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Radishes and green onions


 
 
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Old 04-28-2011, 11:13 PM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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Default Radishes and green onions

I haven't posted any new setups lately, mainly because I don't have any money these days for the basics like more pH adjusters, more pH drops, and more growing medium. Also I knew summer was coming and I only have one in ground nutrient reservoir for keeping the nutrient solution cool. And last week I found that the inner trash can of that reservoir system has suffered cracks due to a mistake I made allowing the sides to cave in somewhat.

But I have been meaning to post pictures of this system for radishes and green onions I created out of old parts. It has been up and running for about 3 weeks now and I have already harvested the first batch of radishes from it, and they are quite large, most as large or larger than golf balls (and with good shape to them). Honestly I don't eat that many radishes so I will be giving a lot away, but the system was really a proof of concept system more than anything. There have been a few bugs I needed to work out, but overall seems to work as designed, though it will work much better with some upgrades.

I wanted to test using sand as a growing medium for root vegetables. I had planed to mix it with vermiculite, but wound up mixing it with perlite instead because that's what they had in stock at wal-mart, and I was to lazy to go to Lowe's that day. First I found out that radishes are very light feeders. I grew these to maturity on about 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutrient solution the whole time, I didn't want the nutrient solution to be too strong for the tiny green onion sprouts. And the radish foliage has had a nice green color with no signs of problems the whole time.

One thing that I have yet to figure out is the system seemed to have a pH issue with rising pH daily at first. To be honest I stooped checking the pH because I'm real low on pH drops, as well as adjusters. So after the first week I just stopped checking it, yet the radishes have grown real fast, as well as healthy to my surprise. The green onions are growing but slower, although I'm not surprised. After checking the seed packages, the radishes say 28 days to harvest, and the green onions say 60 days to harvest. So the radishes seem to grow twice as fast anyway. I'm not sure if the silica sand had contributed to the rising pH or not, but is something I will be checking on or testing for the future.

Another one of the issues I have had with this system is drainage. I wasn't able to drill larger holes in the bottom of the container because my cordless drill batteries are dead, and I cant afford a new charger. So I had to use my rotary tool and the largest drill bit it has to drill as many holes as I can. But even so I was afraid they would still be to small and a problem. I also feel the white cloth I used to keep the sand in, combined with the small holes contributed to the drainage issue. I tried various ways of adjusting the pump flow, but I finally broke out my digital timer so I can set the on cycle for just 2 minuets. That's plenty of time to soak the sand the way the system is setup right now (more than 5 minuets and it would overflow). In the future I will use furnace filter screening instead of the white cloth.

The last issue I have with this setup is the algae growth on top of the sand where it gets light. That isn't really an issue underneath the foliage of the radishes where the top of the sand is shaded. In the future I will try burying the drip line about an inch deep, so the top of the sand doesn't really get moist with the nutrient solution in the first place. I also plan to test using beneficial microbes in this system for a few reasons (as well as an enzymes, and/or beneficial acid's and fungi), but that's something I don't have money for at this time either. Considering I just through the system together from what I had lying around the house, I'm pretty happy with what I have learned from the experiment.

P.S. The picture of the growing plants was taken after I harvested all the radishes, and was only about 1/4 of what I had to start with.

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Last edited by GpsFrontier; 04-28-2011 at 11:47 PM.
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