Herbs and Veggies

October 25, 2019: I like the grow diaries format and so I've decided to use it to track my other garden grows. I eventually would like to grow many different veggies year round, save the super light intensive varieties for the summer outdoor garden. October 31, 2019 Nice growth, probably a week before transplanting. The herbs will go two to three per pot, and the leafy greens (lettuce, cabbage, etc.) will be one per pot.

Decided after looking at how much root growth there was out the bottom of the starter cubes to transplant as many as I could into their final pots. Will need to redo the height of my shelving to accommodate more grow areas.

11-10-19: Rearranged the veggie tent to fit more lights and more flats. I can fit 18 1020 flats now, which equates to 180 5" pots. I am trying out 3.5" pots but think they will be too small for the lettuce and cabbage, but I'll be finding out soon. Will soon be able to start harvesting herbs in the next few weeks. 11-15-19: Moved the flats around and watered some of the pots. Picture updates.

11-17-19: Everything looking great. Lettuce should be ready in a few weeks. Hoping the cabbage starts developing the center bulb soon. Need to get some recipes that call for dill and basil soon, cilantro as well. Veggie tent pulling over 500w now, just 2 out of 9 light groups are still off. 11-22-19: Picture update. Spread out some of the cabbage and shard.

11-24-19: More rearranging of the pots. Trying to give the lettuce, cabbage, kale and swiss shard more room. Some of the lettuce is ready to eat!

12-6-19: Gonna have to get the irrigation system up and running, this garden consumes about 5 gallons of water a day. Harvested most of the lettuce. Ended up with about 6-7 1-gallon bags full. Moved things around to give the tomato's and cabbage and kale more room. Pretty sure I planted a cauliflower, at least that's what the plant's flower seems to appear as. Harvested 6 or so thumb sized bundles of dill, hung to dry and now on a wire rack till the stems snap then stripped and bagged. Topped the oregano and ended up with a couple handfuls, currently drying alongside the dill. Watermelon is taking off now and will need more room soon, I'm hoping most of the kale will be ready in the next few weeks and open up some much needed space. Not sure when the tomato plants will fruit but I'm sure they will fill up whatever space they occupy.

12-25-19: Wow have things taken off. Decided to upgrade the tomato and watermelon plants to a new tent, using one side lit by 2 120W quantum board with red nm led's. I didn't realize the tomato plants had gotten so tall, the tallest was nearly 3.5' tall. Found a couple grape sized tomato's, hopefully more will show as they ripen. I need to figure out how to pollinate the watermelon blossom's, gotta get the male and female flowers to bloom concurrently. The lemon mint is my current favorite followed by the basil. watering about 7 gallons a day.

Big changes coming to the veggie/herb tent. Decided to recycle most of the lettuce and cabbage left growing. I hadn't harvested much of it and working 50-60 hr weeks at work didn't leave much time for gardening. I'm starting a hundred plus seeds, exclusively herbs this round. Herbs take to extended growing by simply cutting the flowers and keeping them trimmed back. Plus you can enjoy them without needing to harvest anything, but harvested and dried is also great. My favorite is still the basil and mint! Got the irrigation system finally plumbed, just have to connect the lines and turn on valve as needed. Tomato tent is too cool for them to thrive, eventually will swap the tomato and herb tent, as herbs don't mind the cool temps. That tent will also be getting some peas going too, and maybe some grean beans.