What’s wrong when cucumbers look like this?
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Generally when leaves start turning brown at the tips it means either they are over watered or lacking nutrients. Because you do hydro as well, I’d feed them some of the hydro solution about 1/3 strength and see what happens. I’d also get more intense light on the ones that are just starting. The stems on the large ones seem leggy.
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Yes, I wanted to buy some lamps for the light, but I got discouraged with that idea.
I’ll see if I can get them in more sunlight and less water. Thanks Tom.
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I got to thinking further about what I posted Jan. That advice about the diluted fertilizer was meant just for the plants with their true leaves and the browning. Those just breaking ground starts should not be fertilized at least until they have true leaves. I hope I’m not to late with this news. Also you do not need expensive grow lights for starts. You can use shop lights as well. They just have to be at or over 6500K and preferably at least 5000w. I’d move those big plants into larger containers.
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I might be caused by environmental conditions like temperature fluctuations, or over watering. It also might be early mosaic virus.
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We have had problems with the plants for a few years now, the planting soil we buy contains almost only peat, and I think it gets a little too much water.
My wife has tried feeding tomatoes with a little chicken manure, but it doesn’t work much, as you can see they are long and thin, the cucumbers haven’t been fertilized.
I was thinking of buying LED fluorescent tubes to ensure the light but I got discouraged on that idea, she thinks it’s bright enough anyway, the problem is that it can get too hot too.
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We are just starting to get some slightly warmer weather or else I’d have most of my starts in the greenhouse by now. I checked yesterday and it was a 25F morning and 45F in the GH, so getting pretty close now. I have some plants sitting on window sills while they are small but even then they try and lean toward the light. That’s always a warning that they want much more. I do most of them in 27 gallon totes. They will hold 72 cells and will allow a two foot light to raise and lower inside them. I use two lights per tote. I keep the lights just a couple of inches above the top of the plant and adjust as it grows. We are still 7 weeks from our normal last frost day so still a lot of messing around time needed.
That’s a nice room you have. No TV or electronics. I could spend a lot of time sitting there. electro-detoxing.
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Those long stems could be a result of the of good light like you mentioned. Even if there is a lot of light in the house not everything is getting through the windows. Especially if you have good quality windows with some special UV layers.
At that stage exposing the plants to real sunlight could be a good thing. Even the grow lights aren’t the same as natural sunlight. But if you do expose them to the sun just be careful they don’t stay there too long. The plants will get burnt really quick since they aren’t used to that kind of light.
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The mosiac virus, which I am not sure it is, can be transmitted in the seeds.
For the soil usually you mix peat with 2:1 or 1:1 with sand, vermiculite or perlite.
There are all sorts of mixes, and pine bark and pine straw are also commonly added.
You can also add activated biochar in at like 10%
I am adding this link because they chased down general recommendations in a nice chart, which I think are high but that might be -their- activated biochar, and most of the ‘premium’ or professional potting soils now contain mycorrhizae fungus.
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Lots of wild foraging to do right now, onions on the rocky river banks.
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Finally im testing my small bubbler! I decided to test with a 5 gallon bucket first rather then a 55 gallon drum for the first batch. I decided to use old garden hose for the bubbler part because I have a lot of it… and i can easily swap it out if it isn’t working right.
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I probably posted this lecture somewhere earlier in this thread but it’s that time of year here to review it. There are a hundred videos on youtube about making and using JADAM Micro-organism Solution. JMS. I have no idea why people keep posting the same information over and over. Anyway I am bringing it back up here because although last year I only used various fertilizers from the JADAM system I didn’t get involved early enough to pre-drench all my beds with this solution. I still have several weeks before I can safely set out frost sensitive plants so this time I’m going to do the whole protocol. In the video he refers to going to the mountains to collect the leaf mold part of the solution but all that really means is going to some wooded area where leaves have been breaking down for a while and collecting the soil around the base of the tree. I did get really good results from just using the solution to water my plants last year. Hopefully doing the whole protocol will amp those results up even further.
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What he is doing is a soil wash, which is what I am doing. You don’t have to wait at all, you can apply it immediately. All you are trying to do is inoculate the soil. If the soil you are applying to has the right conditions the microbes will multiply on their own. The only reason to do a soil wash, is so you can more easily apply via a spray, otherwise you can just add the soil itself. I only washed for like 4-5 hours, since i figured the microbes would have bounced off the soil particles by then.
He is right and wrong about the multiplication of the bacteria, he said the only reason to bring it up to temperature was to help multiply the microbes, then he turns around and says that isn’t what he is doing, then talks about leaving it for 3 days, and the bubbling, which is multiplying the microbes probably yeasts in his case.
He is dead wrong about healthy soil only getting oxygen into the top inch of the soil. There is oxygen in the lower levels. It filters down in with the water, worm holes, etc. Mycorrhizae fungus will grow 6-8" deep and is aerobic. Root rot, or the brown roots in a non-oxygenated hydroponic system are from bacteria, but the bacteria are attacked by aerobic bacteria and kept in balance in an oxygenated system.
While you may be looking to do something different, I am looking to restore the aerobic microorganisms, that have disappeared because of compaction. chemical use, or whatever that is preventing the soil from developing and we have a lot of molds and fungus, and bugs that shouldn’t be.
Molasses is typically used because it contains micronutrients and it is organic, and the bacteria grow faster, so I am looking at a 6-8 hours on a warm day. If you do it cold it can be 24 hours. They multiply, just slower.
After watching that, I am coming to the conclusion he wants to keep making money off his system and just incorporated the soil wash because he saw it used somewhere else. It is almost like he read one of my posts, where I have gone on a rant and thought he would incorporate it into his dad’s system.
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This gives credence to the adding of yeast like you do. Fusarium causes root rot, not just in wheat. It also gives some credence to not applying fungicides. Yet another fungus that may be a victim of collateral damage.
yeast is a facultive anaerobe,it will replicate in both the JADAM and aerobic systems and would naturally be found in forest and other soils.
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Planted seedlings and seeds yesterday, and the strawberries are blooming nicely, last night frost, watered the strawberries at 5:30 this morning. Hope they’ll make it.
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my plants aren’t all in yet. I’m using my auger to drill holes, then covering with a piece 12" cardboard with a hole in it for the plant to grow. It should work for the broadleafs provided the alleopathic chemicals from the grass don’t stunt them too much. It is my gardening experiment for the year. I am started them all inside on my small heat mat to hopefully reduce some of the effect. The soil is still too wet to till.
@tcholton717 I just found out Michigan shouldn’t even have earthworms and they are an invasive species that may be affected our hardwood forests.
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I saw that video Sean. I knew about them being killed off by the glaciers but not that they re-established themselves from plants carried over from Europe. Hard to understand how they could have desseminated so widely from such a small root source. It’s just like the zebra mussels and the asian carp invasion. Over a long enough span of time nature will adapt. Survival of the fittest.
Speaking of worms. I have put a fair amount of time and effort into worm casting production as have many other gardeners who I assume are not complete morons. Now I keep coming across you tubes that discount the value of all that effort and claim that worm casting are not any more valuable than any well made compost. This is according to the soil Lab site, which I trust, and from this guy who has made a butt load of videos and seems to know what he’s talking about. Because I amend my planting holes with both castings and compost I cannot know if the castings are better than the compost or not. I believe that packaged casting sold in retail outlets contain much less active microbial life that freshly made castings and probably not worth the cost. I do feel that fresher castings provide a available source of microbes which the roots are able to utilize more or less immediately while the rest of the soil converts to available food for the plants. no need to watch the video unless you are a garden geek but his conclusion is that compost and worm castings are pretty much equal with the exception that the retail cost of the purchased compost is much less that purchased castings. Since I don’t buy either it doesn’t matter to me.
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Hi, Tom! I pretty much discard videos that start with a ridiculous pretense and have click-bait thumbnails, designed to make you waste time watching drivel. That being said, I should watch the video first. I am skeptical of the claim that worm castings are no better as a fertilizer than compost. It is like saying horse manure is no better than grass clippings. 
Edit: So, I watched the video. he has a few good points, but I am not convinced. He uses examples that I think are unrealistic, and he is promoting his own composting book…
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He might be correct. Worms eat the microbes that are responsible for the decay of the plant matter and release those nutrients a lot faster. In compost, the nutrients are there, they are just locked up in the microrobes. Which is what happens with nitrogen lockup in compacted soils.
If you look at the picture where she shows the distinct layers of soil vs soil where worms are, you see that the worms are doing a lot of digging and mixing they move like up to 40 ton of earth an acre… They are mixing up the pile and getting oxygen to the lower levels and helping to regulate the moisture. Which is why no-till works if you have the healthier soil to begin with. With a healthy compost pile you are flipping and stirring the pile around manually. thus my buckets, now that I have microbes in them the level is dropping, and I just pile more on top and don’t worry about it. 
I am also a bit leary about her claim that worms only move 16ft/yr. They could easily get attached to a deer or a bird might drop one. Since they reproduce asexually, whetever it drops, it can reproduce. But she is correct in that common worms like canadian nightcrawlers are from europe or asia, and probably they did spread from people fishing or transplanting bushes and such, then getting stuck to tires or boots.
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