Well the Jalapenos didn’t look to good in the last post, But I’ve managed to save some. Others simply died not sure why.

It’s possibly because the light I was using in the garage was fading as I’ve had the light tube for over a year and it’s supposed to be replaced at least once a year.

Anyway I’ve decided to move all my propagating into the greenhouse now as it’s getting a lot brighter during the day and the plants definately seem to prefer real sunlight.I’ve been starting the seeds in cubes in a small heated propagator as you can see in the photos,I’ve given up on any automatic watering of the cubes during this initial stage as they can all too easily get soaked too much. Every day I manually go and check the moisture in the cubes.

I’ve found that an easy way of doing this is simply to weigh each cube on a small digital set of scales. This gives a very accurate reading of how much water is inside each cube.

As you can see in the photo I’ve got little sticks inside each cubes, These are large plant labels but cut into a smaller arrow shape so I can write what each seed is and the stick the label into the cube.I’m trying to be a little more organised this year as I usually forget what I’ve planted into each cube.

When the seedlings have any roots coming out of the bottom of the cubes, I then transfer the seedling into the small aeroponic propagator I’ve got. I’ve got a much larger aeroponic propagator which can handle 105 seedlings at a time but I’ve not got that many seedlings at the moment.

The aeroponic propagator waters the cubes from underneath by spraying them with a very fine mist of nutrient solution, This is created by a spinning spray head attached to the pump via a tube.

Originally the propagator had a one piece lid, For some reason though this has become stained with sunlight so the lid is not ideal for letting sunlight through.Due to this I’ve replaced the lid with two small propagator lids.

This actually works out quite well as I can adjust the vents individually on each of the lids so I can keep the humidity slightly different in each half of the propagator itself.Once the cubes and seedlings are inside the propagator they can be left alone until ready move on.There is also a small heater element inside the propagator to keep the cubes and nutrient nice and warm.This also makes leaves at the top of the cubes stay nice and warm and this tender stage.

After the seedlings have been growing in the propagator for a week or two, Looking underneath the cubes reveals an amazing amount of root growth.

After a while the roots are a foot or so long and are ready to transplant into their final cube size of 3 inch.After placing the 3 inch cubes in some week nutrient solution overnight I then leave them to drain for a few hours before placing the heavily rooted seedlings into the cube.

I’ve then been placing these cubes into another heating propagator to allow the roots to grow into the larger cube.This is the stage several of my chilli plants are at now.When they have quite a few roots coming out of the bottom of these large cubes I’ll transplant them into the final NFT channel where they will grow on.

I’ve also just started some tomato and cucumber seeds as it’s now time to start some of them going.

Just on a side note, If any one reading this has a Palm organiser or Pocket PC you might want to check out my other web site at www.ellams.com where you can find lot’s of Applications and Games which I’ve written for these devices. All now free.

Well my jalapenos were had popped up and I thought they were growing well,Unfortunately as you can see in the photo’s they were not actually very happy and the tips of the leaves started curling upwards and then suddenly fell off.Not very good at all.

I think the problem was either the fact that the seedling got no nutrients as they were not grown in soil and I hadn’t used any nutrients on them or it could be that the seedling simply got too moist within the cubes and drowned.

I’ve started a new set of seeds off now and I’m going to check them daily myself now without any automated watering so I can see what exactly is going on and hopefully know how to grow them repeatedly from then on.

I started off by soaking some rockwool cubes in very weak nutrient solution at a ph of 5.0, One seed is placed inside each cube and then placed inside the heated propagator.

We’ll see how things go this time.

Well it’s new year now, And the weather appears to be brightening up slightly and warming up. At least it’s now usually 10 degrees in the mornings.

As I’m in the UK I have to start Jalapenos very early in the year so I’ve just started propagating some in the garage under some artificial lighting. The lighting tube I’m actually using is a 125 Watt Blue Envirolite which seems to work fine and doesn’t use much electricity. I’ve had it for over a year now so I probably should replace it.

I’m propagating the Jalapenos in some small rockwool cubes in a low power heated propagator which you can see in the picture.The cubes themselves are being kept watered by my spinning solar powered water sprayer. Underneath the cubes is some capillary matting just in case the sprayer doesn’t hit all the cubes, so that the matting will allow any excess water to be used by the cubes in need of water.

I’ve only had the cubes in for about 5 days and already two seedlings have popped up, You might just be able to see them in the photo.

I’m a little worried that my water sprayer might over water the cubes so I’ve been looking at a way to measure the moisture inside the cubes at the moment so that I don’t over water or under water the cubes.More on this soon.

Incidentally the lettuces I’ve been growing in the greenhouse are now doing very well indeed.
I’ve figured out how to handle the greenfly on them now now, I just need to make sure I give the lettuces a good shake outside before I bring the lettuce inside the house to wash.
The greenfly don’t actually seem to do any real damage to the lettuces even though there are a lot of them hanging around the lettuces.