The last outrider experiment - oriental greens - worked really well. After a few false starts, two little tubs of the magical Korean red curl lettuce kept going for 5.5 months. Terminated not because the lettuce bolted, but because the growrock tubs smelled bad and I wanted them cleaned. The kojisan and senposai komatsuna are still going in a third tub. They could use replanting soon, too, but washing slimey hydroton grow rocks is a drag, so... Postponed.

2009-05-03: Replanted my two little lettuce tubs, all washed & fresh. One tub has two pods of Korean red curl lettuce. The other tub has one pod of buttercrunch lettuce and another pod of Burpee's silvia red romaine (it isn't on their website.)

Pods:  Park Seed fat sponges, bottom lopped to provide a flat base so they stand well, and because they're a bit tall for the tubs. Soaked them in plain warm tap water before planting. (An hour, just because we were eating dinner. The directions say 15 minutes.)

Surrounded with hydroton grow rocks - no rocks on sponge tops.

Planted seeds, 3-4 per pod. Started with maybe 8 KRC in one pod per tub last time. I think this'll work better.

Added nutes, 1/2 strength lettuce mix. (Tap water with hardwater micro this time, 3-2-1 teaspoons gro-micro-bloom per gallon, 1.7 EC, cut with 50% water, all 6.0 pH.)

Last time, after failures starting seeds directly in the hydroton tubs, I started pods in AG's and transferred them to outriders at age 2 weeks - except for one KRC, which started fine in the tub.

2009-05-10:  Stuck 4 new buttercrunch seeds in the sponge that didn't sprout. Pulled the sponges up out of the liquid a bit (on the theory they're too wet) and added water (on the theory the nutes might be too strong). By 05-12, one of the new seeds sprouted... we'll see if it grows.

2009-05-24: EC had risen in outriders to 2.1 - 2.4. Made new lettuce nutes (tap water, used 1/2 and 1/2 hardwater and non-hardwater micro, 1.8 / 2.4 / 0.9 tsp micro / grow / bloom for 1.7 EC), and rinsed and refilled. Hopefully that will get the new outriders growing right. The komatsuna outrider wasn't ailing - doesn't seem to mind much of anything at this point.

2009-05-30: No dice. Think I should toss these. This really works better if you establish the seedlings in an AG, then move them to the outrider.