Back on the farm!

My surgery went well! I'm off my feet for a few more days but once they heal, I'll be getting around better than ever!

A lot happened while I was away. Firstly, my wife took great care of the farm and learned a lot about how to keep it operating. Because of her, all of our plants are doing terrific.

I will get photos soon but for now I'll do a text update:

-The pepperoncini plants have about fifty peppers on them. The most mature peppers are nearly seven inches long! We're going to continue to let them grow until they start to turn a bit orange, then we're going to taste-test again.

-There are no baby bell peppers! Apparently I mislabeled my plants because two plants (which I thought were baby bell peppers and long thin Cayenne) both appear to be Jalapenos. I'm not upset- the fruits of both plants are plump and shiny, extremely healthy and delicious-looking.

-The Ancho Magnifico is named appropriately! This one has about twenty fruits. The largest is about 4.5 inches long and two inches in diameter. Like the jalapenos, these have an extraordinary dark green color and are very smooth, blemish-free and healthy looking!

-There was a lot of blossom drop while I was away. For a couple of days the water levels dropped quite low and the pH got a little low. I'm not too worried about this because all of the plants still have plenty of healthy flowers and no shortage of fruit. The adverse conditions have been corrected.

-Each bucket drinks about 2 quarts of water today. Very vigorous fruiting is taking place!

-I have no control group, but based on the accelerated and vigorous fruiting, I am happy with the performance of the Kool Blooms bloom enhancer.

-Of the seedlings that I planted before I went to the hospital, I have one very health specimen each of Butternut Squash and Babylon Cucumber. Today we're going to prepare a bucket for the Butternut Squash.

-The Baby Bell Pepper seedling was almost dead when I returned home, but I prepared a tonic of Maxi-Grow, Trinity (Roots Organics) and Hygrozyme (A new enzyme product that I will discuss in a future update). Literally overnight, that pepper seedling straightened up and pushed out its first set of true leaves so I'm going to say that plant is saved.

-As I get more experience keeping this blog, I'm adding lots more categories to the posts so that I'll end up with a nice searchable database for myself and for you.

New Crops

Sorry for the rapid-fire updates today, but I've done a lot. I started some new crops this evening. I have decided to try Rapid Rooter plugs instead of starting my seeds in pure perlite. Rapid Rooter plugs are strong, spongy plugs of bark and peat infused with some micro-nutrients. They're compatible for transfer into hydroponic systems of all sorts and supposedly contain microbes that colonize quickly in the developing plant roots. We'll see!

The new crops are:
-Butternut Squash (Lilly Miller Seeds)
-Cucumber (Babylon Cucumber) (Territorial Seed Co)
-Miniature Bell Pepper (Territorial Seed Co)

Right now there are three plugs of each type of seed germinating on a seedling mat (basically a low-grade heater) under a 42 watt compact fluorescent bulb @ 6500k (full spectrum).

All three of these plants are of a climbing, viny sort, so I have prepared the grow area by building a lattice of jute twine that covers on entire wall of the grow area. I will train the plants to climb this lattice. You'll see photos of the lattice when I move the plants into the grow area.