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thought i'd share my cucumber and cherry tomato plants. i haven't decided if i want to keep them in hempy buckets all season or transplant them into the ground once they've reached a substantial size... i would need to devise a way to keep the root systems cool if i choose to stick with the hempy bucket style while growing outdoors.
i also plan on getting some bell peppers and strawberries going. i saw a neat idea at the nursery while picking up seeds. they used pots like these to grow strawberries, they are perfect for keeping a significant amount of moisture in the soil.
here are the cucumbers. these sprouted with the tomatoes during the last week of april, so they are about a month old.
nice job...thanks for sharing. Let me know if you need any guidance as they get bigger. I would transplant now!!! If; you are clear of any chance of frost. Sooner you transplant, the sooner they will yield.
thanks for the tip.
i was undecided, but now i think instead of using pots and vp mix outdoors, i will just transplant into the ground.
originally, i planned to keep the hempy buckets. however, they will require more maintenance than i desire to perform at this time
one benefit of using potted plants outdoors is the ability to move the plant according to where the sunlight is so that they receive the maximum amount, and therefore grow to their maximum potential (given that the other environmental factors are optimal). my yard is small and is exposed to full sunlight for a short period of the day, so i tried this method with soil and vp mix. both times they were unsuccessful grows.
i grew fine cherry tomato plants when i planted in the ground with sub-optimal sunlight and minimal effort, so i think i will stick with what works.
as far as soil treatments go, do you have any suggestions late?
i was planning on adding some mushroom compost to the soil.
i used the dead leaves from our yard during the last couple of years, and composted them in the soil bed i will use this year. i also took used indoor soil and threw it in the mix.
i will till the soil about 2 feet deep. the space is 5.5' long and 1.2' wide. i plan to have 1 tomato plant and 1 or 2 cucumber plants. maximum use of the space will be made by taking advantage of their vine-like properties and training the plants to grow vertically up a trellis.
those pictures were of the plants about 1½ months old.
there was a patch on one of the leaves of the cucumber plants that was discolored from green to creamy yellow. i believe this was due to a nutrient issue- either too much of one element, not enough of another...something along those lines. that did not progress to a larger problem, and everything is going well so far.
the plants are not as big as i expected them to be by now. although, i do have little experience with these plants.
i changed my mind yet again and transplanted all of them into individual containers with the vp mix as the primary medium. i mixed in a little garden soil and changed the water-soluble fertilizer regimen. went from "sensi grow"(advanced nutrients) to a "age old grow", "sweet", and "molasses" combo. they seem to have adapted well to the nute change. the tomatoes look a little greener than last week when i transplanted.
the age old grow has a ratio of 12-6-6, with other micronutes involved in the composition. however it is an incomplete fertilizer when used alone, lacking magnesium and sulfur among others. hence the sweet. the molasses is used for it's available micronutrients, though it does not contain sulfur (i am not using blackstrap unfortunately). i am unsure of the exact composition of molasses, but i will find out in a week or so if i need to come up with a new nute formulation due to the necessity of micronutrients.
8-16-36 is closer to a good veggie program. I use 11-11-40 custom mix for my peppers
if you really want to see'em grow...greenhouse grade-water soluble calcinit, a bag of epsom salts, and a bag of sulphate of potash (water soluble). All will cost you what 3-part costs in gallons.
get a good micro nutrient, and make a drip system. I have a drip system in my supplemental garden, and all the veggies are growing "apechitman"
If you do this...I will let you in on a formula to use. Or go to hygronomics.com, register, and post queries for your veggie grows, there.
so....about two weeks ago i changed the nute formula slightly. i am now using the age old bloom in place of the age old grow. the npk ratio for the bloom formula is 5-10-5. i am also using a teaspoon or so per gallon of pure blend pro, 3-1.5-4. it is a vegging fert that was given to us by a grower friend, so it is free fertilizer. not necessarily something i would have chosen from a store, but it does provide the plants with humic acid as well as the much needed extra calcium.
i will continue growing the cucumbers along support poles instead of allowing them to grow their secondary roots along the ground due to space limitations. and i may be moving at the end of the summer, so i will most likely keep the hempy bucket system going so i can take the plants with me when i move.
So, after transplanting the plants into ground soil near the end of June, I quickly lost one cucumber plant due to...heat? I'm guessing, anyway. One cucumber plant went on to produce one veggie for me, only about 4 inches long and 1 inch in diameter. That was the most tasty cucumber I have ever had, I must say. The vine survived, but has produced no new growth since harvesting the one cuke.
Now I am down to 2 mater plants. The runted one is still small, about ¼ size as the big one pictured here. Also pictured are the very first cherry tomatoes to ripen. They should be good to eat here in the next few days.
For fertilization, I stayed with the Age Old Bloom, Pure Blend Pro and BigBud. This formula is given about once a week while supplying about 2 gallons of water per plant per day.
you mean the kind with green peppers and olives on hand-tossed crust?
eh. no its a type of tomato that grows to the form of a sausage roughly 7 inches long great for sauce and any other tomato use.
my grandmother has em, bought em off the amish.
my greatest tomato-growing success has come only from cherry tomato plants. my attempt at romas gave me 2 maters, one of which was taken by an unknown source (doh!)
i also tried big boy tomatoes, but i was growing them in pots outside and was not giving them enough calcium/magnesium, so they suffered blossom end rot.
as of now, my space is limited so i won't be putting the small amount of tomatoes i harvest in a sauce. preferably, next year my yard will be more suitable for growing a whole garden with more than just tomatoes and i can have purely home-made sauce. yummy!
my greatest tomato-growing success has come only from cherry tomato plants. my attempt at romas gave me 2 maters, one of which was taken by an unknown source (doh!)
i also tried big boy tomatoes, but i was growing them in pots outside and was not giving them enough calcium/magnesium, so they suffered blossom end rot.
as of now, my space is limited so i won't be putting the small amount of tomatoes i harvest in a sauce. preferably, next year my yard will be more suitable for growing a whole garden with more than just tomatoes and i can have purely home-made sauce. yummy!
good luck for your garden, this year our garden, has about 20 tomato plants, about 4 different kinds growing. also there are tons of other veggies growing.
hasn't been a very good year, its been raining almost everyday.
