[murihikukid]

Patti..Naturally I will do as you say ....Another way of checking these for root growth would surely be gently squeezing the sides of the container to loosen the whole plant from the container inside and very carefully let it slide half out into ones hand..it only takes a split second to see if there is any roots displayed, of course the soil has to hold together.......the April 6th Laterals are planted in the Black Magic soil which really holds together and are in a round polystyrene tub ..The March 31st laterals were from memory in either a Tomato Mix or seed raising mix and both of these I do not think hold together like the black magic and are in a square proper growing container so I think it would be risky and unnecessary unless of course they have produced the root growth hoped for which would hold everything together....Now re watering..I am giving the laterals aprox 2 tablespoons of water every one - two days...I wonder if this is too much ...most just drains into the second container with soil in it that the lateral container sits in..

Now the 31st Laterals were from a lady at a gardening centre (she works there) from her own garden.so I never saw the original plant...The 6th April Laterals came from the gardening centre itself but from their plant growing inside their premises...Now the plant had clearly passed its best but was still growing laterals...The manager picked them and of course I accepted them ..but if I could have chosen them I would have looked for younger ones but I cannot complain ..The 6th April Laterals are still looking good...not as much growth as I would have hoped for but they still look healthy apart from #1 and #3 both which had the yellow leaves ...I am waiting for #3 to get bigger before I cut the 2nd branch off..

Amazingly I was at a metal scrap yard yesterday and got into conversation with a gentleman who works at a Tomato Plant /Soil company a few miles out of the city ....They do a lot of grafting and suppying of plants and soil to a lot of the Garden centres in New Zealand...It turned out that the soil I bought for my greenhouse is a 0.5 out of 10 ?????
So thats another forum I will be studying for information on....It costs me a lot for soil last year and again this year as I preferred using new soil as against last years....I intend to compost it all when my drums are ready cause unless I can reuse the soil its just too much outlay for me....
If the Shipping was quicker I would buy a few of the cheaper LED Grow lights from Ebay ..There is a various of opinions on this but the RGB spectrum lights apparantly do promote growth and that is what I think my plants are missing.....or maybe checking on them all the time gives me the opinion of very slow growth...

I also have a pet heater mat ....which I think I could safely put the yellow plastic yellow tray on with my laterals in it....The ceramic heat bulbs are too fierce to use till I get them fully controled ..The pet mat would be ideal for a small amount of underneath heat...Sorry for my rambling on ...its a long weekend here with our version of Memorial Day tomorrow..

REgards Ron