THE PROJECT all is revealed.

You may remember I showed a couple of photos of 28 hanging baskets freshly planted up sitting on the ground and mentioned I would reveal more later well here is the story.
These basket are now placed at the award winning Salt Cafe in Hervey Bay Queensland Australia and over the next couple of month they will develop into a spectacular sight they are feed by an Auto-pot Smart-Pump which supplies the required Nutrients and water automatically the pup is capable of feeding several thousand plants even up to the height of 20 feet so there is no limit to what can be done to beautify a home or commercial building. I will also include a couple of Photos of a walkway at a local school with its new planting of Pink and Purple Petunias this project has been inplace almost a year and they have never had to do anything it looks after itself and is admired by all.

Peppers Resort Hervey bay

2 weeks from planting

The view from the Cafe even at low tide

There are 28 baskets that will cascade over the next couple of months.

Pink Craze at School walkway

Purple Craze at School Walkway

Walkway to Assembly hall

The forever Tomato

A few weeks back I mentioned about growing Tomatoes from cuttings well let me show you how that is progressing then I will explain again what I do.

Here is my cutting happily crowing in a pot on the Capillary table
taken some weeks back

Here is the same tomato fruiting up, it is still sitting on the capillary table.

This Tomato has been subjected to total neglect it has to drag its food up through the table so this is capillary action at its best.

The simple procedure is let one of the laterals that you normally pinch out grow to 3 to 4 inches cut it cleanly make a hole in the medium that you intend to pot it into carefully place it in the prepared hole don't push it in and damage the edges of the stem, you can use a rooting compound if you like I don't bother compress the medium around carefully, I also give a water in but don't over do it and just leave it alone. Don't let it dry out, or sit it in a container so it can draw up it moisture needs.

So if you have a really good tomato that you wish you had more of then just keep cloning it.

If you time your cuttings right you should have a continuous year round crop.

Worth Growing

I'v been a bit slack of late having so much on has let me get behind with my Blog updates, sorry about that so here we go at last. I mentioned about how pleased I was with a Yellow Tomato Variety that I was growing, well I am enjoying then now along with the second crop of Black Russian's.

This Yellow Variety is low in acid quite firm to cut and tastes excellent, YES gets my tick of approval

I have just planted 2 more, if your looking for them 

in the nursery they are just called YELLOW VARIETY no other name

EXCITING NEW PROJECT

Here you can see 28 hanging baskets being prepared with the rock wool placed in the bottom cavities ready to fill and plant.
This is for an exciting project on a very prominent commercial site which I will show you more of when its completed this is just a teaser.

The Plants are Purple Craze Petunia

The plants are from Jackie's Nursery and are of excellent quality as usual, I personally recommend plants from this grower.

  

GOODBYE SUNNY

Well this day had to come and I am sad to say I have had to harvest my sunflower and write the last chapter in the book SUNNY.

The wet weather hastened the end so I had to remove the flower head and dry indoors

Packed solid with seeds

An-abundance of nutrition

The continuos wet weather make life challenging even with a grow house, as the ground is so wet it turns to mud very quickly so I try to keep traffic to a minimum.

BYE SUNNY

Something different

One of the exciting things of running a grower group is the little snippets of information that I get sent or photos of plants thriving in this system that I personally have not grown.
Some of our growers push the boundary's which is great I love it. here is a couple of photos I want to share from one of our growers who is well on the way of being self sufficient with and extensive variety of plants I just want to show you one that you may not have thought of.

Dwarf Mulberry 

Mulberry fruiting in first year

These trees are in a Perlight /Vermiculite 50/50 Mix in 12" Single Hydrotrays.

There is no limit to what you can grow with this system here are a couple of new things that I have

Peanuts

If you look closely you can see the the long stems dropping down to the ground the peanuts will develop down in the ground, quite a fascinating plant.

A Yellow Tomato Variety

Strawberry's in Perlite Mix

I have not grown Strawberry's before because I have a wonderful Strawberry farmer just down the road but he's gone on holiday so no second crop so this is a new experience with the system.

My Malabar Spinach

My beautiful Sunflower packed with seeds

Every Gardener Needs one!

Autopot Capillary Table

Welcome to Autumn I have been flat out potting up seedling and that's when I realised just how wonderful the Capillary Table really is,. If you love growing your own or love striking cuttings of any form of prorogation then you should have one of these tables.

On this 1260 x 720 mm top as you can see is a huge array of plants the larger one at the back right is an eggplant that has been on the table from day one and now has fruit on it. this is a real efficient unit and a must for any serious gardener. Ring me if you want to order one or email 0412174733 or auto.group@optusnet.com.au

Tomato cutting

Tomatoes what's the options
Do you grow from seed, seedlings or from cuttings?

I use all three and the tomato in the picture above is a cutting, this was a middle lateral that you normally pinch out, well here is the trick. let it grow to around 10 - 12 cm cut it out cleanly and place into potting mix but make sure you  make a hole for it, don't push it into the pot or you will damage the edges, if you have rooting compound then use it, in the case above it was just put carefully into the pot and firmed around and left sitting on my capillary table. Think about it if you start cuttings from each planting when they are half grown you would have an all year round supply of plants.

How many?

Hybrid Cucumber.

I am often asked how many plants should I put in to a pot, I get the impression that often people think because its such a brilliant feeding system why not put extra plants in a pot. My view is that I would rather have one healthy plant producing at maximum than a bunch of average plants that are prone to sickness and insects. What you see in the picture above is 2 cucumbers in a 2 pot 10" hydrotray, these 2 plants will give me over between  40 to 50 plus fruit they will develop a root system that will fill the pot so why spoil it. Think Quality and grow time, the quicker a plant grows the more nutritious it is for you.

These 2 plant will take over one end of my tunnel as you can see with the current crop in the next photo.

Cucumber and Pink Pearl Tomatoes hanging from the roof.


Here are a few more happenings around the place.

Petunia for my mobile display

Peanuts

My Crazy spinach

Another question that comes up a lot is what's the best medium?

I have experiment with just about everything and I do use a lot of soil note I said soil not potting mix I have found some of the potting mixes especially the cheep ones are no good and your plants will die I think its a chemical conflict with the way some of them work with our nutrient.

If you are not exposed to lots of rain that can wash out your nutrient then use Perlite, or Perlite / Vermiculite 50 / 50 mix that way you will have no conflict. For a soil medium I use Osomoaote organic soil. note it's a soil not a potting mix.

I have just done a lettuce plant in 50 /50 mix as you can see.

Lettuce in 50/50 mix

What ever you decide don't use a cheap potting mix as it can kill your plants due to chemical reaction.

If you would like to receive our monthly  GROWER GROUP news letter or to join our grower group just email me auto.group@optusnet.com.au

February is rushing by.

What's happened to the month?
It's almost gone, between the storms and 33 plus heat, not to mention the usual February humidity its been fun and it has not finished yet. Being able to quickly cover my Grow house means I am in control and avoid the plant damage that would occur in conventional gardening.

Enjoying another of my new lettuce varieties " Salad Bowl Green " like the "Darwin" variety they are excellent picking lettuce and just keep bouncing back with new growth. I defiantly recommend for mid
summer growing.
Also doing well is my Beet-root, onions, capsicum, and eggplant plus stacks of Herbs.

Salad Bowl Green

 Finally got the Malabar Spinach planted into a 10" Hydrotray and its rocketing away.

Malabar Spinach

Tomatoes are now hanging from the roof especially my Pink Pearl and Hybrid 101 varieties.

My Second planting of Black Russian are now setting so things are on track.

Pink Pearl

Hundreds of flowers

2nd Black Russian Planting

Looking forward to the winter veggie season,