Pictures of my Garden - July 15, 2011 | Vegetable gardening | GEEKGARDENER

Hello All,

The one major problem we face with container gardening in Hydroponics is the exposure of the cocopeat to the atmosphere. During summer, the heat evaporates the NS causing high EC while rains bring in the problem of leaching. Added to this there is always the problem of leaching. So, I thought up of the following solution.

I have updated the album with the following pictures.

Cut a piece of thermocol the size of the container and make a wedge to slide the plant.

Put the wedge to close the gap.

Tape the thermocol.

Thanks,

Srikanth

Thanks Jeanne.

There was remarkable change in the size of the knolkohl in just one day. I am eagerly waiting for it. In case I get a good crop I plan on planting more of those shortly.

I have always had good look luck with Brinjals and moderate sucess with Tomatoes.

GG's PC has crashed hence he is not able to respond to the queries. In case I do not get an advice in the next one week, I will be spraying DIAFENTHIURON (A broad spectrum insecticide).

Hi Camaroon,

Let me answer by the points in your post.

1. I am not sure what you mean by direct exposure to NS. The NS is fed by drip. As I use to closed system of Hydroponics (recirculating the NS) I do not add any our fertilizers (organic or inorganic). I do not notice any pests but the problem can still be attributed to either nutrient toxicity, nutrient deficiency (both micro and macro) or virus or something that I am not aware of.
2. Thanks.
3. Mulching will not help in preventing leaching of NS due to rain. Again, adding compost is of no use in a closed Hydroponics systems though I can use it for my other pots that are growing plants the traditional way.
4. Only one pot of the radish seems to be growing good. It is getting nutrients from the hydroponic NS tank. The rest that are using traditional fertilizers are leggy and some have already bolted and started flowering. Generally radish should take around 40 days to maturity. Being a short duration crop it should be OK to grow multiple plants in one pot if you ensure there is sufficient nutrients when you started off. There is an excellent blog post by GG on growing radish. Look it up for more information. I haven't pulled them out, so I do not know how the roots are spread out.
5. I really do not bother much about leaf miners. They generally tend to attack the plants every now and then but if you have sufficient nutrients in the medium then you can ignore them and instead focus on more serious pests. In case you want to get rid of them then any insecticide that can be used to kill ants can be used. For me the major problems are aphids (strong spray of water and kill all ants), powdery mildew (spray wettable sulphur), mealy bug (Rogor - dimethoate) and spider mites (miticides or neem oil). So far all my efforts with neem oil have been only partial success. I finally end up using some chemical. I generally spend about 1/2 hour every day inspecting the plants. As and when I see some signs of infestations, I squish the bugs by hand and then spray a mild insecticide (neem oil or a broad spectrum insecticide). One needs to keep track of the day of spraying the insecticide and color of the label (green, blue, yellow or red) so that you give sufficient gap b/w spraying and harvesting.

camaroon123,

Heck no. Out and out chemical. Hydroponic to be precise.

GG,

Thanks for reminding me. PCIL is closer to me than http://pheromonechemicals.in. They had a stall in January in the Garden show this year. Hopefully, they will have one in August too. In Hyderabad we have a horticultural show by AP Horticulture and Agriculture department in the weeks of Jan 26th and Aug 15th every year.