EquipmentAeroGarden 6 Elite+, fan, pH and EC meters
Plants2
AudienceAdvanced
What you can learnAn unusually complete Tatsoi diary covering diagnosis, pH correction, EC management, repeated harvest weights, and planned termination.
And terminated. I used the remaining Tatsoi along with some Italian dandelion leaves and kale to make a green juice this AM.The garden has been cleaned, sanitized, light hood lowered, and is ready to be replanted once I find my Tatsoi seeds. Which are missing. So I might have to plant something else while I order new Tatsoi seeds.
Day 82
UPDATE#16
Grower update
Update #16
🔧Actions taken
🧺HarvestHarvested the more ragged plant for about three cups chopped.
The beginning of the end.... I got worried over the size of the stalks and even though the Tatsoi hasn't bolted yet, I don't want to make a difficult chore of removing it from the grow deck. It's possible it will already be that! So, as I wanted to make a green juice today, I harvested the more ragged looking plant. I'll get the other plant either tonight or tomorrow.Got a nice amount of Tatsoi, perhaps 3 cups chopped. The juice consisted of the Tatsoi, a romaine heart, an apple, half a lime, and a quarter of a large jicama root for a yield of over 2 cups.I plan to replant the garden with Tatsoi, it will have time to get going a bit before I need to terminate the downstairs Tatsoi, which was planted a bit too close on the heels of this one.
I think the fluorescents just have a color we are more used to. Less strong, a bit warmer. They do feel more pleasing to the eye. But the fluorescent AG bulb ship has sailed. I've only 4 spare sets.
I agree and I only have 1 spare set and 3 units that use this bulb. Still can’t find an adapter to convert these bulbs to led. Unfortunately they have a different connector than the 2 bulb Aerogardens.
I'm just going to run with the existing bulbs until I notice slow growth or the air pump in the base dies, whichever comes first. And only greens, as I figure greens are less demanding about light than fruiting veggies. Then replace with the spares and run until those are done. I couldn't find spare bulbs at all, nor adapters.
2024-01-18: Day whateverRinse and refill, several days late! The Tatsoi weren’t growing much, though enough to provide some leaves to a harvest last night. They can still be harvested again today.I have, since the downstairs Tatsoi is doing well on MaxiGro, switched the nutrients over to that formula.Nutrients (per gallon):2.0ml CALiMAGic1.0 TSP GH MaxiGro5.0ml 3% Hydrogen Peroxide1.0ml pH UpPH of nutrient mix: 5.5–6.0EC of nutrient mix: 2.2The Tatsoi just keep on giving! Beginning to think it might be wise to terminate before the trunks of these Tatsoi trees get much larger! Still, I'd like to see just how long they can go before bolting...
2023-12-17: Day whateverWhoops! Must’ve forgotten to reset the nutrient light, as it didn’t go on. Fortunately, painter’s blue tape note saved the day. Plants were looking a bit pale!I checked EC and it was 0.8. Rinse and refill! I’m repeating the GH Flora aggressive strength mix until the plants bolt. The left-hand plant is looking considerably less rosette-like, I don't know if that's a sign of bolting being near or not. Might be. The garden is 3.5 months old ... I can only keep harvesting and wait and see.PH of nutrient mix: 6.0EC of nutrient mix: 2.7
Got a generous 75g harvest on these on 12-05 or possibly 12-05, don't remember, and tonight, they are grown to almost the same size again. I may harvest a few leaves tonight, and juice them for a change, as I'm planning to make a green juice shortly.Very pleased with Tatsoi, it's a producer!
Day 47Last night I harvested a nice 55g off the two plants and lowered the lights. The photo is from this AM. There have been no further leaf blotches.I checked EC and yep, they are going through nutrients like wildfire! Down to 0.8 today. I have done a rinse and refill with a "Strong General Purpose" GH Flora series mix according to my old chart. (6.2ml Micro, 10ml Gro, 5ml Bloom per gallon).Also, I discovered that our water is NOT hard. At all. I used a hard water test and it came up just the other side of hard. I used the Bluelab truncheon to check the tap water and the measurement is ZERO! So I decided it might be a good idea to add a little CALiMAGic, see how it goes. Because my plants probably aren't getting much from my tap water.Figuring out Tatsoi one day at a time!
12-2-2023 day whatever.And nope, not quite 2 weeks for the Flora Strong General Purpose mix. Been low EC (0.8) for a couple of days now, I just didn't have time to get to an R&R until tonight. These are HUNGRY plants! And looking it, as they are a little paler than normal. I harvested them again tonight before the R&R, sautéed the greens with onion, garlic, and some grape tomatoes in olive oil/butter. And ate as a side to scrambled eggs. Yummy!So, now I will try the AGGRESSIVE growth mix from the old chart and see if that can carry them a full two weeks. I'd rather have a schedule where I can feed when the AG add nutrient light goes on, rather than these random FEED ME requests! 1.5 TSP Micro3.0 TSP Gro1.0 TSP Bloom1.0 TSP CALiMAGicPH of nutrient mix: 6.0EC of nutrient mix: 2.6The Tatsoi are, so far, the only thing I've been able to grow completely successfully. And it was sure iffy at the beginning!
Day 43I charged into the office once the cats were fed, because I wanted to see if the raised nutrient level had done anything untoward to the Tatsoi or whether the Tatsoi would have doubled itself or what.ACK, something did show up!Blotches. On two leaves of the right-hand plant.So, since the PH test kit was handy, I promptly took PH. 7.0! The nutrient mix I added yesterday was 6.0.Brought the PH Down upstairs, added, as best I could tell, about 0.75ml. Clearly, I need to add a 5ml glass dropper, as the lowest measurement on the 10ml droppers is 1ml.I went and did other things, like reading EC and testing PH on the south 40 gardens. And another shocker! PH fine at 6.0 in the lettuce garden, but up to 7.0 in the Tatsoi garden! Now, the upstairs and downstairs Tatsoi are NOT running on the same nutes! Upstairs is GH Flora series, downstairs is GH MaxiGro. But both nutrient mixes tested at 6.0 a half hour or so after mixing.Anyway, looks like frequent monitoring of PH may be a good idea for Tatsoi in my home. I took it again, and the PH had come down, but not quite enough, so I added another 0.75ml of Down and will check again in a few hours.Touchy Tatsoi! One thing you can say for it, it tells me rather promptly when it is unhappy with high PH!
Day 42Rinse and refill! Referring to my old GH Flora series mixing chart, I increased the mix from "Mild General Purpose" to "General Purpose," so instead of a 1-1-1 teaspoon to gallon mix, I went to a 1-1.5-1 mix. Micro, Gro, and Bloom in that order. If the Tatsoi goes through that before 14 days is up, I may move to "Strong General Purpose."EC now measures a solid 1.4. According to Google, this is low end EC for hydroponic Tatsoi, but I figure a gradual increase in nutrients is better than an abrupt one, given the plants don't look nutrient deficient, even though they did go through their nutrients in 10 days. In spite of the very low EC reading yesterday, the photo shows they've grown outwards a bit!I've raised the light a notch, and it's looking like I should consider harvesting again soon, but not today.
Day 14
UPDATE#8
Grower update
Update #8
🔧Actions taken
🔧EquipmentLowered the light one notch.
🔧EquipmentAdded labels to track garden identity and last nutrient date.
Day 40After the harvest. I lowered the lights a notch. I also put a nicer looking label on the garden. And added a label to the top of the hood to let me know when I'd last added nutrients, just to be on the safe side. They are old electronics! Gotta love blue painter's tape! I label my water and coconut kefir with it too.
No kidding! In 2022, we had a week of 110F heat wave ... and our AC decided to go out at the beginning of it! All repairmen booked up, as it's a small town and options are a bit limited in that regard anyway.I grabbed all kinds of cardboard boxes slated to be taken for recycling, cut them to fit, and blacked out ALL our windows with those and wide blue painter's tape! It wasn't pleasant, but it did help keep the temps in the house from rising above 90F. Which it would have without the blackout measures. And it was easy to remove a blackout panel at night in order to use a window fan to suck slightly cooler air in.And left no residue when we had the AC unit replaced and I was able to rip it all down again!
Day 41Took an EC reading last night, rather low at 0.5. I think the plants are hungry, though otherwise they look fine. They have grown some, but I don't think I'll harvest again just yet. However, as I didn't think to go ahead and fill some jugs with filtered water, I'll have to do that and it takes time, as the Big Berkey only filters a gallon and a half at a whack. As a hedge, I watered them with some leftover nutrient water from the Chicory/Dandelion garden, in case I don't get to the R&R today. It's 10 days since the last one. (Yay, blue painter's tape labels!)
Day 39Another nice little harvest of 43g. The plants are looking more even now, as I harvested the right-hand plant more heavily. I lowered the light again, and, because the room was feeling warm, turned on the fan on low. But I plan to keep an eye on them!The greens went into my scrambled eggs again, lightly cooked, and absolutely delicious!
Day 12
UPDATE#6
Grower update
Update #6
🔧Actions taken
🧺HarvestHarvested both plants, mainly the right one, for a 44-gram meal.
Day 37Yep, not my imagination! They are both growing!Since I'm planning a 36 hour fast starting this evening, I opted to go ahead and do my first harvest!Harvested the right-hand plant fairly heavily. Instead of using snippers, I followed some advice I'd seen to gently break the leaves off. It's a little trickier, but I was getting the knack. It certainly leaves the plant looking a lot neater! I even got 4 leaves off the left-hand plant! 44 grams of Tatsoi! I tossed them in with some eggs spiced with turmeric, curry, and chili powder and scrambled in a teaspoon of butter. Then they went in a bowl with an avocado and I sprinkled some lemon juice, salt and pepper over and enjoyed every bite.
Day 36Plants still looking happy! I really do think they've grown just a little! Water level is down a quarter inch.Looks like PH was indeed the problem, and it also looks like I caught it just in time! (Knock on wood!) It would be hard to blame the 15-year-old GH Flora series for the issue, looking at how green these plants are! I plan to start another round of Tatsoi in the Classic 7, this time with 3 plants (2 rear, 1 front) and use the new GH MaxiGro nutes for comparison sake.
It's a fact. BOTH plants are growing. The difference is REALLY noticeable today! And they had drunk a bit of water, the water was down about 3/4" so I added 1ml of PH Down to the water jug and watered them.You know, I looked up high PH symptoms, and almost nothing matched what I was seeing. Just one of those crazy things! Now I just need to get a new PH test kit in here before I run out of drops in the old one!
Day 35I think both plants might have grown a little, but perhaps wishful thinking. No further spots. Feeling hopeful I have saved them, but it's too soon to know.I found my old GH feed chart file, and my memory was correct. I plan to continue using the GH nutrients in this garden until it is done, but I will use the amounts from the 15-year-old feed chart instead of the current feed chart. For one thing, it makes for easier measuring and it's easier to remember, being simpler!IF the garden grows without further issue as long as I control the PH level, then I'll know the GH nutrients are still OK to use. I hate tossing anything useful when it comes to AG growing.I may do a bit of harvesting on the right-hand plant soon, just to even things out.
I'm pretty certain today. They just look bigger. And the little left-hand plant looks wider. They will need water probably by tomorrow or next day, I don't like to let it get too low.First, I need to check the PH in my watering jug and adjust as needed!
Nov 8, 2023 19:34:24 GMT -5 lynnee said: Nov 7, 2023 20:26:17 GMT -5 pfunnyjoy said:Except why would the plant on the left be dried out and not the plant on the right?***Can y'all tell that mystery is my favorite book genre? I am gonna solve this ... I hope! It can happen that one plant dries out and another doesn't--especially if the dried-out plant is shielding the other from a draft or the overhead lights. When you're trying to solve a mystery, it helps if you don't make too many changes at once! pH is certainly a good thing to look at, as well as anything else you can think of about your water. You will solve it, I know. I suppose it could have been the fan I had on them, though they were not bothered by that before. I was using at the lowest speed, which hardly felt like anything. I'm giving them a break from the fan presently. But on the first Tatsoi garden, it was the furthest plants from the fan that were affected first ... so I don't really think it was an issue.Gosh I hope I solve it! I don't think the old GH nutrients are at fault, but it is hard to know. I know they buffer PH, so that's good. The plants looked healthy up until a month, also good. The rinse and refill with the old GH nutrients hasn't done anything untoward, good, knock on wood. I don't know if the plants were damaged by the high PH (or whatever was troubling them), but they sure look green and pretty at the moment!You can see where the little fan is in the far bottom left corner of the image, there's a bit of fan grill showing. Amongst my assorted charging cord clutter!Day 34I don't plan to discard the old GH nutrients as yet, because they may still be useable. One thing that could be an issue is if they changed them (even slightly) at any point during the 15 years. If they did, the current feed charts may not be accurate for the old nutes. I seem to remember it being equal portions of Micro/Grow/Bloom to start, then cutting back on the Bloom when growth picked up. That's not the case on the current charts I downloaded, Bloom is dialed back from the start on those. But I could be remembering wrong. I'll try and hunt through the computer, see if I can find the old chart I used to use.I'll see how I get on with the MaxiGro, which supposedly arrives TOMORROW!
Day 33Not much change. The left-hand plant had some 7 or 8 affected leaves, which might have looked a bit worse than when I did the rinse and refill. I opted to remove all of them and put them in the trash. After which, I went and washed my hands, wiped down the table, wiped down my pruners, wiped down my phone, and wiped down the alcohol wipes container for good measure! The right-hand plant looks beautiful. Water level was down maybe an 1/8" inch, so at least one plant is still drinking, which gives me hope.The left-hand plant is a lot smaller, as some 15 or so leaves have been removed total since I noticed the garden had a problem.And the whole garden, albeit a bit lop-sided now:For those who've seen these images in my "help" thread in the Greens section, sorry for the duplication, but I'm just trying to keep my documentation of the garden going here as well.
Except why would the plant on the left be dried out and not the plant on the right?At present, since my Bounty lettuce sprouts are looking AWFUL, with burnt leaf tips, and I just checked the PH in that garden and it is also around 8.0, I believe that I'm going to operate on the theory that water and/or PH is the main issue. My Baker Creek seeds arrived, so I might start the Bounty over and ditch the mystery AG lettuces. I'll wait for the MaxiGro nutrients I just ordered today, to rule out old nutrients as an issue.Water and/or PH may not be my only garden issues, but at present, it is what I can be sure is common to every garden thus far. Can y'all tell that mystery is my favorite book genre? I am gonna solve this ... I hope!
pfunnyjoy--do you use the AG liquid nutes? I find them the absolute simplest to use. I bought a bag of MaxiGrow after watching some of his videos, but I have yet to use it.
Well, I used AG liquid nutes for the new Harvest Elite Slim, because they came with it. Back in the day, AG nutrients didn't come in a bottle, they were little tablets individually wrapped in plastic and I never thought they dissolved very well after being dropped in the tank per instructions. Plus, they left a ton of residue.Later, they were changed to liquid and in little individual plastic packets, and that was better, you just clipped a corner off and poured them in, but still annoying to have a pile of what looked like a pile of soy sauce pouches from a Chinese restaurant to store! Plus all that extra plastic waste! I actually found some of these old AG nutes recently and they looked pretty wretched! The brown liquid had turned whitish in some packets. I promptly tossed 'em. The old GH nutrients though, looked brand new, so I figured I might as well try with them. However, now I need to rule those out as a cause of my problems.I used the GH Flora series nutrients most of the time in 2008/2009 when growing my own seeds and they did well and could be tailored to what I was growing. But yeah, it's a bit of a pain to deal with the three separate Micro/Grow/Bloom bottles. I'm hoping MaxiGro is going to work and be easier and cheaper.
It can happen that one plant dries out and another doesn't--especially if the dried-out plant is shielding the other from a draft or the overhead lights. When you're trying to solve a mystery, it helps if you don't make too many changes at once! pH is certainly a good thing to look at, as well as anything else you can think of about your water. You will solve it, I know.
Planted: 10/05/2023 This garden was started 2 days after the currently problematical kitchen Tatsoi garden. So far, so good, knock on wood! It lives in my office, which is a small upstairs room.Nutes: GH Flora Series, 5ml each of Micro, Grow, and Bloom per gallon.This is day 26. I have not yet done any harvesting of this garden. I opted to raise the light tonight, just to be sure they don't get tip burned, as these are taller than the kitchen garden plants. (Both were slightly leggy seedlings.)
Day 31Signs of problems in this garden, on the outer oldest leaves of the left-hand plant. No harvesting has been done, and I haven't been handling the plants, so virus transfer seems unlikely. Unless the Tatsoi seeds carried a virus.Water temperature this morning, after a night of the house at 64F, was 68.8F. Seems reasonable.Yesterday, while digging around in my AG supplies, I found my old General Hydroponics PH test kit. So I tested the AG 6E+ water and came up with a PH of 8.0. Too high. So maybe my issues were not a virus, but PH! I don't know if I can save the plants. Rinse and refill did NOT help before, but maybe the damage was already done. I decided to try a rinse and refill anyway.This time, I used some PH Down to take my filtered tap water for the rinse to 6.5. And I tested the nutrient solution, which also rang in at 6.5, showing me the old GH Flora nutrients are buffering the water.Anyway, if it's PH, it would explain why a garden using GH nutrients and a garden using AG nutrients both suffered. Each time I added water, the water would have been a PH of 8.0, slowly raising the PH in the reservoirs.Sorry for the lack of pics but vgy.me is down. It's looking like I may need to sign up for another image hosting service.
pfunnyjoy, Here is a link to our Nutrients and Supplements section, which has all kinds of info and charts regarding pH. Personally, I love the bright chart colors!aerogardenaddicts.com/post/41298/threadMy initial reaction to your post was that an 8.0 pH isn't too bad, but I see that herbs and lettuce require a much lower pH.You may have hit on the solution. If it's pH, then you'll probably need to do very frequent R&Rs. That's what I found with my strawberries, though they were in Farm, which always has a residue of gunk left after you drain the big bowl. It's easy to get a Bounty or Harvest emptied completely at 2-week intervals.
Normally, to control PH and nutrients, I would do rinse/refill at every add nutrient cycle. So every two weeks I use a manual siphon and a 5-gallon bucket and they work GREAT! For the curious, the siphon I got is:Fermtech Auto-Siphon Mini with 6 Feet of Tubing and Clamp, ClearThe only downside is it doesn't fit in the Harvest Elite Slim water opening. May fit in a grow basket hole, haven't checked yet. Works fine for all my other gardens though. And it's WAY better than just a tube, as that was my old method, and occasionally I'd get a mouthful of old nutrient water! Now I just siphon out the old nutrients, add plain water (which will now be PH checked and adjusted!), siphon again, add my nutrient mix. I figure that disturbs the plants very little.Anyway, frequent R&Rs, other than the chore of nutrient mixing, are not a problem. I'm used to that aspect from past gardens with GH Flora nutrients.There's a guy on YouTube (Aerogarden Experiments) who uses GH MaxiGrow dry nutrients. If anyone has had experience with them, I'd be interested, as they might be a little easier to deal with.
Yes, but he may not have hard water. I can't remember, I might have asked him on a recent video if his water was hard, I'll have to check, see if he replies. He's definitely got a green thumb!I'm beginning to feel like I have a black one, LOL!
pfunnyjoy, part of the fun of AGs is just watching how things grow and respond to your tweaks! Right now I am enrolled in a course called Plant Neglect 101, and I'm learning lots of things.
I did get a response from the AG Experiments dude! He says he has NOT got hard water. But he did think that MaxiGro would be OK with hard water. I might get some and try it, if for no better reason than it would be new, as opposed to 15 years old, and that it looks easier to use. He's certainly had a ton of success with it, and it's a General Hydroponics product, and I've liked their stuff.Plus, light weight. I could like that.