I'm having a few minor problems in the greenhouse. I think most of them are caused by my watering pattern.
For the last 1-2 months my timer has been on 15 minutes on, 15 minutes off between 07:00 and 21:00 and 15 minutes on, 45 minutes off between 21:00 and 07:00. I have now changed it to 15 on, 30 off during the day and 15 on, 60 off during the night, hopefully this will sort out some of the problems.
I'm getting some cracked fruit on quite a few of the plants, this isn't a big issue really but still, I would like to get on top of it.
And I'm also getting blossom end rot on some of the larger fruit, the weird thing is not all plants of the same variety develop this problem; the watering schedule is the same for all.
Also on 2 of the buckets and on some of their fruit I find these black soil like things. They look like droppings of some sort, some are about 1mm and spherical and some are slightly larger and cylindrical.
They're also present on a small number of fruit around the affected buckets.
On the leaves of a pepper plant in one of the buckets as well. That plant had its leaves munched on by something also, I looked for pests on the underside of the leaves but I could not find any.
Do any of you know what these black droppings are?
On a happier note my Zebra tomatoes are growing just fine and the fruit are looking awesome so far!
My hungarian wax pepper has quite a few fruit set and one of them started changing colour and getting its characteristic sheen.
Got some lovely tomato trusses, first one is the Sweet million and the second pic is Darkest tomato.
Huge truss on this one.
And to finish this off, I'm going to show off my largest squash this year, it's about a metre long now and still growing.
Cheers for reading guys and any thoughts on my watering schedule or the weird droppings would be greatly appreciated!
Finding the best watering can be difficult.
Water too much- get root rot
Water too little- your harvest yield suffers.
It's a vicious cycle every garden season
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Exactly!
I have full control of the watering cycle, so I'm hoping I will find a perfect ratio at some point, heh.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Who would have thought we should have paid better attention during science class in junior and senior high schools? If we only knew then what we know now!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Costopher from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you like what we're doing please upvote this comment so we can continue to build the community account that's supporting all members.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I have had similar issues before with growing tomatoes. I can suggest watering every other day than daily. For the dark spots on the bottom, read then from Bonnie Plants. It states that the soil may be calcium deficient: https://bonnieplants.com/library/conquer-blossom-end-rot/
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thanks!
I'm growing hydroponically in expanded clay pebbles, so there's very little water retention in them; I did set my system up so there's 1-2 inches of water at the bottom of the buckets at all times but still I would not be able to get away with watering every other day.
I have looked at the calcium or nutrient deficiency but my plants seem pretty healthy; if the recent watering schedule changes won't do anything I will have to find a way to measure calcium levels reliably and see how I can address that.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Ah gotcha, my apology in missing the hydroponic method. I hope you are able to figure this out.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hi there costopher, what type of fertilizer are you using? I have some experience with hydro tomatoes and have encountered all the problems you are have, and then some! The droppings and damage certainly look like some type of caterpillar, check in the late evening and early morning for the culprit. If it doesn't go against your growing methods BT will take care of most of that. As for the cracking it looks like it is mostly on your cherry type tomatoes, they are notorious for cracking issues. Cherry tomatoes also ripen alot faster than other types so it may just be over ripeness if the other tomatoes aren't cracking. You may look at holding water overnight as well, transpiration slows way down without sunlight. As for blossom end rot @luey is correct calcium deficiency is the cause, but it can have other factors as well, soil ph etc. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions, I have an article on blossom end rot on my blog if you want to check it out. https://steemit.com/gardening/@jed78/blossom-end-rot-what-is-it-and-how-to-fix-it
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Hey, thank you for the information, that post is really helpful, as it is @luey's. Going to have a good long scroll around your posts, seems like I'm going to do quite a bit of stealing some tips from there :D
I'm sure the fertiliser I'm using is not the best, it is the Miracle gro water soluble one. Initially I bought it as a stop gap measure until I find a better one around here but my plants seemed really healthy on it so I just kept using it.
My ph is 6.7, a bit high I know, it is basically the equilibrium my system reached; I was balancing it daily at the start trying to keep it lower but the swings were huge and the plants started to show signs of stress. (my tank's volume is about 80 litres)
Do you know how I could measure calcium levels, preferably without sending a sample somewhere. Or could I just add something to supplement it without worrying of an 'overdose' ?
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
I don't think you will be able to measure your calcium levels without lab testing. We used a custom fertilizer mix that was put together based on our water sample. It involved mixing specific amounts of each component Nitrogen, calcium etc. You want your solution to be slightly acidic so that looks good there, but that can also have an effect on uptake of nutrients. You might research mixing your own formula that way you won't be chasing your tail with the unknown formulation of the miracle grow fertilizer. Hope that helps
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Heh, it never clicked in my head up to this moment, but I can easily get the data on my water composition (a friend has a brewery and we share the water supply) and I also have some of my brewing supplies for treating the water to get it to the right composition for beer so I'll just have to have a play with the numbers.
This was the first year I grew hydroponically and the plan was to mix my own, but then I needed something quickly and the miracle gro seemed to work so I just stuck with it. For the next season I will mix it myself.
Thank you!
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Oh, I've just seen some of your farmer's market produce posts. Your stuff looks great!
Have a look at growing some lemon cucumbers and cucamelons, they really draw people's attention. I have some and they grow really well in my greenhouse. The cucamelon plants put hundreds of those little cucs.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
wow...sounds complex and dounting for me. I aspire to one day have my own greenshouse and probably do hydroponic. But the "science" part of this is rather scary...not sure how I would get that right.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit