Garden Update

[Emily]

Ahh yeah. I keep forgetting that some of those things are harmful to them, probably because it's not something that I need to worry about.

I have also noticed that once I started harvesting my lettuce, it seemed to grow faster. So there's that.

Lol, I so get that thought process...I just want more! lol.

The juice bottle is R.W. Knudson. I'm sure there are probably others, but someone posted they were perfect, so I was like...ok then, my store sells that. lol. And luck would have it that the bottles are really pretty. I've seen some photos where people painted them (to keep the light out), and they look really good.

Re needing to plant lettuce in another system, I get that. I think I'm coming to the end pretty soon of my current batch, and wishing I had a harvest just for lettuce..lol.

[Overcome]

Ok im panicking... how do you tell the difference between mold or root rot and fuzzy air oxygenated root growth.... google is not being helpful. My lettuce roots have these little white fuzzy hairs.... is it bad?? I’m hoping for root hair ... the lettuce looks amazing. Definitely bigger than yesterday,
and also I had some garlic I left in the pantry too long and I thought for kicks and giggles let me hydrate it and see what happens and roots are growing.... so I’m going to roll with it and see what happens. I still need to cover my jars in paper.... today I will do it.

[Emily]

Ok, no need to panic, that is possibly a combo of the little air roots and the white fuzzy mold looking stuff is a beneficial fungus. Sometimes, it will also appear in the top of the pods as they're sprouting. But it's harmeless...so you're good.

Your lettuce looks beautiful. So exciting.

Wow. Awesome on the garlic. That's so cool. You might find that you need to put it in vermiculite or perlite (or a mix of those) or some other substrate now that it's sprouted. I was reading about growing garlic hydroponically, but have never tried it. So I'm anxious to see how your experiment goes.

[Overcome]

So exciting today was day 21. My mom surprised me by coming over for food, and I made us both side salads. Unfortunately I covered my lettuce in my topping before remembering on picture, but we got two nice side salads from it. Yum!! Amazing! I am so pleased.

I did a little reading on garlic and what might end up happening with mine is going to soil. We’ll see.... not going to buy any additional hydro material until I know what road I want to walk down. I did clear out a five gallon bucket I had full of homemade laundry soap and washed that out well.... and I’ve been saving every container I empty out, seems pretty easy to make your own net cups out of the tiny ones and it’s nice to have a variety of sizes. I was looking into this guy who grew a million things out of old almond milk containers! Woah. But I rinsed my five gallon bucket to made nutrient solution in for all the stuff that isn’t in the aerogarden. I don’t drink bottled water or gallon size milk, so the five gallon bucket will have to do ...my vinegar comes in a gallon, but it will be a bit before I get one cleared out.

[Starship]

Where’s your lettuce picture, Overcome?

I wanna see! LOL

[Overcome]

Well star... because my mom was over, I was having a make mom happy moment. So I forgot to take a picture of the lettuce before I covered it in with topping in the bowl. But I’ll show you before and after harvest? And the picture of the bowl is the salad in the bowl just covered ... but it is full of lettuce underneath.

[Catie]

Oh, yay! Good for you, Overcome! Congrats on your first harvest and salads!

[Emily]

Oh yay for salad! So happy for you.

Yeah, I've done that as well, scoped out every container that I have around,, trying to plan for how ot use it. lol. Sounds like you've come up with a pretty good selection. That's awesome!

Yeah, makes sense on the garlic. It should grow great in soil. It's so fun that it sprouted so quickly though in hydro. Awesome!

[Overcome]

So thoughts.... I harvested as you know 2 days ago. Already I am amazed by the regrown.... it’s getting tall. So next harvest should I use the haircut method or should I raise the light just a little and do single leaf harvest again? Would allowing them to get just a little taller result in bigger harvests down the line?

[Emily]

It is amazing, isn't it, how fast it grows. I did find that it seemed to grow faster once I started harvesting.

Your light's still pretty low, it looks like? I'd probably just raise the lights and do the outer leaf method for a bit more. Generally, I do haircut if my lettuce gets over 8 or so inches tall. Some varieties don't seem to get that tall at all. Otherwise, I do outer leaf. That will also help it not get too crowded on the sides where they're growing next to another plant. But really, there's no right or wrong. Some people only do one method or the other.

[Overcome]

It’s two more days to a feeding, and I may trim the roots some at that time as they are getting pretty crowded in there. Here is my second harvest!

[Emily]

Your lettuce looks awesome. Are you still having fun?

[Overcome]

I’m definitely still having fun! I picked a couple leaves for tacos the other day. It’s amazing. I love if. I’ve been saving every container I use up to experiment with. My garlic has really strong roots.

[Emily]

Awesome.

I'm excited to hear about your experiments once you start. I've not started anything else yet, mainly because I need more lights if I'm gonna do that. But I keep thinking up ideas. lol.

[Overcome]

Alright Emily.... here’s one for ya! I got a ph test kit because I am trying to do a lot of these jars etc. next to my aerogarden and they say the ph is important for kratky. So .... I bought a test the water kit with a vial and a liquid drop ph indicator which turns the water a color based on ph vs one of the stick the electronic tube in because calibration seemed difficult. But I thought I’d test my aerogarden first because it’s working and because it should be good to go right!? I had to add plant food today so I took it and tested it and it was very very orange which indicates not a good color, it’s too low. But should I leave well enough alone or should I add some of the ph raiser to get the ph to 5.5?
Hmmmm....


on the other hand I’m starting to collect things for my experiments and I took an old shelf from the classroom and contact papered it (never ever again, it was sooooo difficult) and it’s holding all my kratky stuff until I have to start putting it in the basement. I will have to as to keep bills down I keep my house 80 in the summer.... so it won’t make it upstairs. But in the winter it’s set to 60! Perfect! I am getting myself a collection of stuff either by saving food containers and I had some mason jars in my closet that I thought I would turn into a decoration it’s been 4 years think it’s safe to say I won’t do it. Lol.

i haven’t yet put the garlic in soil mostly because I don’t have any. Lol. It’s roots look nice and strong.