Affnan's Aquaponics - Picking Tomatoes

Picking few tomatoes that has ripen, only a few. For an average household is sufficient.

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Seedling After 12 Days

Seedling after 12 days, will be transplanting them after few more days.

Testing video capture and edit with android apps and blogging with blogaway pro to youtube direct posting on Samsung Galaxy S5.

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Seedling Doing Great

Seeds that I sowed as in the video earlier germinate after about 4 days, today the 8th day its growing.

Kale above after 8 day and looking good. I'll transplant three to a pot once they are about 3 to 4 inches high.

Tomatoes,  these I'll wait until about 6 inches high or once they have about 4 to 5 leaves. The most two to a pot. Tomatoes will require staking otherwise they will be damage by wind.

Not sure what variety these tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes is a better variety to grow for household consumption.

Spinach above, surprisingly slow. This is the red leaves variety and as previously grown in my traditional growbed. This is my first trial in the #gutterbed.

Ok, will post about these again once I do the transplant.

Tomatoes Overdue

Sown few tomatoes from over ripen homegrown and it was overdue for transplanting. Decide to do that on my smaller set. So out goes the buffer plants and few tomatoes seedling to take over.

Due to the overdue period, the seedling are tall and thin. I had to plant it deep so that they can developed more root from the buried stem.

When you transplant tomatoes, the rule is "the deeper the better" because more roots can developed from stem in the soil resulting stronger plants.

In forty five days or less they should fruit.

Ornamental Set Tomatoes Looks Good

This set is on 5 fish power and it is doing okay I guess.. 2 photos below was taken on 1st. Feb 2015

The following were taken on 26th Feb, the fruits developing slowly. It is very hot this last one week or two and it shows on the plants straining it leaves.

Staking Tomatoes

Tomatoes has grown and they need staking, some already producing flowers and small fruits. Use PVC conduit as stake since this is the cheapest solution and will last a long time.

We can plant eight pots of tomatoes in this small growbed, but here only six since it is sharing space with other plants.

The stake are fan outward to give more room for sunlight and easier to check for pest and other problem that may crop up later if the plants were close together.

Few plants flowering and it's important that we have staking as support.

Forgotten which variety are these, should be cherry tomatoes if I'm not mistaken.

The tomatoes in the ornamental set also needs support and as the ones in the back I stake them fan out to create bigger canopy to give more sun.

The plants in this set also flowering and have a single tomatoes growing. On the ornamental set, the plants are not that healthy looking, maybe due to lack of nutrient because there is only few gold fish in this set. I will need to add more fish to get better nutrient production.

This ornamental set is the one using my smallest siphon, it was an experimental setup. This was the reason why I didn't put many fish.

That's about it on the tomatoes.

Same Batch But Different Size

Just to share, the Tomatoes that I transplanted few days back on 15th Dec : Here has grown fast. Below the single plant in the pot is from same batch but the different is like night and day.

The one in the pot do not grow as fast as the growbed transplanted.

Tomatoes Going Ornamental

Done the mint test for my Ornamental set that uses the 20 mm StrainerBell siphon, on this 15 mm siphon Ornamental set I am planting tomatoes to see how this siphon stand against those deep rooting plants.

This lone strawberry plants removed and pot it separately to make way for fresh tomatoes seedling.

Sown these few weeks back and they are ready to be transplanted to the ornamental set.

Planted it directly to hydroton and bury it as deep as I can.

I put two plants in one planting space, I guest that overdo it since I do four planting space on this small set.

Oh well.., just doing it to the extreme.

Bad photos since it already dusk, will need to snap fresh photo again tomorrow and replace.

Tomatoes

Draft Tomatoes - Article

Below 50 days old.

Cherry Tomato

Cherry Tomato is the smaller variety of tomatoes, it is determinate type of tomato where they grow, flower and fruiting at same time or within same period of time. This tomato pruning is not required and their average life span about 4 months.

Above cherry tomato planted traditional way, mature plant bearing fruit. 

Seeds collected from this plant are sun dried and use for planting.

Seeds sown directly onto growbed, if sowing tray available then its can be use. Germination occur after about 5 days.

Another 2 weeks they should be ready to be transplanted or rearrange within the growbed. On the average I waited for the seedling to be around six inches before transplant.

Too small, they are fragile and can be damaged easily, too big they may not survive the transplant or may require longer period to recover.

Cherry Tomato do well in Aquaponics, they are more resistance to white flies. Having said that, however they are not totally immune to it, just that white flies will takes a longer time to attack these cherry tomatoes.

They will start to flower after about 45 days from sowing, this depends on how fast they recover after the transplant. On average its 45 days.

Staking are required since they are soft stem, and 3 or 4 poles require for each plant. In the fields they use string as support, however in my growbed I use plastic pipe.

Flowers below.

After pollinated they form fruits and it will be another month to month and a half for it to ripen

Once they started to flower and producing fruits there will be plenty, and they all ripen within a month.

Plenty of Tomatoes for the family.