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The tomato plant is huge! It seems quite foliage heavy though, do you think that's because of the commercial nutrient blend you used? Have you also looked at mo

by dkarp 5y ago

The tomato plant is huge! It seems quite foliage heavy though, do you think that's because of the commercial nutrient blend you used? Have you also looked at modifying the recipe at different stages i.e. during growth, flowering, ripening? What climate zone are you in (if you don't mind me asking)? I'll be growing a bunch of things in Spring and would like to make a setup like this. I'll keep an eye on the project and likely contribute if you're open to it

lathyrus_long 5y ago
> It seems quite foliage heavy though, do you think that's because of the commercial nutrient blend you used? Mostly inadequate pruning, I think--I was planning to replace it soon, so I'd gotten lazy. Normally I remove side shoots and lower leaves, for less foliage and better yield. The fertilizer was Masterblend 4-18-38, which is intended for tomatoes and pretty close to the University of Florida's "Stage 5" tomato profile (per their article linked from my calculator). So I'd guess the nutrient profile was close to optimal, except for all the excess phosphate from my pH down. I'm on a somewhat protected balcony in San Jose, USDA Zone 9B. That's warm enough that I can grow tomatoes through the whole winter, as long as it's a cold-tolerant cultivar (e.g. Early Girl; or Sub-Arctic Plenty, which is a determinate so needs less/no pruning), and lots of other stuff too. And contributions definitely welcomed, especially on the controller firmware. That's currently in a state that's useful only to programmers. More work there (integration with home automation software, a nice browser-based interface to schedule irrigation and dosing, etc.) would make that accessible to a lot more people.