September 21, 2009 by LisaMag
Hi, I have 7 Aerogardens total. 4 Classic and 3 Pro-200. (currently only using 2 of the Pro's). I've been very successful growing lettuce, herbs and cherry tomatoes. I am trying for the second time to grow the tomatoes (ruby heirloom) and pickle cucumbers (burpee picklers). I am good about keeping it dark once the system shuts off. Here's my dilemma. With the tomatoes, I keep getting height but no flowers - thus no fruit. I've never had problems growing the cherry tomatoes. I'm growing them in the Pro-200 so I have plenty of room for them to grow. My cucumbers start off great but I constantly get burnt leaves and lots of baby cukes that just shrivel up on the vine. They never get big. Can anyone tell me if they've had either of these problems and if you have any tricks/tips for me? I've included pictures, so I'm hoping it will help. I'd really appreciate it. I live in MA and am really looking forward to my own salads with fresh cukes and tomatoes this winter. Thank you.
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Wed, 09/23/2009 - 16:12
#2
Hi Gisette, thanks so much
Hi Gisette, thanks so much for the information. I appreciate it. I'll try snipping off the leaves, perhaps add a little calcium. I've already stopped w/the nutrients. I figured it was too much. I'm going to try once a month w/one tablet. And this time, I'll let the plant keep going to see if I get any of the fruit to full size. Last time I tore it down thinking it wasn't going to work. I'll keep folks posted. Good luck w/your jet stars. Let's hope we all have great yields for winter. :)
Sat, 09/26/2009 - 06:41
#3
Hi Lisa. See my cucumber
Hi Lisa. See my cucumber grow log -- http://aerogardenmastery.com/drupal/content/cucumbers-ii?page=4 for a look into what I've been doing with cukes & tomatoes. These days I'm using the cuke log for all my gardens. Let me know if you have any questions.
Enjoy!
Wed, 09/23/2009 - 19:36
#4
Amen on the good yields for
Amen on the good yields for winter - good luck! Hope to hear back how it works for you!
Hi, LisaMag, welcome! Generous array of Aerogardens!
There are a number of discussions here about growing cucumbers - try "cucumber" in the Search box at top right. Peat and Judith have grown them, with mixed success. Essentially, everyone seems to have the same sorts of problems you're having. They'd be better to answer than me, but just from what I've seen of their trials, I'd summarize...
1. The more light the better. With all your AG's in a row, that should help a ton!
2. Cucumbers don't really like being overfed nutrients.
3. Peat seemed to think his might be suffering a calcium deficiency - plausible if using rain / very soft water.
4. My cucumber plants often look sorta like that outdoors, too. They're very susceptible to leaf fungal diseases. (I just clip the diseased leaves once they get yellow.) And often many of the baby cukes shrivel - rarely do more than one or two fruit grow to maturity at a time, and they tend to grow roots-out to maturity. Like, if cuke A is developing rootward of cuke B, then cuke B often shrivels because cuke A is siphoning off all the food downstream. This is fine, so long as some of the fruits do ripen, and unlike tomatoes, they ripen really fast. More will come along later.
Dunno if any of that helps.
Judith is the only other person I've read about growing the ruby toms, and she didn't get much yield. (A couple toms, I think.) I'm trying Jet Star atm, but it'll be a few months before I can tell whether the experiment works.