Photo Update: Butternut Squash

The squash plant continues to grow ferociously. I had to give it a bit of assistance finding the trellis (a couple of loose loops of cotton string). Flower buds are starting to appear all over, too! From what I understand the first set of flowers will be male (won't produce fruit) and are edible on their own. I don't think I want to eat them, though.

Photo Update: Butternut squash recovering

Over the weekend I prepared a new setup for the Butternut Squash that was recovering from nitrogen burn. I intend to train the squash to climb a trellis inside the grow area, which presents an interesting problem. As it happens, squash plants have rather brittle stems which means that I would be risking snapping the stem each time I changed out the plant's reservoir. To address this problem, I decided to build an Ebb-and-Flood system for the squash plant.

  The first thing you might notice that the leaves have taken on a more healthy dark green color after being flushed. There is some permanent discoloration at the outside edges of the affected leaves, but the plant is much happier now. The small leaf at the center of the base of the plant is still in terrible condition and has stopped growing and gone necrotic, so I removed it after I took this photo. You can see the newest leaf (at the top of the plant) is reaching for the trellis that I made by tying jute twine between the supports of my growing area.

Now, the nice thing about an Ebb-and-Flood system is that the plant's container never has to be moved. Instead the plant lives in a bucket of growing medium [the white bucket in this photo] and a separate bucket is used to contain the nutrient solution [the orange bucket in this photo]. Several times a day, nutrient solution is pumped from the reservoir into the plant's container, filling the container from the bottom. This is called the 'flood' cycle. After about 15 minutes, the pump stops and the nutrient solution drains from the plant's container back to the nutrient reservoir. This, of course, is called the 'ebb' cycle. These alternating cycles supply the plants roots with exposure to nutrient solution and then to plenty of oxygen.

I apologize that this update was a bit rushed, but time was short today. Later I'll post an update with the details of how I built this very basic (and cheap!) ebb-and-flood contraption.

Problem: Nitrogen Burn

Shown here is the Butternut Squash, which has been growing at a ferocious pace. However, you can see that the leaves do not look healthy. The curling under and yellowish spots and tips on the leaves indicate overfertilization.

Specifically, this is Nitrogen burn caused by nitrogen levels being too high in the nutrient solution. Normally I start all plants on a solution of Maxi-Grow and then switch them to Maxi-Bloom when it's time to encourage/support fruiting and flowering.

A bit of research indicates that Butternut Squash plants desire a level of Phosphorous that is higher than the level of Nitrogen in their fertilizer, and this holds true for the plant's entire development cycle.

To remedy this problem I will be switching this squash plant's nutrient solution to use Maxi-Bloom rather than Maxi-Grow as its primary nutrient. However, the plant is damaged and under a lot of stress. To help with the stress and damage already caused by the nitrogen burn I have moved this plant to a bucket that contains a nutrient flush, where it will stay for 24 hours.

The most basic nutrient flush consists of nothing but clean, fresh water that is pH-adjusted to a perfectly neutral 7.0. In addition, I have added four teaspoons of Flora-Kleen (1 tsp. per gallon) to the flush solution to help break the plant/nutrient bond and hopefully release as much of the accumulated nitrogen as possible.

Hopefully this guy will make a full recovery. More as I have it!

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

Here you can see the Butternut Squash is really taking off now that it has some established roots.

The roots look like they're unhealthy in this photo, but what's actually happening is that the Rapid Rooter plug is dissolving and some of the detritus is getting caught up in the root system. I'll add some hygrozyme at the next reservoir change to help clear up the decaying material.

You'll also notice that this plant is in a plain bucket without any built-in supporting structures. That's because I'm going to train the Butternut Squash to climb the trellis that I built. I'm going to have to figure out exactly how to support the big heavy squash fruits but I won't have to worry about that for quite a while.

Photo Update: Butternut Squash

Shown here is the butternut squash plant that I transferred from my germinating tray to its new home in the bucket farm last week. It was started from seed almost exactly three weeks ago.

As you can see, the taproot is out of the net pot and has found its way into the solution. Tons of new roots are now sure to follow.

I have experienced some problems with elevated pH in this bucket, and my best guess is that the Rapid Rooter plug that the seed was germinated in is affecting the pH as it dissolves into the nutrient solution. As I said, this is just a guess. Even if the Rapid Rooter plugs are causing the pH bump, I'm so happy with their performance in germination and early root development that I wouldn't mind.

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.