Cucumber vine

The cucumber vine had a problem in that it ended up inside the tyre wall - the leaves are stunted as a result. I retrained it out and down the hill so hopefully it will make a full recovery.

Bed growth

The tomatoes are doing very well - the peppers less so. Will tie the tomatoes to the stakes soon, also do some weeding.

Good tyre growth

The plants in the tyres are doing well. The cantaloupe is the largest and has several flowers. The vines of the cantaloupe and pumpkin were essentially going horizontally along the hill so I retrained them down the hill.

Autopot issues

The plants in the Autopot continue to do less well than those in the bed. We have had a lot of rain recently so that will be leaching nutrients from the pots. The cover of the reservoir also blew off so the solution got diluted. I topped the solution off with 5L at 3g/L of the 10-40-10 and added about 5g of a complete soluble fertiliser we have had for a long time - probably nutrex but don't know the formulation. Also added some of the solution directly to the pots.

Plant damage

We had some torrential rain yesterday - the plants survived the rain OK but when I went to check on them i found that something had attacked the peppers and to a lesser extent the tomatoes. One pepper plant had lost nearly 50% of its foliage. Saw a solitary largeish black ant and a few of the really tiny ones on the bed. Gave all the plants a spray with the BioNeem - hope it helps.

Leafminer

I've noticed some leafminer damage on a couple of the tomato plants in the bed - mainly on older leaves so hopefully the bioneem will protect the new growth - will need to be monitored

Hill cleanup

I've started to clean up the hill below the tires to give my vines room to run. Should finish in another couple days.

Plant growth

I was slightly surprised to note that the tomato plants in the bed are doing better - ie are larger - than the plants in the autopot system, but I have no real basis to put that into proper context.

The autopot plans are being fed 10-40-10 so should be developing good roots. Could it be that in the beds I am seeing good vegetative growth because of high N availability? Without instrumentation I'm basically flying blind.

First flower

I was surprised yesterday to see that the Mickylee watermelon has started to flower already! - it isn't even out of the tire yet.

Chemical burn?

I think I burnt a couple of the peppers and tomatoes. I used BioNeem at the correct concentration prior to transplanting, but I used a lot. Will continue to monitor.

Autopot

I've also set up the AutoPot system - with 2 tomato a Jalapeno and a Scorpion. I had to make a guesstimate for the solution - I used a 10-40-10 at 1g/L. I need to go online to see if I can find anything I can use going forward.

In the ground

I've finished the bed and put down 4 old tyres. Right now the bed has 5 tomato and 2 pepper (caribbean red) plants. In the tyres I've got pumpkin, cantaloupe, cucumber and watermelon (mickylee)

The cantaloupe is doing best, followed by the watermelon - both are already sending out tendrils.