Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Wow, swimming pool central in your area eh

Going by that Shaker...all you need are growbeds, there is already a dirty big Fish tank

Lol yeah 2 far from the beach i guess. Gnash, i have been threatening my kids.....use it or lose it

Hi

Well dropped into a soil supply shop today and picked up 3 stone samples

20 mm rainbow stone
20 mm blue metal
12 mm pea gravel

I am going to put in water and ph test them. I think that blue metal will be the go if all ok. Then topped with Hydroton should have it sorted.

Pics below are what i have in my garage waiting to go. Empty stubby to show scale.

Nice choice of beer

lol RMCBP

I usually drink Corona but lately that has hit the spot

PH testing on stones as follow
Day 1 Day 2
20 mm rainbow stone 7.3 7.7
20 mm blue metal 7.2 7.8
12 mm pea gravel 7.4 7.8

I am going to put in water and ph test them. I think that blue metal will be the go if all ok. Then topped with Hydroton should have it sorted.

So I am leaning towards the pea gravel due to the roundness nature of it. I guess these 3 stones are used by others and the PH can be settled when cycling.

Mark

I think rainbow stone will not be cheap... personally I think blue metal or pea gravel would do the same job, no sense paying more... I used 14mm blue metal in my new expanding system...

Yeah Ivansg

Cost per trailer (about 170 litres)

Rainbow Stone $150
Blue Metal $70
Pea Gravel $60

Was chatting to one of the staff at BYAP today and he mentioned the issue with blue metal was it compacted more due to the flattish sides. So i am leaning towards pea gravel with a lot of cleaning coming up.

Hi All

I have moved my tomatoes outside and as i dont have a FT yet i will go down the humonia path.

Can anyone advise me on pruning of these plants. I am unsure what type they are as it came in a Diggers mix pack.

Here are a couple of pics. I will poat more on the FT progress in a few days as i have started digging out the area.

The aim of pruning tomatoes is to limit the number of fruit set per plant so that you get good quality fruit rather than lots of poor quality fruit. You also want to allow lots of air to circulate to prevent mould and other diseases.

This is how I do it:

As the plant grows it will produce lateral growth branches between each leaf stem and the main stem, if left unchecked each one of these will become its own growth stem and the plant will be loaded with heaps of leaves and flowers causing disease and poor quality fruit.

You should only allow the first of these laterals to grow so that you have two growth stems, the rest that continuously appear as the plant grows should be pinched off using you fingernails as soon as you see them.

Now that you are keeping the plant to two branched they will grow up and produce flower branches which are well separated and have good access to light. As the lowest of these flower branches sets fruit you should strip all foliage of the plant below the immature fruit so that the growing fruit is the first port of call for all the nutrient travelling up from the roots.

As you harvest all the fruit from the lowest truss you then strip all the foliage from the next highest truss with fruit and so on and so forth.

Do you want to do this with cherry tomatoes as well? I don't like tomatoes at all, but my daughter really does so I am planning on putting some in for her when I get my system set up.

These are the old rules for tomoatoes,
As they start producing flowers or even the buds, start removing all leaves on the bottom half of the plant only on leaf branches, thin out leaves just leaving a crown of leaves on top. Never touch the fruit branches, never touch the flower buds, just let them run. Tomatoes don't need all their leaves, it cuts down on the nr/quality of tomatoes

It can help to understand the parts of the tomato plant that can be pruned:

Side Shoots - Two schools of thought here - remove the third branch, most of the offshoot branches will have a small bud develop at the root (where it joins the main trunk). can't think of a better way of describing it. the other thought is to leave these as they can produce fruit.


Leaf Branches. Each leaf grows from a branch coming out of the stem. Leaf branches conduct photosynthesis for the plant and protect fruit from sun scald. It will not hurt the plant to snip off a large number of these. I tend to keep the lower half/or 2/3 of the main stem clear of leaves to improve circulation around the base. I also snip off leaves that turn yellow, get ragged from insect damage, and those that are so big they are touching the ground or interferring with an adjacent plant. Tomato plants do not need nearly as many leaves.

Fruit branches. These branches grow directly out of the stem-like leaf branches but they contain blossoms that will hopefully turn into fruit. Do not remove any of these that come from the main stem or you'll have less tomatoes.

Main growing tip. The main growing tip starts out as a tiny branch with leaves coming out of the topmost joint of the plant. This can be removed in indeterminate tomato plants once they have overgrown their support or when it's late in the season (about 30 days before the first frost is expected)--to allow the plant energy to focus on ripening the existing fruit.

I do not remove the main growing tip on determinate plants. They are predetermined to grow to a specific height and produce a specific number of tomatoes. Removal of the growing tip will sacrifice fruit on determinate tomato plants.

Indeterminates are ones that don't have a specific height shape, (eg. vine tomatoes).

Side Shoots Also known as "suckers" and side stems--these are the tricky ones! Side shoots grow in the joint between a leaf branch and the stem and will grow just like the main stem--they have a growing tip and they produce leaves and fruit branches. Removing them equals removing fruit, so this is where the controversy comes in.

In the past, I did not remove the side shoots of my tomato plants that growing inside tall, square tomato cages or ladders under a plastic-covered bed. This type of support can handle all the crazy suckers as long as I continue to tuck-in branches that try to get out and the plastic covering can extend my growing season long enough for many of the suckers to produce fruit depending on how cold it gets.

Plants that I grow supported by wire frame or "tying-up" (string wrapped around the stem and tied off on a bar high above the plant) are pruned more regularly. The reason is that more side-shoots appear daily and grow extremely fast so it's difficult to keep up with tying every single one. In this situation, it's actually less work to pinch out the side-shoots. Inevitably I will end up missing a few so I just tie those to the support and let them grow, giving me several branches of fruit in addition to the main stem. When small, the suckers are easy to remove, they pop right off without need for clippers.

Once side shoots have grown too big to pop off, just remove the growing tip of the side shoot--removing the entire shoot can be too much of a shock for the plant.

Companion Planting
Tomato allies are many: Asparagus, basil, bean, carrots (if you dont mind stunted carrots), celery, chive, cucumber, garlic, head type lettuce, marigold, mint, nasturtium, Onion, Parsley, Pea, Pepper, marigold.


AVOID
Ones to avoid are
avoid corn and tomatoes together,
avoid tomatoes and potatoes, they all attract the same bugs,
avoid cabbage and tomatoes
avoid cauliflower & tomatoes
try and avoid carrots & tomatoes, planting your carrots near your tomatoes, actually not that bad they only stunt carrot growth.

Thanks Guys

Will get stuck into support for them on the weekend. I have been pinching out the side shoots. I will leave them for now.

I use 7mm blue metal and have no drama's yet, it does compact a bit but stirs up when changing plants, I am thinking of mixing a bit of clay balls with it, blue metal is $0 here so can't complain about the price
Why an empty Stubby, a full one would show the same scale
I think 20mm Metal maybe a tad big