By gisette
CFL and Soil, Tomatoes and Peppers
Submitted on Sun, 2010/03/07 - 10:31pm
Last updated on Tue, 2010/11/23 - 12:58pm
Posted in
This isn't really the LED vs CFL experiment anymore. Continued explorations, I guess, based on what I learned doing the experiment, but with the goal of harvesting them. These plants began life in the Test 2: Tomato & Pepper, LED triband vs. CFL spotlight. Now at 6 weeks, that title doesn't make much sense anymore, since they're now both growing under CFL and LED lights. 
Harvest Totals:
Pepper: 22 - first green at 12.5 weeks (88 days), first red at 17 weeks (119 days).
Tomato: 17 - first at 15 weeks (105 days).
Past life of tomato - CFL grown :
6 week tomatoes:
Earlier this week, replaced one of the 15W 6500K CFLs, with a new 26W 2700K CFL. More light, and more red. Tomato very happy, has buds. Growing awfully fast this week - loves its new pot, especially!
Past life of pepper, originally LED-grown:
6 weeks:
The carmen pepper started on the LED side, and took a while to germinate. Then it lived between my minis for a while. But this week, it developed buds, so needed a better pot, and moved back to its old shadowbox slot, with one 15W 6500K CFL, and an LED spotlight. Very happy.
I'd read that one isn't supposed to bury the stem on pepper plants. But this one had something I hope is roots at the base of its stem. If not, it's very ill. It doesn't look ill.
Really looking forward to peppers in April again! That was a happy accident last year. 
Wed, 2010/03/17 - 11:19am
#2
First tomatoes set! 
This might actually work!
Wed, 2010/03/17 - 1:11pm
#3
Looks good, especially the carmen peppers. 
Sun, 2010/03/21 - 5:18pm
#4
Two little tomatoes set, and the first pepper flower opened today! We shall see how long it takes to set a pepper... 
Peppers don't seem to set from first flowers the way tomatoes do.
Mon, 2010/03/22 - 5:01pm
#5
I'd like to try bell peppers one day, it's one plant I've not tried in hydroponics before - perhaps in the aero unit one day? Probably one of the better looking fruiting plants I've seen grown on here.
Mon, 2010/03/22 - 5:04pm
#6
Yeah, peppers are pretty. I haven't grown bells, but the carmen and stuffing peppers have been lovely.
Mon, 2010/03/22 - 5:08pm
#7
I've just been reading some reviews about the carmen variety, nothing but praise for them.
Mon, 2010/03/22 - 5:17pm
#8
They taste great, and adapt to whatever lousy conditions you toss at 'em. Good green, superb red. I read somewhere one should expect like 8-10 bells per plant. I got 44 on my longest-lived carmen pepper. Hard to beat!
Much softer than bells, though - thinner walls and not as crunchy, with no bitter aftertaste.
Edit: P.S. I didn't have much luck growing a carmen in an AG Deluxe, tho. Possibly because I wasn't paying them much attention during summer growing season...
Sun, 2010/03/28 - 5:29pm
#9
The 9 week pepper and tomato both seem to be doing very well. The pepper needs a bigger pot, and has dropped the few fruits it's set so far. They always seem to do that.
I've pruned the tomato a bit - lower branches, not top-pruning, just for volume reduction. Needs higher lights, but so far I'm just mashing the plant down. Three fruit really growing, more set but waiting to grow, several more flowering trusses. Seems pretty happy.
Tue, 2010/03/30 - 4:00pm
#10
Repotted the pepper into my next-biggest size pot (still smaller than tomato pot). And moved the tomato to its own box with PVC light rack, a bit taller. Now each plant has 4 CFL spots instead of sharing 5. (Total 104W CFLs tomato, 80W pepper, assorted light temperatures - 6500K, 3500K, 2700K - unconvinced the 2700K grows so well.)
The pepper now has several fruit set - hopefully it'll hold onto these and develop them. First few fell off, as always.
Sun, 2010/04/04 - 10:09pm
#11
10 week tomato and pepper thriving with their new rigs. Tomato has at least 7 fruit growing (3 of size yet), biggest 2.5" across, and no blossom end rot showing anywhere. (Was a big problem with my AG grows.) The pepper is definitely holding onto some set fruit now. Used a little Blossom Set Spray on them this week (but I think both plants had already managed to set and hold some fruit before I found the spray.)
These are pretty advanced for their age. Jet star is rated at 72 days to maturity from setting out transplant (at age 4-6 weeks). Carmen pepper is rated 75 days (for green harvest, I think) after transplanting at age 6-8 weeks. And these plants are 70 days old.
Tue, 2010/04/06 - 11:39am
#12
Good to see they're doing well, the jet star looks a decent size.
Tue, 2010/04/06 - 12:00pm
#13
Thanks. I've been doing a lot of "Missouri pruning" to it - snip off the ending 3-leaf on a leaf branch. And removing branches here and there. Shaping, not removing meristem. Pruning meristem makes this particular tomato variety turn hydra-like in a very not-useful sort of way... It does enough of that on its own.
Sun, 2010/04/11 - 9:08pm
#14
Still no red, but I'm thinking my first tomatoes are getting toward that time...
Gnats were getting to be a problem, but I finally found more organic-gardening Fungicide at Target. Strange name, but it works on fungus infections, insects, and mites. The tomato fell over today after its soil top was fungicided last night, but I think that's just because of the 3 heavy tomatoes in front.
The pepper still seems to drop most fruit. Not sure whether that's because it's root-bound (too small a pot) or it doesn't have enough light. Both probably true... Both plants would probably be happier in a sunny window or outdoors, but I kinda want to see if it's possible for them to ripen good fruit in their little CFL shadowboxes. Not sure how long I'll keep this up...
Sun, 2010/04/18 - 3:59pm
#15
12 weeks. Look pretty good, but still nothing ripening.
Sun, 2010/04/18 - 4:21pm
#16
I don't think you are far away from ripening now, mine turned orange between week 12-13 and red between 13-14.
Sun, 2010/04/18 - 6:22pm
#17
I hope so, Peat. These are bigger tomatoes, though... Eh, should be edible in 2 weeks. And probably eat the first pepper green in about 2 weeks as well.
That's assuming the tomatoes will ripen in this level of light. But I think they will.
Sun, 2010/04/18 - 9:08pm
#18
Wow! Great looking plants!
Enjoy!
Mon, 2010/04/19 - 4:29pm
#19
Hi All
I have been reading your stuff with interest so much so I stuck two CFL in the side of a tote box and watched the effects . Toms and impatiens grew like mad. We changed our chest freezer so the old one became a growing chamber. I put in 3 CFLs and I am now waiting for my crop of sweet toms. I wasn't going to bother with aero but rereading Peat's grow logs enthused me and I have included a small aero unit for the toms.
I have some questions
Why do you use white card to reflect the light and not shiny aluminium foil? I think the foil reflects more light.
Does anybody know of a cheap way to calibrate a EC meter. I was thinking of the EC reading for say 1 gm table salt in 1 litre water etc. I know I can get cal solutions but I grudge the money for this.
I tend to spray the leaves of my plants with weak neuts. A kind of foliar feed. Any comments?
Mon, 2010/04/19 - 5:19pm
#20
Hi, Hengis, glad it's working for you!
Careful with those impatiens. They're normally a shade plant. Though New Guinea impatiens seem hard to please either way - less flowers in shade, but drink themselves dry / to death in the sun...
The white foam boards originally served several purposes, some of them no longer relevant.
1. They hold up the dowel that the lights hang from (still true of the peppers, tho not tomatoes) - structural support.
2. Keep outside light out - important for side-by-side light comparision tests early in the experiments.
3. Protect eyes and TV viewing from those bright lights - warm glowing boxes instead of searing eye-sores.
4. Focus light on the plants.
You're right. For that last aspect, silvered emergency blanket is much better.
The white boxes also look better in my living room. Can't get the wrinkles out of emergency blanket... And mylar is expensive.
I've also heard that foil is dangerous with bright lights because the glare spots can be too intense and burn leaves. Haven't seen that with emergency blankets, tho.
Mon, 2010/04/19 - 8:43pm
#21
P.S. Hengis, I don't think I'd recommend anyone grow peppers & tomatoes in aero again. Potting mix works better.
I started another topic for that - Soil vs. Aerogarden, Growing Tomatoes and Peppers Indoors.
I was going to discuss it more, but I think I broke this website a couple ways this afternoon, so... I'll fix that first. 
Tue, 2010/04/20 - 10:28am
#22
Hi Hengis,
I would recommend growing tomatoes and peppers in a DIY aero unit, the tomatoes in the AG were dismal. The unit I built, as you could see, grew my tomatoes very quickly - if the heat, and a possible bacterial infection, had not ruined them then I would have had a good crop. The DIY (or shop bought) aero system will always outperform any soil mixture, it's one of the best ways of growing you can do - although it's more involved of course if you build your own.
Here are the reflective properties of some materials - foil is actually not the best funnily enough, outperformed by simple matt white paint!
Foylon 94-95 %
Reflective Mylar 90-95 %
Flat White Paint 85-93 %
Semi-Gloss White 75-80 %
Flat Yellow 70-80 %
Aluminum Foil 70-75 %
Calibrating your EC meter with salt - look at this website. This will give you PPM, you then need to convert to EC for your unit, divide the PPM by either 500 or 700. Your instructions should, hopefully, say what type of meter you have. If you have the money, go and buy a Bluelab truncheon EC meter, they don't need calibrating and are very good.
Foilar feeding - I've never personally done this with my plants so I can't comment on this one.
Tue, 2010/04/20 - 11:13am
#23
I'll add to this further...
Make up your NaCl solution to 1000 PPM as per the instructions.
Put your EC meter in it and see what it says, it will probably say 2.0 - your then done, your conversion factor (if you ever wanted to use it) would be 500
I have a huge dislike for PPM, nobody knows what the conversion factor to EC is, there are 3 different ones! A PPM of 1000 could equate to an EC of 2.0, 1.42 or 1.56!!!!
Tue, 2010/04/20 - 11:20am
#24
Thanks Peat just the info I needed. Where did you get the reflection data. I tried to find it without success and decided to got to the local reference library. Looks like high gloss white would be good. Surprise about the Al foil.
The link to the ec meter stuff was just fantastic. So far my freezer experiment is doing ok. I work on the kaizan principle Small improvements. If all goes well I am aiming to grow toms all year. As soon as they get too tall I will root clones The humidity is very high so I think bugs and disease will be a problem.
How do I get the spell checker to work?
Tue, 2010/04/20 - 11:26am
#25
I'm not sure the spell checker has ever worked. Or, to put it another way - what spell checker? 
Tue, 2010/04/20 - 11:54am
#26
Hengis - the information came from one of the 'specialist' hydroponic growing sites out there...nuff said.
Wed, 2010/04/21 - 10:33pm
#27
Hengis - btw, where did you get your smartvalves? Good price?
Thu, 2010/04/22 - 3:55am
#28
I live in Scotland so bought it from the makers direct. It cost about GBP10. http://www.autopot.co.uk/
If you handy with your hands you can build a DIY tray system. You will need 4mm black irrigation tube some trays which you will need to drill to get the irrigation tube in. Either glue in place or get suitable grommets from an aquarium shop.
I hope that is enough info. I can send more info if necessary.
Thu, 2010/04/22 - 1:36pm
#29
Thanks, hengis. Guess I'll keep looking for a good price here.
Thu, 2010/04/22 - 7:17pm
#30
Ate my first pepper today, green. Yum. Wasn't fully mature green, but that's OK - I was cooking something I wanted it to be in.
Tomato flowering! Still growing like wild. Needed to transplant to its terminal pot, and swapped enclosures with the cucumber in order to have headroom to dangle lights above it. Turned off the LED lamp. It's just not the same compact tidy shape it used to be under only-CFLs. Could use another CFL light bulb, though.
The pepper isn't too far behind - expect flowers soon.
Added a little lime (top dressing) to both pots while I transplanted the tomato.
The tomato is now in the same size pot I use to grow smaller tomato plants outside (like a 5', 50-midsize-tomato supertasty - not that small!) Maybe 3 gallon self-watering.