It's been about a week since the last post, so I thought it was time to issue an update regarding the state of the hydrogardens...

Firstly, let me talk about the new toy:  I recently bought a Milwaukee digital pH meter.  I wouldn't recommend clicking the link however, as their "artificial intelligence assistant" isn't that intelligent, mostly just freaking creepy.

As for the tester itself, it's a model pH51 waterproof digital meter.  I bought it because I don't see colors all that well, and I wanted to regular the pH more accurately than "by eyeball".  It cost me about $60.  Honestly, I'm really not impressed.  I can get it to work, and it works pretty accurately.  However, the electrode is pretty touchy, and if it isn't happy, it gives very erratic readings.  I can't say that I'd buy another one.  It's calibrated using two solutions:  one that is exactly pH 4.01 and another that is exactly pH 7.0.  These two reference solutions allow it to accurately measure the range that I'm using.  Good points:  It's accurate to one tenth of a point.  It's repeatable.  Bad points:  The electronics are touchy.  It also needs to be stored in solution (vertically) which is bluntly a pain-in-the-ass.

Moving right along...

Now that we're got both hydro systems running under "normal operations", we've developed a bit of a system.  The MegaGarden unit has the "vegetative" light, and it used for the baby plants, lettuce, and wheatgrass.  It's progressing nicely.  Incidentally, the previous mold problem with the wheatgrass has been soundly and permanently conquered.

Here's the MegaGarden at the moment:

We used a combination of red and black pots for the lettuce, mostly because it's what we had laying around the house.  The lettuces are of different ages, so their sizes are expectedly quite different.  The fellow in the bottom-left corner is the oldest and largest of the baby lettuce plants.  They all seem happy.  We feed the whole MegaGarden Pure Blend Pro (Grow Formula) mixed with a little Liquid Karma.  It's working very well.  Since the bed only contains vegetative plants, it's a great mix.

Here's a close-up of the largest of the lettuce (lettuces?):

For refenence, it's about 5" tall at this point.  It's nowhere near an adult, but it seems happy.

Nextly, we have the aeroponic TurboGarden.  I'll tell you what, Beau at Healthy Garden and Supply wasn't kidding. Aeroponic beds really grow fast.  Although this isn't a very quantitative statement, they really kick the crap out of standard ebb-and-flow.

Here's the current state of the aeroponic bed.  We have five tomato plants (at different ages, back row), four strawberry plants (middle row), two eggplants (front row), and three currently empty spots for future basil plants (still sprouting).  Since the strawberries are flowering, and the tomatoes are getting larger, we're switched to the Pure Blend Pro (Bloom Formula), also mixed with a little Liquid Karma.  We've only recently made the switch, but the new mix should provide strong additional nutrition for growth and production.  Also, using the new pH meter, I've set the aeroponic pH to 6.2.  I'm trying a lower pH in the hopes of boosting nutrient absorption.

For reference, the largest of the tomato plants is about 10" tall now.   Here's a decidedly unscientific comparison:

• 04/23/2007: About 2" tall.  Two leaves.  Joins the aeroponic bed for the first time.
  
• 05/01/2007: About 4" tall.  Small leaves. Seems happy.
• 05/09/2007: About 10" tall.  Lots of leaves.  Diameter has increased to about 1/2".  Looking much stronger.  Very healthy.

The strawberries seem very happy.  All of them have flowered, and are already working on strawberries.  I've hand-pollinated the flowers as they have appeared.  The flowers wild and die within about one day of being pollinated, and a strawberry begins forming where the flower once grew.  They all seem quite strong, which is good.  I wasn't sure how they would like being transplanted, but all worked very well.  I would expect that our first strawberries are about 2-3 weeks away.

On a side note:  I've finally been questioned by the neighbors about the big-honkin' light in my guest room.  I guess it makes sense, as the thing looks like an artificial sun in the evening hours.  Nothing says sunlight like 400 watts of HPS goodness.