Since we've recently concluded the CO2Boost Study, there is a remarkable emptiness in the grow room. We've in the process of preparing for our next round of experiments. However, in the meantime, things look pretty bleak:
All three eggplants have been taken down to make room for new experiments. One important thing to know... Some breeds of eggplant have thorns! Black Beauty eggplant thorns are very unpleasant. They are very tiny, hard to see, and very sharp. You don't notice until they get you in the fingers. They are surprisingly difficult to remove. I highly recommend gloves.
It's surprising how much the eggplants weighed. They were really quite large. It took longer than I'd care to admit taking them down. Also, I will confess that I didn't save the 6" net pots for reuse. They were so embedded in the root system that extraction just wasn't practical. The root system actually had to be "torn apart" just to remove the eggplants from the aeroponic units. I felt bad taking down perfectly good plants; but sacrifices much be made...
On a lighter note, our MegaGarden provides something much more attractive for photos...
The strawberries are continuing to thrive. No complaints there. We've removed a few of the new sprouts, as they've been moved to new homes. In the left-hand corner you can see a herd of little lettuce sprouts. The lettuce sprouts are about a week old, and they look quite happy and healthy.
As a followup to our earlier post... We've started testing STG (Sure To Grow). Our first-round test is very basic... We planted three types of plants (cantelope, basil, and tomato) to see how they germinated. Thus far, it all looks like a success. I'm much more impressed with this second generation product than the original Sure To Grow. This new generation is more "dense". It holds water more readily and is less likely to "float away" like the earlier generation. We'll probably start trying some one-on-one comparisons with rockwool once we have some more room in the MegaGarden.
Everything looks really happy in it. I'm pleased. We'll post more in-depth opinions as we proceed further.