Triple Variety Tomato Graft Experiment

[Delerium]

yup salsa, pasta, pizza and in vege juices. We make pizza with a Naan rotti like crust. Oh its sooo good.

[efisakov]

Next time your wife makes it, post a picture, please.
We make flat bread sometimes too. Our recipe includes buttermilk (kefir). As a child I used to eat it with honey and sour cream. Honey would be warmed and sour cream cold. We would dip it in both a little. It was good weird taste. Childhood memory.

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by Delerium

We have been trying to learn more about growing oyster mushrooms mainly to improve our soil and because we love eating them just as much as tomatoes. I love the fact that Oysters can eat through Cardboard and Paper waste quicker than in the compost pile. So.. its been our mission lately to grow more and more Oyster mushrooms so we can introduce it back in to our raised beds once the buckets are spent.

They make CO2 while doing it too. You can use that synergistically with your indoor plants to increase sugar production. The CO2 source needs to be higher than your plants because CO2 is heavier than air.

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Yeah i don't think i will need to resort to killing the garden as long as i can irrigate with waste water. But i will stop the garden once the temps get to hot. We don't use any harsh chemical soaps etc (mostly the environmentally friendly stuff that's biodegradable and don't use very much to minimize the soapyness). Very little water goes down the drain at our house and its more than most people are willing to do in california - some people here are just absolutely oblivious to the cause and continue to waste water down the sidewalks to maintain green during the hottest times of the day. So much waste is going on and the problem is really the mentality of over abundance. These people live classy life styles with expensive cars, houses and pools that they really don't give a crap while the rest of us try to do our part. Once they start getting fined I'm sure things will change hopefully.

Look into aeroponics. You obviously have the grafting and gardening thing down. If you get aeroponics down you can grow your plants with 1% of the water required by soil. I think that's the only sustainable way to garden in california at this point. The only downside is you can't really do organic aero because organic crud will clog your sprayers even on a low pressure system.

I have to say, I was in sacramento about 2 months ago and I was shocked at how dry it was. I applaud your efforts to garden in those conditions.

Good luck.

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

Look into aeroponics. You obviously have the grafting and gardening thing down. If you get aeroponics down you can grow your plants with 1% of the water required by soil. I think that's the only sustainable way to garden in california at this point. The only downside is you can't really do organic aero because organic crud will clog your sprayers even on a low pressure system.

I have to say, I was in sacramento about 2 months ago and I was shocked at how dry it was. I applaud your efforts to garden in those conditions.

Good luck.

Thanks. Yeah watering 2 days a week without the use of Greywater would put a garden out of commission in no time. But the use of mushroom compost in the raised beds have extended the life of my plants so much in comparison to just standard compost. I've seen that beds that have mushroom compost seems to require less water and can go without watering for quite sometime compared to the beds that don't. And the plants look soo much healthy and almost no sign of foliage diseases even the plants that i haven't even bothered to prune back - its really amazing. I'm really blown away by the results. It's almost night and day comparison. The beds without mushroom compost are suffering and need more care and water. I'm trying to up my mushroom production so i can use more of the spent substrate for mulch and soil amendment. By this fall i will be doing much bigger mushroom grows. I grew all big tomatoes this year and they are producing like cherry tomatoes lol. Prolific. I'm almost tired of harvesting tomatoes and trying to clear up room to make room for the ones ripening now. We had 3 tables full of tomatoes.. and finally got it down to half a table. I purposely grew larger varieties so i wouldn't get overwhelmed with to many maters flowing in at the same time.

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

Interesting updates on your garden experiments and harvest! (I'm having similar - if less impressive - results - I'll post a progress report on my garden soon). Seems like you'll be able to keep your garden going during the summer - esp. the areas with the mushroom compost doing such a good job.

Anne

[HydroExplorer]

That's awesome. I've heard similar results with mushroom compost and it makes sense. Drout resistance would make sense too because you are probably developing a much larger root mass. Also, the mushroom compost probably has better water retention capabilities than your soil alone.

Disease resistance makes sense too because your mushroom compost probably contains humic and fulvic acids as well as amino acids. These will increase the thickness of the cell walls on your plants which make it very hard for a lot of pests and fungi to penetrate your plants. This interaction has a synergy with kelp extract that amps it up even more btw. I have had ridiculous results doing that when I didn't even know what I was doing. You will know this is happening if your plant foliage looks physically thicker than normal. It's very noticeable.

I've heard you can burn plants with mushroom compost. I don't know if this is true I suspect it will stand out quickly if you have that problem. I'm told you can compost your mushroom compost with worms to prevent it from burning plants because worm slime kind of acts as a time release. I haven't personally tried it.

[Delerium]

I personally see no plant burn with mushroom compost. As a matter of fact the worm population skyrockets in areas that have active mushroom mycelium. This in turns keeps the plants very happy probably due to all the wormcastings produced from the mushroom substrate. Not to sound like I'm bragging or anything but this is the first time I've seen so many large tomatoes on plants almost all in the 2 lb range.. Of course they are now smaller with the lack of watering but still producing pretty respectable size tomatoes in the 1 lb +. Also the mushroom compost beds continue to set tomatoes even at temps over 90F-100F and that's without any shade cloth to keep the plants cooler. Most of the time the blossoms just drop off.. But it seems like these plants still wanna keep going. It's almost that time again to starts some tomatoes from seed / graft some for the fall garden.

[BigVanVader]

Brag away, I'd be bragging if I had that kind of harvest. I really need to learn about growing mushrooms so I can. Any helpful links to get me started Delerium, or have you already posted that info somewhere?

[Delerium]

I started cloning on cardboard which works great for low tek growing. But you should really spend time learning to grow on agar / brf so you store your cultures when ever you need it. Jiana already knows how to work in the SAB (still air box) to start cultures on brf. Even knows how to make grain spawn - we use this picture to show even a 4 year old can grow mushrooms. Right now I'm taking a break from growing mushrooms since its so hot lately and our A/C broke this past week and indoor temps are in the 84-87F range. But we have some small mushroom projects to kill time till we work on larger grows later this fall. Right now we got Shiitake, Oyster, Reishi, Lionsmane, Turkey Tail and Morel growing indoors. I plan on building up enough morel mycelium to innoculate my raised beds - hopefully we can cultivate some backyard morels.

[Delerium]

Anyone tired of harvesting tomatoes yet? I sure am. Some maters from this morning. Wifey made a few tomato bags to give away to friends.

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

I am!! Just got in from harvesting 27 lbs of tomatoes. (I picked 8 lbs 2 days ago - seems like I've been averaging about 10 lbs a day recently). The freezer's about full of tomatoes so tomorrow is a canning day !

Anne

[HydroExplorer]

You are using the mushrooms in much the same way I do. I don't think you can burn your plants that way because the wild worms are processing the mushroom compost so it releases nutrients at a rate that is great for plants.

You're doing it on a much larger scale than I am but I have also seen fantastic results where I seeded mushrooms. I think it's a 2 fold benefit. You have the fungi creating a bunch of CO2 right by your plants and you have the composted material attracting worms to produce vermicompost on the fly ad hoc.

I think it's a great way to garden. I don't even eat mushrooms and I cultivate them.

[Delerium]

We love eating mushrooms and love reading about all the health benefits. I also like the fact that we eat less meat because of the mushrooms we grow. It's a win win situation for us. But the biggest advantage is the ability to breakdown so much waste material compared to your normal composting. Lots of ideas are brewing in my head and can't wait to put them in to practice. Once things for sure - spent mushroom substrate and tomatoes is a huge win.. The need for fertilizers and such is hugely reduced. And that's means more money in my pocket.

HydroExplorer - what type of mushrooms do you cultivate? I just picked up Paul Stamets Growing Gourmet and Medicinal mushrooms off amazon. I got a few Jars of C-nuda almost ready. Making more grain spawn of Milky Mushrooms since it can tolerate our crazy heat.

[HydroExplorer]

I've only grown mushrooms twice. I just bought oyster mushrooms at the grocery store and cloned them on cardboard using the stems. Easy peasy. I didn't do anything fancy.