2017 greenhouse tomato plants

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by Jimbotomateo

Mark, how many nights do you have that don't require heat?. Do you get summer nights where you don't have apply heat at all?. . Jimbo

At the end of May the heat gets turned off most nights, it takes the GH'S quite awhile to cool down if the weather is decent. If I get a rainy spell,I will throw some heat in them. I start them very early because I can sell as much as I can grow early in the season, for a good price, people are ready for fresh tomatoes. By the middle of July many people have tomatoes, we cannot sell quite as much.

[BajaMitch]

In my book, AK, you're a rock star.

[PureHarvest]

Cole, last year you mentioned cheaper low tunnels if I recall. You might be interested in these. $1,250 for a 14' x 100' with a 7'8" peak.Given the quality materials, I don't know if you can build it cheaper yourself. Watch the video to see how it works.
I ordered 2 and its free freight. They qualified for my FY2017 NRCS high tunnel grant.
I'm gonna grow day neutral strawberries under them this year.

https://www.farmersfriendllc.com/pro...rpillar-tunnel

[Cole_Robbie]

That is neat. I would call that a high tunnel, myself. I could build it cheaper, but not by much.

I happen to get a lot of wind at my location, so if it were me, I would look for ways to make it stronger than the original design. I don't see a 'hip board,' the purlin that runs down each side. That would be easy to add. The other place you want to look for improvements is the two end hoops. When a high tunnel collapses from wind, the end bows will twist and collapse first. It's common to make a diagonal brace for them, connected to the 2nd purlin.

Good luck with the new project.

[AKmark]

I have a lot of people asking how much to feed their plants at different stages, so here is what I do.
The little seedlings, tiny ones, get 600PPM when they start to show real leaves. The next size up gets, 1200PPM until the flowers start to form on the second truss. I kick it up to 1300, then 1400 when the fourth truss of flowers starts to form. I could run it a bit higher, but some varieties like Chapman do not like too much fertilizer, the stocks will get as fat as a garden hose and fruit production drops off. Others like Crnkovic Yugoslavian like fertilizer. After the fourth truss is formed the plants are getting their full doses, 1500-1700PPM, I judge the plants overall to see what they want within that range. Keep your pH at 6.2.

Fruit is starting to set well, we seem to be headed in the right direction.

[AKmark]

If you want to run a greenhouse/ nursery, you should consider flowers too. Here's a couple pics of other GH's that we are getting ready for business, and a production GH that we plant in, so everything looks good in retail.The empty wooden tables will be full of tomato starts soon enough. Here we go, spring is here.

[Jimbotomateo]

My mind is blown! Jimbo

[garyjr]

Mark, how do you water your large batch of seedlings in the greenhouse? I have a friend who has a similar size operation as yours except he specializes in herbs. Quite a bit if his time from early January to Mid may is taken up watering twice a day. I was trying to convince him to look in to some type of drip system or other commercial greenhouse watering system. He doesn't grow anything for the fruit so most of his stuff is only in the greenhouse for 4 weeks or so. Thanks

[wildcat62]

Great pics.... What a setup. Wish we had a like button.....

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by garyjr

Mark, how do you water your large batch of seedlings in the greenhouse? I have a friend who has a similar size operation as yours except he specializes in herbs. Quite a bit if his time from early January to Mid may is taken up watering twice a day. I was trying to convince him to look in to some type of drip system or other commercial greenhouse watering system. He doesn't grow anything for the fruit so most of his stuff is only in the greenhouse for 4 weeks or so. Thanks

I will put larger plants on drips, tomatoes, flowers, etc, but small stuff has to be watered individually when it needs it for more than one reason. First, is we have to keep the moisture level in the GH as low as possible, so we don't water things that don't need it. High moisture sets up an incubation factory for disease. Tomato seedlings cannot be watered unless they need it, Pythium/ damping off is really common, so I have to hand water all seedlings. Many flowers are the same, hand watered until they really start drinking. Veggie starts can be splattered with water, no problems. Some herbs don't like to be over watered too. We want 10 percent run off when we water, so moisture can be a real issue, I mop up a lot of water daily. On rainy days, we water very little. I have tomatoes in my first GH for 8 months.
Soon we will fire up more GH's, we spark them up one at a time to save energy, when they burst at the seams we move on.
Piece of cake. LOL

[Cole_Robbie]

Beautiful pics, Mark. I like the modular shelves on concrete blocks. Mine are not as nice, but are the same concept.

[nancyruhl]

As always, an inspiration. I love these tours and the great information you share with us. So much thought and planning has gone into to this. But also, work. Clearly you have help. How much?

[ddsack]

A first class operation! Thanks for the look at your greenhouses, it must be a joy to work there. Not to mention having a bit of the tropics while it's still cold outdoors.

[AKmark]

Originally Posted by nancyruhl

As always, an inspiration. I love these tours and the great information you share with us. So much thought and planning has gone into to this. But also, work. Clearly you have help. How much?

I have 10-15 employees, depending on the time of year. We used to take a lot more upon ourselves, but something "somewhere" is lacking unless we have enough help.

Thanks for the nice responses. The season has not been without issues though. Earlier I picked up an older, uncalibrated TDS meter and used it to check my mix. The pH was way off, it showed in the plants big time in just a couple of days. As soon as I noticed something was wrong I had to figure it out, and discovered my pH was an 8. OUCH, that hurt. Now they are looking good for the most part, but it still drives me nuts to see remnants of my stupidity manifested on my plants.

[Barb_FL]

Thanks for posting the pics, answers to people's questions, and sharing your knowledge here at TV.

Even with the PH mishap, everything looks so healthy and your GH is so clean.