Ben-Jay Water Culture System

The growth of our plants since switching to the bloom solution has increased greatly. The plants were growing steady the whole time, but when we raised the concentration the plants took off. All the jalapeno plants have buds on. Its just the begining of what looks to be a healthy harvest about a month from now. The basil growth has increased greatly. they are small, but still harvestable. 

We thought we had problem with algae growth around the raft and in our cups in our system. When we asked the professional we were told that algae growth isn’t a problem, it is expected. It is good to clean the agae out once in awhile but it is not urgent.

The jalapeneo plants have really taken off. every time we check on them they are larger. The basil is only just begining to come up.

Four of the jalapeno plants are growing very well.  One in particular has grown tremendously and has surpassed all of the other plants.  The other four jalapeno plants would not grow.  We replaced these seeds with basil seeds.  Some of the basil plants are just starting to pop up.  We have also had trouble with algae growing in our system so we have been continuously cleaning the system out.

The ph has been surprising easy to check and maintain. We added about a cup of water after spring break and since then it has stayed pretty much the same. We do feel like the solution consentration change will affect the ph but we have yet to see that.

Half of our cups have produced jalapeno plants. The other four cups we put the rest of our jalepeno seeds in to see how they do.

These photos were taken two weeks after planting the germinated seeds. Two of the eight cups had plants. One had algae, we did nothing to prevent algae. At this point we decided to give more time for the other seeds and to see how the algae problem would progress.

Construction went as planned. Using a plastic storage container and one inch thick utilty foam we created a water culture system. We cut eight holes for the yogurt cups to be placed in. One hole was drilled in the storage container to allow acces for the air line from the air pump to the air stones.

On friday February 28th we started out jalepeno seed germination with a packet of seeds from last year. With what seemed to be very little change in the seeds after almost a week, we started a separate set of new seeds. To our surprise 6 of the 15 old seeds had germinated exactly one week after we got them. We only need 2 more to germinate to fill every planter in out water culture system!

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