Chatterson Farms is born!

scotty435

Nice looking Florence Fennel Ryan

TCLynx

hawaiinewbie wrote:

TCL, I am also VERY curious on what makes lettuce grow a dense head. Sometimes I can get it nice and dense and other times not.

Yep, I've always figured that most of the time when I don't get dense heads it is simply because I'm in a sub-tropical climate and during warm/hot weather the best we can expect is loose leaf lettuce.

However, during cool weather when I would expect to be getting denser heads, I'm having trouble figuring out which factors seem to be the most important in getting that result. This season seems to be having a higher % of cloudy days than I'm used to and strange swings between unseasonably warm to unseasonably cool without much "normal" weather in between. Lets hear it for global climate change NOT. :upset:

So I watch Ryan's stuff closely and pick up as many tidbits as I can from him. :shifty:

jayendra

Did you kiss that fish?

Samuel L Jackson

TCLynx wrote:

hawaiinewbie wrote:

TCL, I am also VERY curious on what makes lettuce grow a dense head. Sometimes I can get it nice and dense and other times not.

Yep, I've always figured that most of the time when I don't get dense heads it is simply because I'm in a sub-tropical climate and during warm/hot weather the best we can expect is loose leaf lettuce.

However, during cool weather when I would expect to be getting denser heads, I'm having trouble figuring out which factors seem to be the most important in getting that result. This season seems to be having a higher % of cloudy days than I'm used to and strange swings between unseasonably warm to unseasonably cool without much "normal" weather in between. Lets hear it for global climate change NOT. :upset:

So I watch Ryan's stuff closely and pick up as many tidbits as I can from him. :shifty:

TC I think I responded to you about this in a different thread, but didnt know the answer. Temperature makes some sense to me because I'm in south florida and our green butterhead hasn't been forming dense heads at all. The only time that it started to do that was when we got a short cool spell a couple weeks ago, AND we are using chillers (70F water temp)

Ryan

coachchris wrote:

I guess that answers my question as to whether or not I can grow celery in dwc. Impressive Ryan. Do you use sticky traps in your greenhouse at all? If so, so you use them just to monitor? I'm concerned about using them and catching too many beneficials as well as pests. Figured you would know, since you use solely predatory "bugs" for pest control. Do you buy your own fish food or make it? Trying to pick a brand and can't decide which is best for AP. Do any have formulations for plants? ie, more Ca, Fe, Mg, etc?
PS- just looked at pic again..not celery. fennel?? So many different plants that I don't know.lol Ask me about woody ornaments...I can ID 90%. But am clueless on most veggies and herbs once you get away from what is at Publix.

Yeah it's fennel but I just harvested some awesome heirloom celery last week. Skinny stalks, 3-5x as strong tasting.
Stickys?-yes from time to time but not constantly. I know what's going to be in there... It's just a mater of how big the populations are and what ratios of good to bad guys I have in the GH. They move in waves so you just have to make sure you stop any bad insect population explosions in their tracks.

I buy my own food and think silver cup, purina, skreeting, and several others are fine. The formulations are close and I've had good results with all. Just make sure it is a complete diet and not a pond feed supliment.
No plant specific foods yet... Just not a big enough market (have talked with several feed producers on this)

I am the Anti-Publix

If they carry it, I don't want to grow it. Have to set yourself apart!

Ryan

Columnmn wrote:

Ryan wrote:

Columnmn wrote:

I've just gone through the whole thread. It's quite impressive.

One thing I'm curious about (from way back in your thread), you grew miracle fruit, in the soil it needs a low PH to survive (I killed it many times). But how does it do in AP, do you need to alter the PH for it? Or just throw it in and wait?

Fantastic system btw

Thanks bud! They do need an extremely low pH so I grow mine in pots that have an acidic media and water with AP water. You could probably grow them in a media bed if you surrounded the rootball with coffe grounds/pine bark and gave it additional top dressings of coffe grounds from time to time. I'm going to try it in a few months so I'll let you know!

Thanks Ryan. You're a wealth of knowledge! I'll have to give it a go!

And that sliced tomato looks delicious! What type is it?

Go for it! The Tommy is a pink ponderosa (pink on the outside, Definatly not on the inside!)

Ryan

Damian wrote:

I am truely a fan of your work, I sure hope we could do some work together someday. I have to ask some more questions that are burning my mind.

When you post pics of produce is that the pick of the day? If so what's your total volume of water your working with and daily feed amount, you seam very productive from my estimate of your floor space,(sorry if i missed it earlier in the tread). Is that a normal picnic size disposable plate, you know the one in the pic that is covered by only 4 slices of beefstake.

Interesting comment on being able to provide a PH spifick root zone for a single plant in a AP grow bed.

Brix comment up for discusstion/corection.
I personally compear brix of plants to blood suger testers and diabetics. I am thinking that you should be testing ever 3<10 days, the brix is a messurment of sugers in the plant sap and therefore how active the plant is, it takes 3<10 days for a plant to correct it self of a micro defishentcy, when the nutrent is applied foilarly, so i believe a plants internel mecanisum works in that time frame. I could be wrong but I believe the brix level during early growth is just as important as final brix or even more so because as you said strong starts equal good saleable product. Lets use the tomatoes as example the ones in the tom only system should maintain a brix higher than the ones in the mix system,because the growth is better. Then you should be getting a different reading in brix 3<10 days after you add your propiortery efulent. Enableing you to fine tune your mix by the resulent rise or fall in brix.

Your going to be triming back new shoots from the plants often anyways that's the best place to take the sap from.

Thanks Dave, Hairy and everyone else! Things are growing well!

TC- it took about 9 weeks!

Damian- thx! I dont give out my feeding ratios but I run a little over 20K gal of water. The plate is actually a large disposable so not sure how that compares to what you're talking about but the tomato was about 1.3lbs. If you thought that was big, wait until the pic I post in a bit!
The problem with the tomato brix example is that the suckers aren't going to have the same brix as the fruit...you would want to test the fruit at different stages and intervals. In something like Swiss chard, I would pull from the same leaf set (control vs experiment) at intervals and contrast/compare.

Ryan

TCLynx

Ryan, what is the orientation on your greenhouse? As in, is the long axis and your beds running North/South?

Charlie

your tomatoes are silly ry-man!

coachchris

Thanks Ryan...that's a badass tom. Almost 2.5 lbs. I think I have one in the GH that will go close to 1.75...still growing and not blushing yet. My fish shut down for a day or two...it was 40 in the GH with temp in the 20's and just no sun for about 3 days. Good advice on the anti Publix. I'm potting up some seed trays soon with some chard and some heirloom toms soon. Want more basil, but it's just not warm enough to get it to do well. I heat my FT, but can't afford to heat the whole GH. have you ever raised Ha gold tilapia? I got some in, and their growth rate as been pretty amazing. In comparison to the blues...look to be at least 40-0% faster. 25-30% over the whites. I'm interested to see how they do outside during the Summer.

kimocal

Ryan have you harvested any of the freshwater prawns yet? That image of everything growing in the the hoop house looks awesome. :headbang:

coachchris

Ryan, hope you fared well in this cold snap. My fish went off their feed a bit..but should be good in a day or 2. You said you have about 20K of water in your system. How big is your FT? Your just running a single pump as well. you must have a pretty large FT. If things keep doing well, I would like to get a larger one...maybe double current size. Great looking pics...as usual.

dasboot

Ryan, what would you recommend for water flow rate through DWC,i have 100 sq ft divided through 3 troughs.

coachchris

DB, I was told once per hour...but can't remember by whom. Hope that's right.

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Chatterson Farms is born!

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics