Hydroponics

It started off as a crazy year for my plants. I tried my super new vertical system and found that it leaked so much that I had to refill the water every day. That also means topping up the nutrients which can be expensive. The problem was that I had already placed a lot of seedlings in it. The first thing I did was panic, jump up and down and blame it all on Rosalie.

After Rosalie bought me back to earth with a sharp slap and a shot of tequila, I decided to build another, more traditional setup. Then I took the plants from the vertical setup and stuck them in the new one. I’m not too organized and they all got mixed up so I had little idea of what each plant was. I knew that they would eventually grow and maybe I could get them sorted out. It did work out that way eventually but in the meantime, there were a few surprises.

Our friends Art and Linda gave us about six tomato plants of various varieties. As we had so much success last year I decided to grow them hydroponically again. This was partly a big mistake.

One of the plants started to get so big that the roots blocked the outflow pipes and we had a bit of a flood so I had to relocate it to the dirt garden where it’s doing just fine. Later, a second one did the same thing but the roots were so tangled with its neighbour that I had to leave it and trim it a little. Right now I’m praying that it doesn’t get too get much bigger. The size of my hydroponics wasn’t designed for plants this big. Next year I’ll try a different method.

One morning, while inspecting the troops, I found two more small tomato plants growing among the unknown. Then I remembered that last year, our hydroponics store gave us some tomatoes that they had grown and I had saved some seeds. This must be them.

I caught this guy chomping on the bean leaves. He (or she) casually wandered off as if they owned the place.

We’ve had great success with all our plants but Rosalie is mostly excited about the peppers as she has some great ideas for them. We are also growing Lemon Cucumbers. They are round and tastier than the long skinny ones. From my last inspection, it looks as though there may be a couple of dozen of them.

There are also lettuce, kale, spinach and my favourite, watercress. My Father grew cress for a living in England so I grew up with it. My Mum used to say that I was teethed on the stuff. It has a slight peppery taste and is great in salads and sandwiches.

I’m still learning about all this and it’s a lot of fun. I have so many ideas for different ways to grow stuff that I’m afraid to tell Rosalie. I tried a new nutrient, It’s a bit more expensive but I sure can see how much better the plants are.

This year has been a success so far and hopefully, next year will be even better.