Growing Food

[opens2]

We tried to grow chilies once. Didn't go well, they were awful.

[sparrowhawk1]

I tried to improve on a very good microgreen growing result and got two failures. First I soaked the seeds and piled them on too thick, covered them w soil and I got mold and second I tried putting seeds on top of a paper towel and as you can see the seeds that fell into the soil sprouted the ones on the towel did not. Back to tried-and-true no soaking sprinkle on top of the soil, spraying once in the morning, Maybe again in the evening Until established then set it and forget it.

[sparrowhawk1]

Harvested a few sweet potatoes. Have had a large produce of leaves to eat. Thinned out my Everglades tomatoes already found some caterpillars I removed all the leaves that were damaged. Eating chives that I removed most of the green and eat the onion part. Basil doing excellent, removed the tops but let a few tops go to seed. Dehydrating mint. I topped the plant and already new growth is growing so fast.

[Steadman Uhlich]

While I am not growing plants on a boat now, I have enjoyed reading this thread and the contributions of tips and photos etc.

Thanks to everyone for adding to the mix and sharing your knowledge here. It is interesting reading.

The photos are helpful too.

[Mike OReilly]

Not in your league Sparrow, but I just "harvested" my latest batch of sprouts. I have a constant flow going. And the basil, rosemary and mint plants are doing fine.

[sparrowhawk1]

Cool. Some things are so easy to grow its insane that not everyone's doing it. And I almost forgot to add here's to replace my potatoes I took out
It's so hot here I have trouble growing Sprouts but I am trying to sprout some rye berries to make bread hopefully they won't get moldy because it's such a short time to give them little Tails

[Lepke]

Years ago with hydroponics, sun and more ambition, I got 300 pounds of potatoes out of a 4'x8' space.

[sparrowhawk1]

Lepke, what type of hydroponic system? was it ebb and flood for example? And what type of media? I'm using a earth box type( Reservoir at the bottom with two "cones" of enhanced soil going down into it) with masterblend hydroponic solution. I mix up the master blend and epsom salt in one 1 gallon jug and the calcium nitrate in another at a ratio of each of the jugs have six lines on the side one line will do 3 gallons. In the summer when they're drinking so much water I'll do half strength. Here's a photo of my chives I harvested and prepped this morning it's about 1/6 of my plants. This is so easy to grow these plants are over 10 years old and just won't die. I thined them several times but this time I'm going to let the plants get even bigger. I've learned that I need to make a "big" Harvest and put them in a jar in the refrigerator so I can sprinkle them on all the time. I find just harvesting for a meals worth kept me from using them.

[sparrowhawk1]

Unlike green onions they don't get smaller they actually get a little bit bigger diameter as the years go by
the more you harvest the more they grow. But if you don't Harvest they stay there perfectly fine waiting for you to harvest

[sparrowhawk1]

What I meant by Thinned: I removed about 1/3 of a plant every year. This year I'm just going to let them spread and grow more plants hydroponically in other containers.

[sparrowhawk1]

So I decided to take the slips off of the sweet potato in the photo taken 2 days ago and here's the results after 2 days. My lettuce is going to flower and it's a beautiful thing to see every morning. And here's some kale I just planted a few days ago. I don't know why my camera is acting so weird but you can see the kale. Now I have to decide to thin them.

[sparrowhawk1]

I'm on my way to go to a whole lot of money Foods to buy some purple sweet potatoes and set them aside for growing slips. And my kale is going to be hippie kale because it's in recycled dirt( that was cooked in a solar oven to kill any baddies ) in a recycled cottage cheese container in a recycled apple juice container that is covered by a recycled potato chip bag turned inside out! Oops the proper yuppie term is up cycled!

[sparrowhawk1]

So this is the first time I've had caterpillars very early in the year. I couldn't find them last year and they devastated my tomato plants in days. now I know what to look for. they actually fold the leaves over and they're very tiny. If you look closely at the leaf on the left it used to be rolled up, I opened it up so you could see the caterpillar and its little cocoon. The leaf on the right has a caterpillar inside it. I just removed all the damaged leaves and I'm doing it almost on a daily basis anything that just doesn't look right goes. My sweet potato slips have gone Crazy and so has my phone looks kind of cool but I didn't do the multiple . And last but not least my kale has gotten leggy and I have it so it gets morning and afternoon sun but is protected from the noon Sun by my Bimini I know if I don't do this it will be too hot for them.

[sparrowhawk1]

I really do admire the tenacity of the critters that I fight in my garden. I just have to learn what plants are good to eat and have high tolerances and low maintenance . I've never had any problems with something eating my sweet potatoes it may be hard to tell from the photo but all the leaves are damaged. So I cut them all back and that's the beauty of the sweet potatoes they will just keep growing greens probably have a good side meal in a week.

[sparrowhawk1]

Quick Garden update. well the seeds marked kale were actually loose leaf lettuce but that's fine they're growing well. For some reason my Swiss Chard is barely growing but my basil is doing great at least the one that's under the bimini. the two that are getting direct sunlight are very pale. I keep forgetting to use my sweet potato leaves so this is the full growth after I totally cut them down. I think if I take about a quarter of them every few days by the time I get back to the first quarter I might have to wait another week and then I can start the cycle again. If you can zoom in to the upper left corner of the first photo you can see my tomato plants are pretty scraggly which is very unusual for this time of year it's usually a full plant and I'm harvesting quite a bit and then half the time a storm will come through and kill them if I'm not really careful but then they self start the cycle again.