Bye Beans! Pruning Tomato Clusters and Cleaning NFT Channels 

Thank you very much!

I agree!!

@Frederick Welsh quit with the weird pronouns. Can tell her parents are God fearing so safe to say SHE.

@Frederick Welsh I know what you were saying Frederick. Sometimes Reading is fundamental lol. Not everyone had the good reading comprehensive teaching in school.

Thank you so much. That variety of cukes gets wilty leaves when it's really sunny and hot, but they always go back to normal when it cools back down. I think the stems on the tomatoes bend because of the variety. We grow other kinds and put the hangers on them too, but they don't seem to need them like the Rebelskis do. That's awesome and sounds like you have a big set up. I've been over that way through Indiana a few times. I lived by Dayton for a couple years during college. I like your idea about night time working. We've had to do that a few times, but never thought to wear a head light. Hope your spring season is off to a good start! -Devon

Yes!!! Getting close and that is good to hear. We've always had good experiences working with them.

Thank you and you make an excellent point!

We were just talking about this, and Katy looked at the label on the Hypogrow we use to keep our system clean. There are directions for mixing it with used growing medium to get it ready for the next crop. I'll have to mention enzymes to her, but we try to reuse as much as we can. Thank you!

We had a beautiful and sunny March, but it snowed yesterday. Hope warm weather comes your way soon.

It’s raining 🌧 here Thursday island had 300mm in the last two hours cyclone 🌬 season it time to go the boat 🚣‍♀️

That's a good idea! I also like fried green tomatoes, but these are too small and dense. Need ones closer to turning red.

Yes we definitely do that. We get a kick out of watching the pigs eat the leftover tomatoes. And you are right that the chickens like the greens too, but there aren't any on the farm right now. I don't think we are going to raise pigs this year, and my oldest son took over the laying hen "business" so I have chickens at my place. Katy will probably get some meat chickens this summer and I'll have to show them eating trimmings.

Yes!!! Thank you very much!

Hi sorry for getting back to you so late. I asked Doug and it's all from Uline. Here's the link. Have a great weekend! www.uline.com/Grp_50/Shrink-Tools-and-Equipment

@@HomegrownPassion that's OK I understand your very busy. Going to look into it for our market here. Thanks!

Hi thank you so much! We tried some determinate cherry tomatoes that did well in the greenhouse a few years ago. We'll have to look at some dwarf tomatoes. That would be something good for us to grow outside.

@@HomegrownPassion Thanks for your reply, your family must be quite busy right now. I am just a home gardener in zone 4.5, growing in a sunny backyard, but i really got impressed by how productive those plants are. I averaged 60 golf sized tomatoes per plant after 60 days outside, for a 5 or 6 weeks cropping season after that. They dont need tutoring or maintenance or pollination ouside. Most urban markets retail a 8 or 10 inches hanging basket with 3, 60 days old plants in it for 25 $ CAD. My best production last year ouside was with a "vertical garden" made with 4 plastic milk crates staked on a 2 cinder blocks base. You plant them, water them and pick them. That's all. I like Maskotka variety for my northern climate, but may be if you test a few varieties outside this year you can find better ones for your climate. Just a link to Maskotka tomato pictures on Google. tinyurl.com/n8zwtfk5 It's an explosive production

Thanks Bob! We had a great Easter. Good weather and a nice day to relax with family. We have large mouth bass, bluegill, perch and crappie. I saw some pretty decent bass swimming around the other day. Hope you had a nice Easter and a great week! - Devon

You are very welcome

Thanks they are from CropKing. Here's the link www.cropking.com/catalog/bato-growing-accessories/small-35-bato-truss-hook

I’d love to try that. We will probably have a bunch extra so thanks for the idea.

@@HomegrownPassion My brother does that here. I can send you his short video link if you like

One little question. I must be a horribly clumsy cleaner but how do you keep from bleaching spots into all clothing? I have a special set of "bleach/paint/oil" clothing in cold weather and hot lol.

Yes they are pretty much a plastic spindle with a hook. After we use up the string, we sanitize them and wrap more string around them. They do keep things nice and neat. I know what you mean, I’ve used twist ties and old stakes in my garden. We can usually get a couple seasons out of the vine clips too. About the bleach - I ruined one of my Bradwood Farm shirts. Katy has special cleaning clothes too.

Sure! The wind can definitely pollinate tomatoes. We just hand pollinate because of no bees, but also because the fans don't move the plants much.

Yes we can turn off sections to clean and we turn off the whole system to clean the reservoir tank. We do this in the morning or evening when it’s not hot.

@@HomegrownPassion Glad to know this as I will be getting only one NFT unit. I was concerned I have to remove all plants for the cleaning. Thanks a lot.

Constant level of water. They get 4 emitters fed into them with the nutrient solution.

@@HomegrownPassion thanks

never thought about that but it would be nice to make some money off the pond if we could. Will look into it. Thank you!

Thank you very much and we all appreciate that. I have a video on our tomato nutrients that shows the measurements. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wqb2eYQ3qbU.html I have a video on the lettuce nutrients too, but it just shows the types of nutrients because we had a water test done to help figure out how much we should use.

@@HomegrownPassion Thank you for responding gals. Yeah it's good to know too what your mix for tomatoes is. Stay safe.

We sure do and that's awesome. I need to use those in my garden instead of twist ties. I'll post of link of the hangers we use. www.cropking.com/catalog/bato-growing-accessories/small-35-bato-truss-hook

@@HomegrownPassion thank you!!

We are in Ohio between Cleveland and Columbus. We don't do walk throughs at this time.

Thank you!

Super excited to learn about this have you guys thought or would you guys ever add cannibis to your list of plants for production? Im a cannibis grower that is trying to learn traditional agricultural practices thanks for the response 😁

40 seconds on, 40 minutes off to start and adjust as they grow. We keep an eye on the tomatoes and if the tips start looking droopy, we set them to come on more often.

@@HomegrownPassion is that per day ? only 40 seconds of watering that doesn't seem very long ?

@@HomegrownPassion 40. Seconds is that a day that doesn’t seem much water

Hi we are in Ohio. We've had a warm and sunny spring. I'm not complaining 😃

Howard, what do you mean PC trays? Sorry

In the middle of a sunny day it gets up to 80-85°F. We are getting ready to get the cooling system going soon.

We follow the label but i think its around 2 oz to gal of water

We get most of our stuff from CropKing. They have almost all of the supplies we need, and they are also close enough that we can pick up our orders rather than pay for shipping.

@@HomegrownPassion awesome. Thank you!

We're in Ohio about half way between Cleveland and Columbus.

Yes we use that to pollinate the tomatoes. We don’t have much wind or bees in the greenhouse so the vibration from the toothbrush does the job.

@@HomegrownPassion Thanks!

If plants are grown in the rihgt conditions with the correct nutrients, they will have a good taste. Hydroponic plants will not harm people as long as they aren't sprayed with chemicals. A negative to growing hydroponically is more effort needs to be made to keep the greenhouse and growing channels clean, but it is worth it to us because then we have a really clean product.

Thank you and yes he is really good at caring for the tomatoes. I will have to show how he uses his stilts to lean and lower the tomatoes soon. The cows are on grass pastures, so any manure just gets washed back into the soil when it rains and gives the grass nutrition.

@@HomegrownPassion Ok thnx, will keep watching for more tips.

what do you mean.... we are here

They did a lot of research on the types of systems. Vertical steps can produce more, but Katy wanted something that she could use for a long time that didn't require a lot of bending and lifting. The Dutch buckets require moving around, but the NFT system can be done at counter height for every stage.

@@HomegrownPassion Thanks so much for the reply. I can really see where you are coming from, It seems you made a good choice.