For those not familiar with Sure To Grow, allow me to enlighten. Plastic bottles are recycled and reconstituted into a growing medium that is Sure To Grow (STG). The medium feels light and fluffy. You can purchase it in any form factor that you need: sheets, blocks, loose-fill, and pre-formed cones for net pots (2″ seedling pucks up to 10″ for 2-gallon buckets).

In contrast to other mediums, raw materials are not utilized in the creation of Sure to Grow. Reduce, recycle, and reuse. Plastic bottles feed Sure To Grow. However, the tradeoff of utilizing raw, virgin ingredients which can be reused vs. waste products which would otherwise be thrown away—-I choose the medium from waste recycled products.

Why is it a great growing medium?

One of the single most important and hard-learned benefits of Sure to Grow—-plant resiliency. During the 2 years that I’ve been using Sure To Grow, I’ve had root rot occur twice. The roots started in STG popped back almost instantly. No other medium that I tried worked this well.

The reason why this occurred is that the roots were protected in the bubble that is Sure To Grow. With Hygromite (diatomaceous earth) and Hydroton (clay pebbles), root rot affected the roots up to the root ball. With Sure To Grow, root rot stopped at the medium. After trimming the foliage and affected roots, roots took 4x as long to restore with Hygromite and Hydroton than with Sure To Grow.

With STG, the entire plant didn’t have to start rerooting from scratch. The new rooting started right from the edge of the medium. BAM! Almost. . .insta-re-rooting.

Here we have a couple of pics of plants that suffered from root rot.  These shots are after 1 week and 2 weeks, respectively, from Sure to Grow in Current Culture H2O’s 4XL system.

Transplantability. Say you start your plant in dirt, or any other medium and you want to change it up. You can repot your plant into STG. You carve out a suitable cavern inside STG and insert your plant.

Transplant from dirt? Impossible, you say! Possible, says I. Sure To Grow functions as a micro-filter. Wash away what soil that you can, carve out a suitable pocket—without permeating the medium’s shell—and you have a nice home for your previously soil-based plant. The soil will not flow out of the STG to muck up your growing system. Except for the normal transplant adjustment, the plants take to it like ducks to water.

“

How to improve it?

STG cannot support larger, heavier plants on its own. Unless there is a stiffer superstructure around the medium (i.e. net basket, tomato cage, etc.), a heavy plant will topple in this medium. As plants grow larger, their root structure will firmly hold them in place. I don’t know that it’s possible, but a denser, heavier Sure To Grow would solve this.

Conclusion

For me, perfect growing materials utilize waste from other processes. Compost from kitchen scraps, manure from animals, and garden beds from old railroad ties are all perfect. So is Sure To Grow. Recycled plastic bottles transformed into a growing medium. Awesome!

No virgin rocks or wooly sheep were hurt in the writing of this article.

Happy Gardening!

Curtis

If you haven’t been following along, you might want to take a look at where they started. The flower clusters have been collected and dried. At this point it is suitable for storage, enjoyed by kitties, or in this case, seed collecting. If you look at the dried flowers closely, you can find the seed pods. Here is an example of a catnip seed pod. With a gentle touch, the pod opened, and three tiny seeds emerged. After opening the pods, blowing and shaking to separate the seeds from the chaff, I wound up with a nice pile of seeds, ready for planting. Peace, love and puka shells,

Grubbycup ]]> http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/07/catnip-seed-collecting/feed/ 0 http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/07/grow-store-102-bloom-boosters-and-stimulants/ http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/07/grow-store-102-bloom-boosters-and-stimulants/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:36:07 +0000 Urban Garden Magazine http://urbangardenmagazine.com/?p=4964 Our main man Hydroguy is back with the next installment of his guide to finding your way around a grow store. This time he’s casting his critical eye over bloom boosters and stimulants. This is going to be interesting reading! As always, Hydroguy is not shy about expressing his opinions – and who are we to cramp his style? Take it away Hydroguy…

If ever there is a mountain made of a mole hill in the indoor gardening industry, where the logic of 1+1=3 is reasonable and ten products can be justified from two elements – I think bloom boosters fit the bill. In contrast to field-crop agriculture, horticultural nutrient companies often recommend combining base nutrients with various bloom boosters in the early, mid, and near-end of the flowering cycle. To the inquiring hobbyist grower redundancy can seem like an understatement since similar minerals are present in various boosters; and, in contrast, the science they’re founded on might seem as hypothetical as opinion when the grower seeks clarification on the reasoning behind their differences. In the end, to some, it seems surety is abandoned for a faith-based trust in nutrient companies to provide us with bigger, better, and more profitable yields. Are bloom boosters based on science or snake oil? Let’s take a look at a few products that hopefully serve to represent the numerous boosters available.

Turn the N knob to Low:

So the first thing you noticed is the mass majority of “boosters” have little or no nitrogen. Boosters are traditionally phosphorus and potassium at various ratios, and often a bit of other stuff like magnesium or sulfur. This is not the recent brain child of growers in Mendocino or B.C. but an older wisdom passed down from the agricultural field crop researchers from the 17th through to the 20th century. Early testing showed that soils with too little NPK, or lacking the conditions for availability of the elements, responded well to fertilization – and furthermore that too much nitrogen when the plant’s metabolism is shifting to reproduction delays the transition as the nitrogen induces vegetative growth. A trial published in 1951 further concluded that, though the reproductive stage requires a higher ratio of PK to N, without the nitrogen yields dropped over 50%. Because high-PK boosters are recommended for use in conjunction with regular nutrition, the general absence of nitrogen in the boosters serves to tip the scales while continuing to provide regular “base” nutrients.

Early bloom

Historically farmers would use sun-dials and count the hours of the day. Once the days became 14 hours or less the farmers would apply a hefty dose of phosphate and potassium, irrigating it in using bamboo shoots as tubing and a water wheel to pump the nutrient solution. They would mark their calendars “week 1″ and this would begin their “bloom chart” for the season. For real? No.

Looking into the “first week of bloom” booster phenomenon, and where it originated – and particularly some data to support the notion – has left me stumped. From what I can surmise the appearance of early bloom boosters originates many years ago with Rambridge’s Blossom Blood, which is to be used once the first flower or fruit is initiated. The premise is that a slightly-acidic nutrient solution promotes flower development, and the product holds the solution at a stable optimal pH. The label states it is a “selective pH control water treatment” and peripherally notes Monobasic Phosphate as an ingredient. This may entail a phosphate buffer as a mixture of K2HPO4 and KH2PO4 or maybe Na2HPO4 with citric acid – we can only guess. At just over $220 for 300g it’s certainly not an inexpensive ‘”buffer.”

Grotek, who produced the next generation of early bloom boosters, have included a fairly sizable PK into their flatteringly named Blossom Blaster. With an NPK of 0-39-25 this Grotek booster is used in weeks 1 and 3 with the allusion that an immediate alteration of the nutrient ratios will “contribute to proper plant maturation.” Blossom Blaster’s mainstay salt is monopotassium phosphate [MKP] and retails for around $240.00 for 500g.

Advanced Nutrients then marketed a similar “first week of bloom” booster called Bud Blood (bless their shamelessness, all of them) with the same NPK as Grotek’s. Bud Blood is derived from a few different source ingredients than competitive products and retails in the zone of $273.50 per 500g.

Alltek brand’s Flower Blood reinvents the 0-39-25 with the inclusion of Phloxine, a phytotoxic red dye alleged to stimulate leaf senescence, and Allantoin, a plant hormone present in plants during flowering and considered to induce or quicken the metabolic shift to bloom.

Other boosters used early in the bloom cycle include: Top Load, Dr. Node’s, Phosphoload, Megabud, et al. These products are sometimes used for controlling vertical growth or reducing the space between nodes in blooming plants – which can be ideal for indoor gardening in restricted spaces. Consideration should be made to ensure your chosen early bloom booster is appropriate for your crop demands; and, if required, that it meets criteria for human consumption.

Mid-Bloom

Years ago if a person ventured into using a bloom booster it would have likely been an 0-50-30, whereas, in recent times, that tendency has evolved into the confusing lower-NPK boosters and stimulants often packed with bio-active ingredient. The “old school” realm of 0-50-30 includes Grotek’s Monster Bloom (0-50-30), FHD’s Ton O Bud (0-49-42), Rambridge’s Monster Blood (0-50-30), and Advanced Nutrients’ Bloom Booster Pro. There is not only a commonality between these products’ stated mineral profiles, but as well of labelling – the Rambridge, Grotek, and Advanced Nutrients products all feature a reddish composite flower; Ton O Bud being unique in that regard. Prices are around $65 for 500g of the 0-50-30.

General Hydroponics’ Liquid Koolbloom (0-10-10), Canna’s PK 13/14, and competing Hammerhead PK 9/18 by Advanced Nutrients continue along the mineral path, each presumably delivering the perfect ratio of P and K to compliment the manufacturers’ respective base nutrient schedule. In the zone of $30 a liter these boosters are likely WYSIWYG – a safe bet to boost your plants without including hormones or other undeclared compounds which may or may not be proven safe and effective.

Among the bio-stimulant bloom boosters is Massive which claims “over 80 different organic compounds” and labels Gibberellins [GB] and Triacontanol [TRIA]. Oddly enough Massive also hosts a higher N percentage than P! GB are a much discussed plant hormone without a lot of data relative to its use with short-day annual plants, and though claims are made within hobbyist circles they are ambiguous. Numerous amateur trials have been conducted on GB to reproduce the dramatic cell elongation that caused it to be discovered initially in rice patties presuming it would deliver larger blooms, yet the tests are not entirely conclusive. TRIA is a plant hormone found in alfalfa (cuticula of various plants) and beeswax. When tested in nanomolar concentrations TRIA has shown to increase cell density, total chlorophyll, and drastically increase photosynthetic CO2 assimilation. Numerous articles on various plant species are available in scientific journals citing the benefits of TRIA, and rest assured Massive is not the only product which contains it; however debate still exists as to the plant-availability of TRIA without adequate solvency.

Listed as a “beneficial” but commonly considered a booster is Advanced Nutrients’ Big Bud (0-10-40 and 0-1-4 hydrated) which includes a hearty dose of magnesium as well as an assortment of L-amino acids. L-amino acids have been found to affect numerous plant processes from root development, protein synthesis, enhancing photosynthesis – as well as providing nutrients and improving the microbial conditions of the soil. During times of stress plants do not synthesize all L-amino acids, so Big Bud may make a suitable transplant nutrient in the right dilution.

Late Bloom

The repository of old feed charts speaks volumes about how much variability there is to late boosters. The base nutrients in each recipe are not identical, and though one may assume for simplicity that each recipe will, in the end, target a similar nutrient ratio, that is not necessarily the case. Without clear evidence of what might be “the best” the consumer is often left to chose a recipe based on gut instinct and advice from other growers.

Keepin’ it simple with the mineral salts is the time-tested Kool Bloom powder by General Hydroponics that appears fairly often in various recipes. Kool Bloom (previously Kabloom!), rockin’ the 2-45-28, comes in 2.2lb packs for only $45. Bustin’ out the Super Phosphate is Supernatural Brand’s Bud Blaster (1-52-31) used in conjunction with Super Boost (10-49-10) which is also garnished with a dash of B1. Super phosphate is not donned on a lot of labels making Bud Blaster a fairly unique and potent high-phosphate option at around $95 for 500g. A more recent addition to the late booster family is Overdrive (1-5-4) by Advanced Nutrients, which hosts a mineral profile quite similar to their 3-Part Bloom. “Overdrive” retails for around $39 per liter.

We can see a trend in high-PK boosters, leaning clearly towards the phosphates, but not all plant scientists agree that phosphorus is the key in final stages. Dr. K by Alltek is a hefty dose of potassium in its chloride form, and is claimed to be ‘designed to harden flowers at the ripening stage.’ ‘Muriate of Potash’, as it is also known, is a well utilized agricultural staple worldwide; and contrary to common presumptions the chloride is not reactive like chlorine and has not proven harmful to microbiology or roots. That said, in limited drainage situations chloride can accumulate and become toxic, so it is not often included in liquid nutrient formulas.

Finishing the late boosters is Green Planet’s “Finisher” which is the antithesis to the high-PK paradigm – as it contains none. Finisher’s ingredient includes ‘organic enzyme activators, vitamins, essential amino acids’ – aka The Other Stuff, including another dose of TRIA to spice things up. If the lack of PK bewilders you, I would get used to it. The bio-chem soup of barely pronounceable plant extracts and patented molecules is the way of tomorrow. If you understand and love your mineral salts, they will probably never disappear from the store shelves – but make way for the new generation of bloom boosters and stimulants that boggle the mind!

Previously: Grow Store 101: Base Nutes and Organic Enhancers
Next up: Grow Store 103 – Bennies and Bugs and Buffers (oh my!)

by Hydroguy

The hydroponics and indoor gardening industry is rapidly changing and evolving. Recently the pace of that change has become quite staggering with new products seeming to appear almost daily – nowhere is this more prominent than in the field of plant nutrition. In the last few years the hydroponic nutrient market has progressed from offering base nutrients and some phosphorus flowering boosters through to today’s market where a staggering (some might say ‘bewildering’) array of new technologies and theories are promoted.
Two product types that have been causing a lot of chatter in the growing community are carbohydrate (sugar) supplements and amino acid based additives. And for good reason. Sugars and amino acids are both interesting concepts in the context of plant nutrition and many experts consider them to be on the cutting edge. All sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it? But before you rush off and buy that next fancy-labelled bottle of sugary or amino acid goodness, you really should get your head around some basic facts concerning these substances and the ability of plants to make use of them.

Carbohydrates – Are They Really ‘Candy’ For Your Plants?

You’ve probably heard the hype about carbs: “Feed your plants supplemental carbs and turn them into Olympic Gold Medal winners!”
So a grower walks into their local store, decides to buy a big bottle of some sugary carb supplement, with the intention of deploying it on his next res change. The notion is that the plants will suck up the carbs and get a boost of ‘pure energy’ without having to go through the hassle of producing them as a product of photosynthesis.
Errrr, sorry to spoil the big carb party, but it’s not actually that straight forward. The carbohydrate supplement is definitely a case where theory got ahead of practice. In theory providing your plants with an array of simple and complex carbohydrates seems like a great idea. We all know that plants, driven by light energy and photosynthesis, produce sugar and starch.  The plant uses this for growth and development.  So the theory goes – if we supplement our nutrient solution with those very same sugars and starches, then the plant won’t have to make them all for itself and can therefore devote its energy to other things – such as making big flowers and fruits! Alternatively,  if the plant is undergoing a period of physical stress (such as flowering or fruiting) then the supplementation of those sugars and starches will enable the plant to grow and develop at warp speed as we have removed a limiting factor. Unfortunately all this seems feasible in a text book but, as usual, these things are rarely as simple in real life.
Why not? Well, put simply, it’s one thing to supplement a plant with carbs in a lab, quite another to do so in vivo (real life – real situation.) You can inject carbs directly into a stem or a leaf, for instance, using laboratory techniques, but surely the crunch question is: can a plant uptake carbohydrates through its roots? I have been involved in research that aimed to determine whether plants could actually uptake and utilize carbohydrates and, if so, what could they uptake and utilize. Carbohydrates range in size from very small, simple structures like glucose or fructose through to enormously large, complex molecules like polysaccharides.  So – did I find that plants could uptake simple and complex carbohydrates? Other than some very simple, and small carbohydrates (e.g. plain table sugar or fructose / glucose) plants essentially cannot take up other more complex carbohydrates through their root zone. Why?  It’s because of a unique little barrier in the roots called the Casparian strip – complete with his sidekick the endodermis. Essentially the Casparian strip forces everything, and that includes carbohydrates, through the endodermis to be actively selected or rejected for uptake.

Ready For The Science Bit? Introducing The Casparian Strip – Your Plant’s Very Own Homeland Security!

Inside the roots of your plants sits a very innocuous and extremely important band of cells – called the Casparian Strip. I like to think of this as a sort of “security guard” for your plant. It is used to block the passive flow of materials ( travelling between the cells), such as water and solutes into the main water carrying columns of the plant – the xylem and phloem. By doing this it forces everything to actively pass through or be rejected by the endodermis. Once within the epidermis, water passes through the cortex, mainly traveling between the cells. However, in order to enter the stele, it must pass through the cytoplasm of the cells of the endodermis. Once within the stele, water is free again to move between cells as well as through them. For solutes to pass through the endodermis they must be in inorganic, ionic form to be transported across to the stele.   As you can see getting water and nutrients inside your plants is no easy process!
An interesting side note for people who grow with organic nutrients.
When you hear of the virtues of organic fertilizers, remember that such materials are unable to meet any nutritional needs of the plant until they have been degraded / converted into inorganic forms. Organic matter does play an important role in making good soil texture and rhizosphere health, but it can only meet the nutritional needs of the plant to the extent that it can yield inorganic ions. Once within the epidermis, only the inorganic ions pass inward from cell to cell.

Amino Acid supplements and supplementation –  possible or possibilities?

Okay, after that bombshell, let’s take a look at Amino Acids. These are fascinating little things, these miniature building blocks of protein – body builders love them and, according to many growers, plants do too. So what roles do amino acids play in plant nutrition?

Table 1 shows the 21 Proteinogenic Amino Acids

There are total of 21 Amino Acids used in the production of protein and you’ve probably seen most of them listed on the back of a bottle by now. They are known as Proteinogenic Amino Acids

Every chemical reaction or process that goes on inside a plant relies on protein. From photosynthesis through to hormone production, growth and development, stress – proteins are used by the plant for every aspect of its life, so we can see that amino acids are very important in the big scheme of things.
This importance has not escaped the attention of researchers or manufacturers of plant nutrients and additives. We are now seeing quite a few emerging products that contain these essential building blocks of life. One area being examined by both researchers and manufacturers are amino acids that are direct precursors to hormones. Tryptophan is one popular amino acid being researched as it is the direct precursor to IAA -  a powerful growth hormone. Arginine is one of the precursors for cytokinins and is a major player in the production of flowers and fruits on a biochemical level.  Other exciting roles of amino acids include their part in mitigating plant stress.  Proline is produced by the plant in huge quantities during times of stress to assist with osmotic balance and to maintain a positive water status.
Amino acids are also used as a source of nitrogen in the root zone as they are delaminated by rhizosphere bacteria and fungi. The bacteria feed on the amino acids and in return nitrogen, in the form of ammonia, is released which can be absorbed by the plant. Ammonia is very rapidly absorbed and utilized by the plant and, in small quantities, is very beneficial to the support of rapid growth and development.
A new and very exciting and emerging area of amino acid research, and one that I am very actively involved in, is the role played by accumulated amino acids.  In plants, the roles of accumulated amino acids varies from acting as an osmolyte, the regulation of ion transport, modulating stomatal opening, and detoxification of heavy metals. Amino acids also affect the synthesis and activity of enzymes, and most excitingly of all play a major role in gene expression!
So it’s readily apparent why plant nutrient manufacturers would be interested in the humble amino acid – they could be very useful to growers!  As useful as might be, amino acids are also commonly misunderstood – just like the carbohydrates we looked at earlier. Once again theory is getting way in front of reality.
As with carbohydrates no one really looked at whether plants can take actively up amino acids through their roots. A major focus of my research is examining how or if plants can take up amino acids via their roots. One method is to feed plants a solution of radioactively labelled amino acids and then take special x-rays of the whole plant 24 hours later. You can actually visualize the extent of the amino acid uptake. In all of the experiments I’ve been involved in, almost none of the amino acid solution fed to the plants had been absorbed by the roots and transported to the leaves. So what’s at play here? Once again it’s the role of the Capsarian strip and endodermis coming into play and excluding the uptake of almost all of the amino acid solution fed to the plants. Amino acid supplementation does work to a minor extent – as some, but very few, of those root fed amino acids are absorbed by the plant. The exciting thing is that even that tiny amount that is absorbed positively affects the growth and development of plants.

So what did we learn?

Only simple sugars are absorbed by the plant root system. And only a very small amount of any amino acids supplied will ever be taken up by your plant’s root system. So what does that mean? Are carboyhydrate and amino acid producs a waste of your time? No – not exactly. Even when a small amount of amino acids are absorbed by the plant, we can get some positive effects. The simple sugars in your carbohydrate products do get absorbed. Others form a good source of food for beneficial bacteria in your root zone. So there are some benefits from using these types of products – just probably not to the degree that some of us may have hoped.
Feeding your plants carbohydrate and amino supplements is not a waste of your time or money – in fact many of those simple and complex carbohydrates serve as food for the friendly bacteria and fungi in your root zone. But don’t forget that your plant’s roots constantly exude simple and complex, carbohydrates, amino acids and proteins into the rhizospere and that those exudates serve as food and growth promoting compounds for many of the beneficial bacteria, fungi and micro organisms present in your plant’s rhizoshpere.
Root exudates are commonly divided into two classes. Low-molecular weight compounds –  such as amino acids, organic acids, sugars, and other secondary metabolites and high molecular weight exudates – such as mucilage (polysaccharides or complex carbs) and proteins. The rhizospheric bacteria and fungi return the favor, in a symbiotic relationship, by breaking down complex products in the rhizosphere into ionic forms the plant can absorb as well as excreting protein and secondary signalling molecules of their own that benefit the plant by increasing its rate of growth and development.
In fact, much or all of the apparent success of carbohydrate and amino acids products are due to this inadvertent power feeding of your root zone friendlies and the symbiotic benefits they return to your plants.

The Future of Carbohydrate and Amino Acids?

Biochemists and plant researchers around the world are conducting research into methods of delivering carbohydrates and or amino acids directly into the plant in large or precisely controlled amounts. We are conducting research on developing radical new delivery methods for compounds that are otherwise impossible to deliver to plants in a controlled or effective manner. Techniques such as bio and nano encapsulation technologies are currently being pursued and developed – the promise of these techniques is huge. They could allow things like complex carbohydrates and amino acids to be delivered to your plants as they need them.

If you haven’t tried homegrown tomatoes, be forewarned, it will change how you view the flavor of store bought. Tomatoes grown for eating are very different than those grown for shipping. Peace, love and puka shells,

Grubbycup ]]> http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/07/my-first-tomato-in-2010-early-girl/feed/ 3 http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/crochet-hydroponics-part-5/ http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/crochet-hydroponics-part-5/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 17:50:27 +0000 Grubbycup http://urbangardenmagazine.com/?p=4708
The second adventure in crocheted hydroponics is doing well enough to flower.

Day 122

Although very short lived and sparse, the flowers of this black radish are very pretty.
The acrylic crocheted netting (left) has held up much better than the cotton trial. In fact it appears to be in good enough shape to wash, and be used again.

The radish appears healthy (right), and I have every reason to believe that the system could continue to support a plant almost indefinitely.

While I wouldn’t exactly call it ornamental, it is interesting looking, and taller than I expected. Someday people are going to quit teasing me about my crochet hydroponics; but not today.

Today, Gentle Reader I give you version three: I started with two plastic colanders from a dollar store, lashed them together, made a hole in the top, and filled with perlite. The encasing shell and wick are crocheted as one seamless piece.

Then I suspended the “ufo looking crochet thing” over the pond, with the wick dangling into the water.My current plan is to top water the perlite to keep it moist, then as the roots grow down to the wick, allow that to water the plant, until finally the roots reach the water, and it begins to function as a deep water culture. At which time, the perlite globe will not longer be supplying moisture, but air. Peace, love, and puka shells,

Grubbycup ]]> http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/crochet-hydroponics-part-5/feed/ 2 http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/half-cooked-thoughts-breeding-without-a-net/ http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/half-cooked-thoughts-breeding-without-a-net/#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 17:46:50 +0000 Grubbycup http://urbangardenmagazine.com/?p=4726

Kits and Cats, boys and girls, gather around, this you are going to want to watch.

I know enough a lot of you tune in for the silly stuff, and that’s fair, I think it’s fun too, that’s why I do it.

But like I’ve said before, the only way to make absolutely sure you’ve gone far enough, is to go too far.

So for this particular project, I’ll be working with less of a safety net than usual. There are many things that could go wrong, and Gentle Reader, you’ll be the second to know. It may even take a couple of tries at it before it starts to go.

I would like to apologise to the men and woman who worked so hard on the tomato, pepper and radish varieties I will be working with, I mean no disrespect.

I am going to do something I bet you haven’t seen often before, I’m going to start three home-hobby breeding projects from scratch, with the hopes of taking at least one far enough to a “house” variety. I’m going to take you with me on the path, and explain my reasoning behind my choices.

To start breeding plants, the first thing you need, is plants. So I started some seeds:

Grubbyradish:

Radish should be the easiest to work with, as they mature quickly, and do not self pollinate.

Started Black (dark skin, white meat), Cherry (red skin, white meat), and Watermelon (white skin, pink meat) varieties. This will allow me the meaningful crosses BC, BW, and CW.

Grubbytomato:

Tomatoes do self pollinate, which makes crossing slightly more complex, I will try to cross that bridge when I come to it.

I’m not sure which tomatoes I want to start with, so I’m starting several and will decide from those that do the best in my environment: Beefsteak, Black Krim, Cherry, Rainbow(?), and Trip L Crop.

Grubbypepper:

By far the most dangerous of the bunch. I started Bell, Cayenne, Dorset Naga, Ghost, Peter, and Ramhorn. Since I will be the chief judge and guinea pig of choice,  I have a feeling my mouth will be taking one for the team more than once.

And of course, I had to order a bunch more seeds once I warmed up to the idea, so my starting plants could wind up being one of several not mentioned above.

Hopefully you can learn something from my mistakes too.

Wish me luck, and stay tuned.

Peace, love and puka shells,

Grubbycup

Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. Portland: Timber Press, 2006. 196 pages.

If you are a gardener who isn’t afraid of some food for thought, read Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web.

It has an interesting premise, and does a nice job of supporting it: To reduce the amount of work and resources that you have to add and remove from the system, make better use of naturally occurring processes.

In a natural setting such as a forest or jungle, plants can thrive without any human intervention. There is a web of dependencies and products that allow resources to be acquired, used, and then made available again in some form to something further down the line. Plants need fertilizer, and if you follow the chain of events, they eventually become fertilizer with help from other parts of the web.

Conventional farming and gardening methods, on the other hand, attempt to restrict this web to the bare minimum required to produce the product that we want (fruits, vegetables, feed, etc.).

Now as any indoor gardener can tell you, the further you get away from a plant’s natural environment, the more responsible you become for supplying the needs that were being filled by other members of the web. For example, if you take a plant away from the sun, you become responsible for supplying light. If you remove the natural sources of nutrients, you become responsible for supplying the plants with nutrients, and so on.

In order to help explain what these naturally occurring factors are, the first part of the book describes the web from dirt and bacteria up to animal life. For material that contains a lot of Latin words, it is very straightforward and easy to understand. Much more the way textbooks should be written, instead of how they are. I have a feeling that I will be using it as a reference many times as I follow my own gardening path.

Once the Soil Food Web has been described, and the reader encouraged to take a more holistic, synergistic view of their garden, the second part of the book explains some ways to apply this knowledge. Instead of trying to force your garden to perform, you nurture and nudge it in the direction you want using compost, mulch, compost teas and so on. Like training an animal to perform tricks, you encourage your garden to do what you want, and discourage it from doing what you don’t.

To help readers distill the knowledge in the book down to a more manageable level for quick reference, there is a list of “The Soil Food Web Gardening Rules” which are nineteen statements that are the essence of some of the most important concepts in what the book has to say. It also has my only complaint about in the book: I would have liked a reference from the list of rules, to the relevant sections in the book.

It is the best book on garden interdependencies that I have read. Even though the topics discussed have given me a lot to think about, and the possible ramifications will have me referring back to it on a regular basis, the writing is so straightforward and smooth, that it has an almost “quick read” property to it. I finished it in two evenings.

If you want to consider yourself a “well read” gardener, put this on your list.

Peace, love and puka shells,

Grubbycup

• There are plenty of fish in the pond, and plant nutrients are a known result of fish.
• The spring algae bloom is prolific (more on that in a minute).
• The system is already supporting existing plants very well.

Fight it.

or

Don’t fight it.

Gentle Reader, I suggest you just learn to accept that the pond is going to look a bit green for a while once a year. After checking the piggy bank, and getting threatened with being turned over to the ASPCA if I don’t start feeding it a little something once in a while, I made the executive decision that this was going to be a budget minded enterprise. So perhaps a future version will include my aspirations to extend the deck, but for now, a couple of 4″x 4″s and a re-tasked wooden frame will form the base. Wicked pots sit on the platform. They will be top watered until the roots are established, then they should be able to pull pond water up the wick, and finally, send roots down into the pond itself. This is where I got even with the piggy bank. The piggy bank now exists only as an abstract concept of anti-existence. I bought two inexpensive “mini-greenhouses” for $30 US each. There are several things I like about these racks:

• They are light enough to sit on the wooden platform.
• Easy to put up.
• Great to scavenge parts from.
• The shelves make for a nice training screen.
• They were cheaper than what it would cost if I built it. I tend to get carried away.

This, Gentle Reader, is my process. I make a model, and learn from it. Then another, and another, sometimes I start making them a little bigger…

So when I take the plunge on expensive things like the solar panels and water pump (I want to use to pump the water up to a reservoir, so the only “house electricity” it uses is a valve on a timer), I can feel confident that the rest of the design will work.

Peace, love, and puka shells,
Grubbycup ]]> http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/05/pond-hydroponics/feed/ 4 http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/04/half-cooked-thoughts-pond-filter-or-hydroponic-planter/ http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/04/half-cooked-thoughts-pond-filter-or-hydroponic-planter/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:32:34 +0000 Grubbycup http://urbangardenmagazine.com/?p=4324 Hydroponic lilies or pond filter?

It’s both. Water from the koi pond is filtered through a series of 4 wooden half-barrels.

In this way, I get both a cleaner pond, and attractive, almost maintenance-free plants.
Each barrel is slightly lower than the one before.

Pond water is pumped into to the top half barrel, and gravity takes care of the rest. These plants are obviously not nutrient starved. From the levels they get in these last two, I’d say the system could support another pot or two.

If I were to use a more traditional design, I would have pots that needed added fertilizer to do well, and a normal pond filter to remove unwanted elements from the koi pond.

By combining the two, not only do I avoid expenses like fertilizer and new filters, I avoid the work in adding and changing.

I do not claim this system to be maintenance free, but most of the time all it needs is simply clearing the pump intake, or removing plants so they don’t overgrow.

Peace, love and puka shells,

Grubbycup ]]> http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2010/04/half-cooked-thoughts-pond-filter-or-hydroponic-planter/feed/ 5