Favorite Tomato

[Chris09]

Quote: No offence but anybody can make YouTube video and post it on the site.
I tend to go more on what a University has to say about the matter and less on what someone with little or no scientific proof on the matter has to say.

 

[nin in PA]

Brandywine celebrity and mortgage lifter. Yummmo

 

[texpat]

No offence but anybody can make YouTube video and post it on the site.
I tend to go more on what a University has to say about the matter and less on what someone with little or no scientific proof on the matter has to say.

No offence, but there many ways to answer your patronizing, and condescending comment. I will simply say, A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Have a nice day.

 

[pfields]

I bought a Brandywine plant yesterday. After reading about them here and then finding one I'm excited to give them a try.

I checked out the Back to Eden garden plan and it sounds like something we would like to do. Thanks for sharing!

 

[scsd15]

I start my seeds about first week of march. I start setting plants like tomatoes and peppers in the garden about mid may. 

 

[scsd15]

I start my seeds about first week of march. I start setting plants like tomatoes and peppers in the garden about mid may.

What do you use as your light source for your seeds?

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
I have a greenhouse so I don't have to supplement lighting too much but I do use a Quantum T5 fluorescent fixture with eight (8) Quantum T5 54W HO (High Output) 6500K Blue Spectrum tubes now and then if needed.

Warning the fixtures and tubes are not cheep but there good.

 

[MeepBeep]

 
Quote:

 
I start my seeds about first week of march. I start setting plants like tomatoes and peppers in the garden about mid may.

What do you use as your light source for your seeds?

I have a greenhouse so I don't have to supplement lighting too much but I do use a Quantum T5 fluorescent fixture with eight (8) Quantum T5 54W HO (High Output) 6500K Blue Spectrum tubes now and then if needed.

Warning the fixtures and tubes are not cheep but there good.

Most seedlings don't nee much light, a regular 2 tube florescent shop light with some 6500K bulbs is generally enough... Or multiple 6500K CFL bulbs will work as well...

I grow wild flowers indoors for my girls in the winter, and this is my on the budget light fixture... It's 6 cheap shop light fixtures, on a frame to create a 2 foot by 4 foot light... The shop lights have had a 2nd ballast installed so the tubes are now being driven at twice their normal wattage, this gets me about the equivalent of 9-10 shop light fixtures worth of light out of 6 this or pretty much HO output out of regular tubes... The regular tubes have no problem handling being over driven, it just slightly shortens their life, but I replace them every season anyway due to normal florescent degradation so I never see end of life...

One very important thing to remember with artificial light is the "Inverse Square Law" in short the energy in light diminishes rapidly with distance... A basic dumbed down rule is that when you double the light distance you cut the available light energy by 75%, but it actually gets worse then that in reality... So for example if your lights are 1 foot above the plant and you move to the light to 6 inches above the plant, you just increased the light energy by a factor of 4! While the reverse is true, if the lights are at 6" above the plant and you move them to 1 foot you now only have 1/4 of the light energy... As you can see this can result in a huge difference, in how much energy a plant can derive from a light being placed just a few inches further or closer away...

Although not a calibrated scientific example and not a direct measurement of PAR energy you can easily get a decent measurement of lumens with a smart phone to see the Inverse Square Law in action... Download a lux/lumen meter for your smart phone, turn on a single light in a dark room, hold the phone 1 foot away from the light and then slowly move it to 2 feet away and watch the lux/lumens drop like a rock...

 

[SittinDuck]

I keep my raised beds because I have such a large investment in them. By adding the wood chips, I only water once/week in dry weather, instead of every 3 days.

The guy in the Back to Eden video didn't have raised beds

I'm just giving you a hard time. Raised beds have their uses just like sunken beds and level beds.

I did the raised bed thing for a few years and decided that I didn't have enough of a bed raised, and if I raise more, then it wouldn't be a raised bed lol. So I filled in the valleys between my beds and it's all level now. I'll try it for a while and see.

Quote:
Yes, that's why I sprinkle on some ammonium nitrate before I till to break down the chips. So why have chips? Because I want the lignin in the chips, not the cellulose stuff. The lignin is hard to break down and holds a lot of nutrients against being washed away by our 6 - 8 FT of rain per year. The way I understand it, lignin is pretty much humus.

Lignin, which is quickly transformed by white-rot fungi,[21] is one of the main precursors of humus,[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humus#Humification

Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity and do not rot easily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignin

That's why wood chips work so well in a garden.

If you put wood chips on top and you do it thickly enough, the roots of plants will grow into the mass of chips and starve. That happened to me last year. The Back to Eden video shows that with the family in PA who planted into the wood chips and the plants didn't do as well as the plants whose roots went into the ground.

If roots see light, they stop and turn the other way. But if they do not see light, they grow into the wad of chips.

Quote:

The early contenders aren't bad. I grow both. The early ones come early and then the blue lakes to frost.

I have all kinds of weeds: Dock weed is bad. Big long tap root! Blackberry is a vicious weed too. It can't be killed! Pour gas on it, fry it with a torch and cover with concrete... it's coming right back! The bermuda grass is awful. Grasses in general are pretty bad in my garden. I have everything, most I can't name it.

 

[SittinDuck]

It doesn't matter if the wood chips are in the soil or on the soil they still rob nitrogen from the soil the only difference is weather it takes nitrogen with in the soil or from the top few inches of the soil.
Wood chips much like saw dust also has a acidifying affect so pH also has to be watched also.

Wood chips are big, so I can't see it being a big problem.



From left to right: potting soil, 100% wood chips, 100% crushed limestone, 100% play sand, dirt/compost mix, compost.

All planted at the same time.

If wood chips were that big of a problem, a plant shouldn't be able to grow in 100% wood chips. They would surely suck up all nitrogen, but they don't.

Plants also grow in 100% lime and 100% sand. The nitrogen seems to come from the air.

(The wood chips look black because they've been wet for a few weeks.)

It's important to note that I am not adding wood chips to my garden, I am adding the lignin in the wood chips and accepting the undesirable effects of the wood as a consequence to a greater good in the end. I expect those undesirable effects to be minimal, and so far, that has been my impression.