Submitted by gisette on Fri, 01/02/2009 - 23:36
Posted in
2008-01-02: Started another greens garden, pro100. Planted:
2 pods AG mesclun mix (grew to 3)
1 pod AG mesclun mix (latest 2 didn't grow 
)
2 pods heatwave lettuce
1 pod tendergreen mustard moved downstairs
1 pod Asia red amaranth (yeah, been talking to Ann again 
)
1 pod tenderleaf (green) amaranth
1 pod Simpson Elite lettuce, replacement pod
2 pods gourmet organic looseleaf mix (2009-01-22)
The outrider Korean red curl are very happy to have the pro100 lights down again. I am very happy to have counter space again. 
At least for a while.
2009-01-05: Asia red amaranth pod developed white fuzz infection, resistant to H2O2 treatment. Tossed before it could infect the rest, and replaced with Simpson Elite, because this garden could use some more "plain old lettuce", and I'm thinking red amaranth and I are just not meant to be...
2009-01-09: I'll try keeping a timeline at the top of this topic, details below. I've grown so many greens gardens...
2009-01-17: 2 weeks, still growing well. But scrounged 2 pods from this garden to renew the downstairs mini lettuce garden, so these will be even more mixed-age. Adding a couple ml of Flora Micro and Grow to the 2 AG MG small tabs, seems to have been enough to keep the mustard greens happy. On pure AG salad tabs on another garden, the mustard was sick and yellow. New replacement pods are AG mesclun.
2009-01-22: My two replacement AG mesclun pods failed. 
They really don't seem to keep well after breaking the shrinkwrapping, at least not in my garage. Cleaned out the pods and replanted them with a gourmet looseleaf lettuce mix - the first custom seeds I ever tried. Hopefully some seeds out of that mix will like current conditions...
2009-01-24: 3 week point for 4 of these pods. But they seem to have favored romaine-types out of the seed mixes, and the green amaranth seems pokey, so postponing the 3-week harvest to 4 weeks. They look fairly nice... But wondering if it's time to get new bulbs for the pro100.
2009-02-08: 5 weeks for the biggest ones. I have high hopes that the new truncheon-controlled nutrients will turn this garden around. Even just two days so far has seen a big improvement!
2009-02-28: Garden's end. This was planned - wanted a quick lettuce crop before starting summer plants. The garden never did very well, anyway, though.
Tue, 01/06/2009 - 14:03
#2
Heh. Actually, I only treated the top, not realizing the fuzz went down the sides of the pod. So, if I'd doused all pod surfaces with peroxide, it might have worked... But 2 days and 2 treatments worth of fuzz resistance was my limit for fuzz tolerance.
Yeah, the heatwave lettuce is very good!
Wed, 01/07/2009 - 18:31
#3
Best to be rid of the fuzz anyway, huh? I love that heatwave mix and we're about to do a big harvest tonight. Is there any way red curl could be in the mix? I've got something growing that looks similar and is turning reddish.
Fri, 01/09/2009 - 20:47
#4
Oh, I missed the question before. No, there's no Korean red curl in the heatwave mix, but you did have at least one pod of Korean red curl. The heatwave mix has some red, that's never really grown for me. It also has some excellent red-tinged romaine-like stuff, very sweet.
Sat, 01/10/2009 - 01:02
#5
Ah, OK, we have something with a red tinge that's doing pretty well. We did a mass harvest last night so don't really know what each one tastes like. I'll have to try it in a few days, it'll be ready to harvest again.
Sat, 01/24/2009 - 13:42
#6
Three week point, but not harvesting. 
Only 4 of the pods are 3 weeks old yet - 2 only a couple days old. But the older pods seem to have favored nice romaine-like lettuces, possibly because it's warm in there. (Well, the mesclun pods had arugula, too, but no one here likes arugula.) The green amaranth seems to be running slow, too.
I'm wondering if maybe the bulbs need replacing in this garden soon. I last replaced them in July. But the Simpson Elite seems on-track size-wise. (Mid-right rear - its 3 week point is still a few days away.)
Sat, 01/31/2009 - 14:49
#7
Four weeks: Harvesting along the way. Lights still at lowest setting. Of the latest two replacement pods, the Korean red curl one sprouted, and is current sitting in a drawn-butter cup, to protect it from too-strong nutes. The other re-seeded pod still failed to germinate, so I decided the whole pod was suspect and tossed it. The mesclun pod I'd transferred downstairs was not thriving there, so brought that back up to fill the other hole.
Nutes: Siphoned off and replaced a pint of water to thin the nutes. Lettuce responded favorably to that, so I dumped the whole reservoir and replaced yesterday with the Flora lettuce formula Pete and Bruce worked out for me. (Same formula I use for the outriders and the mini lettuce garden - really seems to give better results than AG salad / Master Gardener small tabs.)
The green amaranth tastes OK, nothing exciting. It isn't growing especially well compared to lettuce.
Sat, 01/31/2009 - 18:24
#8
Hmm... looking pretty good but I would have thought there'd be more by now. I wonder about your red curl/nute problem, too. I replaced two pods with red curl last week and they're doing fine in the normal 1.6 - 1.7 EC (and maybe 6.7 PH) mix I'm using. Though they seem to be growing a little slow, we've got 3 of 5 seeds sprouted and too big for the domes.
A nice selection, I particularly like that heatwave lettuce - I prefer mixes over single types, you never know what will sprout.
Peroxide resistant fuzz... Have you accidentally been breeding some new type of 'super fuzz'.