Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 8 Growth
When I first planted the Jalapeños they were probably the least exciting plant for me; they were my husband’s request. I’m not a huge fan of spicy-hot, and for me Jalapeños can fall into that category depending upon ripeness.
Having watched the plants grow the last two months has been really rewarding, and to see the fruits getting so large… I am now quite excited to harvest. Jalapeño poppers, anyone?
Jalapeño Pepper Fruit, Week 8 Growth in Kratky Hydroponics
The peppers are still a little bit small to be picked. But its amazing to see how much they have grown in one week! Imagine if humans grew this fast; have a baby and nearly two months later they are nearly adults…
Have you tried growing Jalapeño peppers hydroponically? I’d love to know how your peppers tasted. Let me know in the comments below.
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week4
This week saw an exciting change in our Strawberry Spinach plants. Firstly, the leaves have gotten quite a lot larger throughout the week. I could probably start harvesting the leaves around this point, but my main focus is on whether this plant will produce berries – harvesting leaves would encourage the plant to focus on vegetative growth rather than fruit growth. Which brings me to the exciting part… I can see berries developing!
Berries on the Strawberry Spinach Grown in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week4
Berries on the Strawberry Spinach Grown in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week4
The berries are minuscule; about the size of a pin head. But they are there! Along most of the stalks, usually in the crooks between main branch and the off shots, are little tiny berries. They look somewhat like miniature green raspberries.
Since my grow room lacks fresh grown fruit, I am very excited to see that the plants are beginning to produce. We are still in the process of finding that nice equilibrium of vegetables to leafy greens to fruit ratio; currently we have too many leafy greens, whilst our vegetables are very slowly producing and our fruit is rather lacking.
Have you grown a Strawberry Spinach plant before? I’d love to know if you liked how it tastes, and if you got many berries from it? Let me know in the comments below.
I’ve been really excited to see my Strawberry Spinach plant grow to maturity since I first discovered it. I love both strawberry and spinach, and apparently this plant is a perfect blend of both those passions: the leaves taste like spinach whilst the fruit taste like strawberries. Intriguing, right?
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week 2
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week 3
If we compare growth between week two and three, its clear that they have grown significantly… Much more than I had expected to be honest. That’s one thing I love about blogging; I get to look back at the growth progress of my plants and just be constantly astounded.
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week 3
There isn’t any sign of the fruit yet, but the plant is really quite young. It can take anywhere from 45 to 60 days to mature, and its currently only 21 days. I suspect that if we are lucky in about two weeks we may see some fruit development.
Until then, I might try some of the leaves in salads. I want to keep as many leaves as possible on the plant as I suspect the fruit grows directly on the stems rather than creating their own stems.
Do you know if Strawberry Spinach creates stems for the fruit, or if they grow directly on the leaf branches? Let me, and others, know in the comments below.
So far in my experience plants will germinate in a flourish – a little rush to get one or two leaves out – and then they will stagnate for a week or so. Its during this time of stagnation that they usually focus on root growth. Last week our strawberries had barely broken the rock wool surface, featuring only their dicot leaves.
Growing Strawberry Temptation in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 2 Growth
This week is different, in the sense that something only 1.5cm (just over 0.5″) could be different:
Growing Strawberry Temptation in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 3 Growth
Growing Strawberry Temptation in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 3 Growth
It was quite hard to get my camera to focus clearly on such small details, but you can still see that the Tempation Strawberries are now going through a growth spurt. On all of the seedlings they are beginning to grow their second set of leaves.
It’s going to be quite a while before my plants will bare fruit, but I am still very happy with their progress; previously I had several months of attempts to germinating the plant with little success. The only method that worked in the end was stratify the seeds in the fridge for over a month. To get this far is quite an achievement!
It’s an exciting time in our household! We have babies! Jalapeño babies, that is.
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 7 Growth
Here is our primary Jalapeño plant; we have two plants but this guy here is definitely the largest. He is 15″ (40cm) tall from base to highest leaf. Typically Jalapeño plants will grow to be about twice that height, so my little guy is only a teenager. The plant is often called an annual, however if kept in ideal temperatures (not exposed to frost) they will keep growing and producing.
Jalapeño Pepper Flower, Grown in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 7 Growht
Over the last couple weeks our Jalapeño plants have been flowering. Since we are growing indoors with no bees or insects to pollinate, I have to do it myself. An old toothbrush head on the electric toothbrush really helps save the day; the vibration is just enough to get the pollen shaking loose.
Jalapeño Pepper Flower, Grown in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 7 Growht
As the flower gets older, it starts to wilt. But its what emerges from beneath the aged flower petals that’s the most exciting part:
Baby Jalapeño Pepper Fruit, Week 7 Growth in Kratky Hydroponics
I aided this guy by very gently removing the old petals; only a couple petals were left attached, and the fruit was mostly visible. You can see some of the left over pollen on the fruit. Each fruit appears to be about 1.5-2cm in size (0.5″ give or take).
Baby Jalapeño Pepper Fruit, Week 7 Growth in Kratky Hydroponics
We have multiple fruit starting to appear. I count four peppers so far, with several older flowers that are beginning to bulge. I don’t want to go disturbing the flowers yet in case I break them off, or ruin the chance for them to bear fruit.
I think my San Marzano tomatoes are one of our most highly anticipated crops, and also probably the most difficult to grow so far. Last time I posted I mentioned how they had just started flowering, and fruit was beginning to develop, as well as how we were fighting an edema issue.
The tomato bushes are now massive – actual bushes. I cant even get a proper photo of the entire plant in my grow room; the camera doesn’t have a wide enough lens.
San Marzano Tomato 9 Weeks Old, Grown In Kratky Hydroponics
San Marzano Tomato 9 Weeks Old, Grown In Kratky Hydroponics
Can you believe that I cut off a whole armload of branches off this plant every couple days?! Its insane just how fast they grow new leaves.
Fighting Blossom Drop
San Marzano Tomato 9 Weeks Old, Grown In Kratky Hydroponics
The tomato is still flowering, a lot. The biggest issue is I have blossom drop. There are a couple reasons for blossom drop such as incorrect temperature and humidity, or that they are not pollinating correctly.
I have checked my temperature, and the grow room is sitting in the ideal range. So I suspect that perhaps the flowers aren’t pollinating as well. I did get sick and stop using the electric toothbrush method as often, so in the future I am going to be a bit more precise in application – vibrate those leaves until you can see the pollen dust emerging from the flower heads.
Fruiting
San Marzano Tomato 9 Weeks Old, Grown In Kratky Hydroponics
In the last post we had the subtle-hints of fruit emerging. Well it’s safe to say that they have emerged!
We have about 14 tomatoes growing so far. Not as many as I had hoped for, but as mentioned above we had an issue with blossom drop. There are plenty of flowers on the plant with many more emerging regularly, so hopefully we will be getting more fruit over the coming weeks.
I have a lot of greenery growing, but not enough fruit… yet. Two weeks ago I planted some Strawberry seeds; the Temptation variety. I mean… I’m very tempted to eat strawberries… (bad joke, I know).
Growing Strawberry Temptation in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 2 Growth
Growing Strawberry Temptation in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 2 Growth
They don’t look like much, but these seeds are currently a 7 week effort to get growing!
A while back I learnt that some seeds won’t germinate at warmer temperatures, and in fact need to experience freezing temperatures in order to leave dormancy. You can mimic these temperatures by storing your seeds in the fridge. This process is called stratifying. So for the last month I have had a variety of strawberry seeds just chilling away in the fridge, literally.
To see the seeds actually germinating is really quite rewarding. I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t be able to grow any. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how these grow over the coming weeks.
Opps. The last time I shared an update on the Jalapeños was when they were four weeks old. I didn’t realise time was going by so fast and somehow I didn’t remember to write an update.
Well guess what: it flowered!
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 6 Growth
The very first flower opened today in fact. It’s so dainty looking; a stark contrast to the hot and spicy fruit that it’s going to produce.
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 6 Growth
There are plenty of other flowers growing on each of the branches, most at that point of about-to-open. Give them a day or two and the whole plant will be flowering, and in need of pollination. Domestic varieties of Jalapeños are self-pollinating, but they benefit from the electric toothbrush method.
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 6 Growth
I’m surprised at how small the plants are to be honest. They can grow to be 30in (or 76cm) tall, yet my plants are both around only half that.
My husband is very excited about the jalapeños growing, and his excitement is catching; I am looking forward to making some yummy meals like Jalapeño poppers!
Two weeks ago I planted some Strawberry Spinach in my Kratky hydroponic buckets. I didn’t do a week 1 update as I had guests at the time and was too busy, and they didn’t look like much (most germinated seeds look the same at one week old). Well now its been two weeks, so I thought I should show an update.
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week 2
Unlike many of my other plants, I have noticed that the leaves appear much more yellow. I don’t know if this is a growth issue or that this species just has yellow leaves.
I am rather excited about this plant. I seem to be generating quite a lot of edible greenery, but I still lack fruit. Strawberry Spinach is meant to be that perfect compromise; the leaves taste like spinach whilst the berries they produce are reminiscent of strawberries. Sounds perfect, right?
Growing Strawberry Spinach in Kratky Hydroponics – Update: Week 2
According to my notes the strawberry spinach will take 6-9 weeks before they are ready to harvest (hopefully with berries). Fingers crossed! If they work out well, they may become a regular plant in our grow room.
It’s hard to believe that its been a whole month since I first planted the Jalapeño seeds into the rockwool.
Last week (photo below) we saw the Jalapeño forming much larger leaves and thickened stems:
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 3 Growth
So how have the jalapeñoes grown over rthe last week?
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 4 Growth
They have gone through that initial growth spurt that I have come to expect from most plants once their first leaves start growing. The plants have grown larger leaves, and what were once small leaves are now quite a decent size. They have also started growing new small leaves – will these be big next week?
One big change is that we have gone from 5 pepper plants to one! No they didn’t die. Jalapeño plants are quite a lot bigger than lettuces, and I want to make sure that they have enough space to grow. So I have removed all but one pepper plant from the bucket.
Growing Jalapeño Peppers in Kratky Hydroponics, Week 4 Growth
I did wait a tad bit too long to transplant them, but here they are getting ready to be moved outdoors. We have a family friend with a garden that’s ready for “winter” crops – most of the year in Kuwait is too hot to really grown plants, we tend to grow during “winter”.
Did you see that little sad looking Jalapeño at the front right in the photo? That’s what happens when a couple of the plants grow faster than others in Kratky; some plant roots start sucking up water before all plants have necessarily put out their roots, dropping the water level in the bucket. I should have maintained the water level with slight top-ups. Whilst the plant does have some green leaves on it, most fell off with the slightest of touches. I have given it plenty of water, but chances are that one seedling will die.
We still have 3 other plants, plus one growing in my Aerogarden Bounty. I hope we get a good harvest of peppers out of all these plants.
