The tomatoes, chard, and peppers in the basement system are now growing vigorously! The tomatoes especially have surged in height. As you can see below, in just four days each tomato plant gained about five to seven inches!
Left: Grow bed on 5/27/2011 Right: Grow bed four days later on 5/31/2011
I needed to transplant these tomatoes, because I was heading out on vacation, and I worried that they would grow into the light, causing a fire hazard. Originally, I planned to transplant these into my outdoor aquaponic system; however, they had grown so fast that the outdoor system didnt yet have the necessary nitrate levels. Instead, I transplanted them into pots with soil. To make up for these, just before I left, I planted more tomato seeds, in addition to cucumbers and summer squash. By the time I return, I expect they will have sprouted and the outdoor system will have enough nitrate to receive them. Im interested to compare the growth and output of the tomatoes that spend their whole life in the aquaponic system, the ones I transplanted to soil, and others that Ive had in soil since seedling stage.
I was happy to discover through this indoor tomato experiment that tomatoes could thrive in shallow grow beds. The expanded clay grow bed is only about three or four inches deep, yet the plants grew tremendously. You can see from the photos below that once I washed the clay pebbles out of the roots, they were only a few inches long. Of course this is a direct result of the aquaponic growing method: with nutrient rich water delivered regularly right to the plant, roots do not need to travel far to find sustenance.
Roots of heirloom tomato before transplant 6/1/2011
I reason that the shallow bed worked well because of the cool temperatures in the basement. Outside, such shallow beds would fail because the tomatos shallow roots would get baked in the sun. If I used this for future indoor projects, it means I could reduce the amount of media I need to purchase and the amount of weight the table must support.
Meanwhile, the chard has grown rapidly and the hot peppers have sprouted flowers (much to my surprise because of the dominance of blue light from the metal halide bulb).
Two types of rainbow chard in clay grow bed on 5/31/2011
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