Siv's plant died once he's hardened off and acclimated to the dirt.
 
Also thinking I won't do any Kratky buckets next year, just the garbage can(s).  Starting seedlings in little Kratky Solo cups has worked very well for me, but I'm comfortable enough with dirt growing now that Kratky feels like a lot of trouble outdoors. 
 
Uncle_Eccoli said:
Faced with a choice between cutting him and moving him outside, I stuck the tall NSR in a bag of dirt this afternoon and put him under the shade cloth on the deck. I'll plant him in the ground on the east side of the house in the spot where Siv's plant died once he's hardened off and acclimated to the dirt.
 
Also thinking I won't do any Kratky buckets next year, just the garbage can(s).  Starting seedlings in little Kratky Solo cups has worked very well for me, but I'm comfortable enough with dirt growing now that Kratky feels like a lot of trouble outdoors. 
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Reaching the same conclusion about outdoor Kratky - maybe next year I'll be growing some plants in dirt outdoors. What kind of trouble did you run into with the buckets?
 
HeatMiser said:
 
Reaching the same conclusion about outdoor Kratky - maybe next year I'll be growing some plants in dirt outdoors. What kind of trouble did you run into with the buckets?
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Refills.  I'm going to be mixing solution every day to keep them all topped up.  Short of something like Siv's system it's too much legwork.  I'm also convinced it's conducive to whatever that spotting is. 
 
Outdoor hydro of any kind is a pain, especially when temps get high and you lose a lot of water to evaporation rather than the plants consuming it. I think that's the biggest problem for me given the high temps in Texas. So manifolding the buckets together so that they all share the same nutrient supply is simple solution allowing you to only fill in one place rather than each individual bucket. This convenience comes with some drawbacks - if one goes empty, they all do; if one gets diseased, they all do; adds a lot of potential failure points with the piping, not present in a simple bucket. I also don't know if this system would work for a full season, particularly as I haven't yet planned on flushing and renewing nutrients. Although I used it last year, it didn't really survive due to my absence on vacation. This year, we'll see if it does the job for a full season. It's also why I have the soil plants - they're ostensibly a backup but last year the backup became my primary source of pods!
 
I've been googling leaf pictures - the closest I can find is either ozone damage or edema.
 
Siv said:
I've been googling leaf pictures - the closest I can find is either ozone damage or edema.
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Yeah, I can't find it, either..  I saw one shot of a tomato with something that looked pretty similar.  Guy said he noticed it after a period of frequent rainfall, which is when I first noticed it this year.
 
Edit: Here's the tomato.  It was somebody replying talking about a week of rain.  https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1400501/small-brown-spots-on-cherry-tomato-and-eggplant
 
I was thinking edema as well; it doesn't look like the classic edema I see when I'm growing under lights though, where they get that bumpy look.
 
Regarding autopilot: I've been growing since 1982 in Texas (old I am), and have tried a ton of methods. But, never have tried hydro until this season, and just a smidge..Plants always need the day to day management, or bad juju shows up one way or another.
The best thing I ever did for the garden was to get a rainbird system. Just the low end model with 6 or 7 channels, like 75 bucks for the controller, and 15 bucks or so for each solenoid. The system has been bulletproof for 4 years now. In the past I would buy a $35-40 inline (hose type) timer for vacation time. It would work for the vacation and next year it failed. In the main garden, the fenced 1,600sf portion, I have 2 wobbler sprinklers. Done deal when automation is needed.
Normally I use the water from the rain collection system. I have a 1k gallon tank that collects water from the gutters, it's uphill from the garden and is piped to it. So LB and I pretty much hand water.
 
It may be more work, but gardening is a passion and a great brain release, and I'll never get tired of garden time ;)
 
Sowwy fo the book!
 
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