Trying to be successful, any help appreciated; Sub-Irrigated Planter, ET, &raised bed

[Dork Fish]

Also, what kind of trellis system would you guys recommend for the SIP? I bought some 7/8" x 2" x 8' cedar sticks and zuke twine

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[RayR]

Originally Posted by Dork Fish

Okay, been doing some more reading. daconil...should I incorporate this in addition to the actinovate/exel spray?

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I believe Dr. Carolyn covered this in another thread, that you shouldn't mix Daconil with anything, it will reduce its effectiveness.
Sometimes you have to draw a line as to what makes sense in a single spray mixture, you have to understand the mode of action of each product and the frequency and concentration that each should be applied, you have to investigate any possible incompatibilities that would render any of the products ineffective or the unintended creation of toxic substances that may harm the plant.

[Dork Fish]

Okay, well I will see how this season goes with the actinovate/ecel lg spray. Maybe I will try just daconil next year.

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[Dork Fish]

Ugh, sorry. 'jute'; exel

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[lakelady]

Andrea, just buy the pine bark mulch, the finer stuff, not the nuggets. It makes a great mulch, and breaks down well. This year I am using salt hay which is kinda expensive but doesn't have weed seeds in it and is typically used for reseeding lawns around here. However, my tomato plants really seem to love it!

I did start out with that silver reflective mulch in one bed, and I tell you, the tomato plants hated it. Once I removed it and went back to the hay, they perked right up. Maybe other veggies like it, but not my tomatoes.

Box looks great though!

[Dork Fish]

Okay, I will look for that next year. Most of the mulch that I am using is on top of plastic. Do you guys reuse your mulch?

Thank you, now I just need to find out how many plants that I could safely put it in. I tried three this year. I am thinking that I may be able to fit more than that.

[Dork Fish]

Here are some updated shots...

[Dork Fish]

Carmello




Black Cherry




Pink Brandywine

[Dork Fish]

Big Zac





Tomatillos

[Dork Fish]

Black Krim and Paul Robeson


Paul Robeson


Black Krim

[amideutch]

Andrea, I think you got it!! Plants looking super!! You even got plants growing out of your compost pile! Ami

[dice]

Do not worry about the leaf roll on Black Krim. It does that
at the drop of a hat on changes in the weather. Hot to cold,
cold to hot, dry to wet, wet to dry, etc, and it does it faster
than most other cultivars. That will not inhibit fruit set or
ripening.

In your first pictures of the plants in this thread, they looked
a little iron deficient, that yellow tinge at the top of the plant.
That is often a sign of too much water. Mine do that when
we have cool temperatures and rain for a week. The air
spaces in the soil or container mix fill up with water, and
the plant has difficulty taking up iron without some air
in the soil. At cool temperatures, they are not transpiring
much water, either, so not taking up more fertilizer,
including iron, from the soil.

In your most recent pictures of the plants, I do not see it,
so maybe that was the problem with iron uptake. (Like your
weather is warmer and drier now than it was a few
weeks ago.)

Was that a moisture meter or a pH meter? My moisture
meter only has "ranges", 1,2,3,4, where 1 is too dry for
plants that are not specifically drought tolerant, 4 is too
wet, and 2 and 3 are just fine. My soils and container mixes
will always be at 4 right after a rain or watering them. They
should get back down into the 3 range in a couple of days.
If they get back down into 2 in a day or two, then the soil
drains exceptionally well, and one will need to water quite
often. One may also need to use more fertilizer in that case,
because having to water every few days is washing more
of it out of the soil before the plant can use it.

All Metromix 360, that is deluxe soil. You should have nice,
fast growing plants. If you have high winds, you will need
some secure support system, because that soil is loose
enough for a high wind to blow a large tomato plant
completely out of the soil.

Kelp is most usefully used early as a root drench, because
it stimulates rapid root growth, in addition to providing
nutrients, etc. You can also feed them with it all season,
foliar or soil drench, but the later applications are only a
"tune-up", to help them resist stresses, perhaps improve
the flavor from the broad spectrum of micronutrients, etc.
By then the plants will be getting the bulk of their food from
your other fertilizer.

[Dork Fish]

Thanks for the post guys!

Dice,
It was a moisture meter. To be honest, I haven't checked it since. I figure there is not a whole lot that I can do when it comes to the SWC.

I did attach some supports on Wednesday to the SIP. I used some jute twine. Although the Carmelo wasn't quite big enough yet.

I never purchased the kelp. The only one that I could find was the fish emulsion. I have been doing a soil drench every couple of Weeks with that.

thanks

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[dice]

I am not a big fan of jute, which stretches in the rain (a hassle
when using it for Florida Weave supports), but it works for
tieing plants to a single stake, and it is biodegradable.
You can simply toss the remnants into a compost pile or
mix them with the mulch at the end of the season.

For moisture, figure that you want to keep it in the middle
range of the moisture meter most of the time. It will
naturally get beyond there after watering, but it should
not stay in the wet range for weeks on end. (This is one
reason people mix pine or fir bark, more perlite, etc into
their container mixes for self-watering containers, so they
will be less wet all of the time with a permanent water
supply.)

One grower on GW did a test with two plants of the same
cultivar side by side, one with kelp and the other without.
He did not notice any difference in flavor (but that only
means that the kelp did not provide anything in the way
of nutrients that the plants were otherwise lacking; that
would not necessarily be true for someone growing
in different soil and using different other fertilizers than
he was). He did notice that his seedlings were consistently
healthier and more robust when fertilized early with kelp,
probably because of faster root growth in whatever he
was growing them in before transplanting into the garden
and perhaps because of better resistance to
cold and drought stress.

[Dork Fish]

I have read that about the jute. We do have some that electricians pull string. Maybe I will switch to that.

I will start watching the moisture readings. I may have to tweak it next year.

Interesting info about the kelp.

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