Thought I’d throw up a few pictures of the tomatoes. Sliced off some more branches to help keep the overlay down internally. Top dress each container with a handful of fish manure and gave them a good watering with tap water, no runoff as usual. Still not pH’ing anything, ever.
I’ll have to make a round cage to place on top. I may have a roll of green metal fence in the shed.
Couple more months left in the season and I’m roughly 30 days in with these. So far so good.
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I have a doubt and not sure where to ask. Thought it maybe unnecessary to create a thread just for that.
What if I collected sea shells and corals (not oyster particularly) and ground them to a fine powder, would that powder be readily available ca for plant uptake? Like top-dressing once in a while?
I’m unable to source oyster shell powder but there’s plenty of shells all over the beach close to where I live. 
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Your certainly more than welcome to post up in here!
That is definitely a suitable substitute for oyster flour. It would not however be readily available unless first broken down, either by soil microbes or an acid. But micronizing it by turning it to a powder would speed things up at the microbial level considerably.
From my understanding, all “shells” are mainly comprised of calcium carbonate, and that carbonate is what binds up the calcium content.
I have used plenty of green lipped mussels in my soil and even after several years, there’s still bits and pieces that are seen from time to time.
That’s really interesting tho about the coral! I’m not completely sure on that one, but I don’t see anything wrong with incorporating it. At best it would contain much more than just calcium as I do know that coral is or was at one point in its existence, a living organism. At worst it would help to add aeration if you were to use it in a crushed form aside from micronizing it. Lots of tiny holes and pockets for oxygen.
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Thanks for mentioning this. I’m aware it’s the microbes (geniuses really!) that break organic compounds as npk for the plant. 
The reason I asked you this was, a friend of mine had good success with incorporating broken floor tiles claiming it sorted out his ca issues (which he often used to complain about) and it got me all thinking about shells.
In hydro (dwc) and aquariums for that matter, bits of coral peices are used as housing for the microbes. I believe chuncks of charcoal helps with the same as in soil?
Probably not breaking down the coral completely should help in achieving this? It could even possibly break down overtime still providing housing for those little guys…
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Thanks Now I want to go get some coral. 
everything I do for my soil is always revolving around its health and fertility first and foremost.
Super interesting about the tile, I’m gonna look into that one too.
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Tomatoes are looking great!.
Do you know what varieties they are? And if they’re indeterminate?
I only have one going at the moment and its indeterminate, I’d been reading that it’s best to let them grow just one main stem (I did two stems because I always have to experiment 
).
I’ve also been nipping the ends of the flower trellises off after about 4-5 flowers, apparently that allows each Tomato to grow fully, and you don’t get little unfinished Tom’s on the ends.
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Thanks 
They’re all indeterminate, and off the top of my head the varieties are:
Roma, they’re in the black 20gal fabric.
Red Velvet (cherry), green plastic pot
Black cherry & Jilly Bean, far left SIP
Yellow & Red pear cherry, right SIP
Everything is from store bought tomatoes except for the red velvet and Jilly Bean.
The single main idea I think comes from gardeners who trellis them straight upward. Helps to help the plant from getting too heavy horizontally from all the suckers that grow from each internode. I grow mine vertically and then I’ll top them and grow the side shoots vertically. By the time the fruit from the vertical growth is formed and ripening, that’s when I top, stopping the vertical of the original mains, and focus on all the side shoots allowing them to become vertical mains and flower. I have doubled if not tripled my total yield this way. But with that being said, there’s alot of pruning required every few days.
That’s interesting to hear, I’ve always allowed them to heavily flower. I may try that technique on a few.
These pictures are from 3 days ago.
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ChocoLato F1 is coming along nicely. For 15 days of true flower I’m happy with her so far. It’s definitely too early to say yet, but she may be a pheno I keep around. Water only with 1 AACT and a few foliar sprays during veg and transition to flower.
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I did think when I’d seen people talking about one main stem, they were growing in a greenhouse with string supports.
On my next tomatoes, I’ll give your method a go and try bushing them out once they’re a decent height.
Thanks for all the info!!
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Man, these mater are getting big.
I’m having a hard time keeping up on the pruning they constantly need. Time to top them and thin em out of most branches. Next I’ll focus on the sucker shoots, grow them vertically. They’ll fit in nicely after a heavy defoliation. I always try to make the most out any given footprint. So far I’m pretty happy with my results. This year looks to be paying off, despite all the damn aphids I keep battling, the plants aren’t exhibiting any signs of viral infection. That’s the power of healthy soil and a high population/diversity of microbes.
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What’s good OG.
Day 18 of true flower. I can’t say I’m disappointed, she hasn’t started to get the big flower set like her chocolope momma did at this time. She looks more like the bacio gelato. Very sweet citrus/melon/berry smell with a pungent sour funk. Almost like a bowl of rotten fruit 
. I’m really excited to see what’s up after a 3 month cure. Hoping for some chocolate notes, but I’ll happily take her eitherway.
Turning out to be a damn crystal factory, and at 18 days in, yeah she’ll most likely become a keeper. So just to help up the anty on yield, I gave a little top dressing, I mean little… of some Phosphorus and langbenite. It’s early for pushing P/K but it won’t help yet for another week. That puts me the middle of week 4-5. Fingers crossed for some more bulking before the swell.
S1’s are definitely a likelihood now. I’ll make that call in a few weeks.
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Hey @McShnutz hope all is well brother! Please update us
@AzSeaindooin420 check out the message im replying to. It talks about citric acid and the root zone. Man i wish @McShnutz was still on here. He was taking me under his organic wing.
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Man I’m bummed you dissapeared bro. Loved this thread and the knowledge it provides .
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@TopShelfTrees1 any idea what happened? We spoke the night before he stopped logging on and he was supposed to get back to me in the morning.
@McShnutz was great, a very informative person who knew how to spread the knowledge. He was taking me under his wing and teaching me the ropes of organic growing and i got pretty invested and then radio silence. Sucks i hope he is okay
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Honestly no idea . Hope he is ok? Hate seeing people disappear like that
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Seriously. I search his name every couple weeks in hopes to see him on here
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The Coco I bought …says it was washed and buffered with ec of 1.0 -1.3 . It’s kaya coco coir lite 70 /30
@McShnutz damn brother. I hope youre still out there somewhere and everything is okay. Never had an internet pal disappear out of the blue like that. I hope you and the family are okay. Reach out if you ever see this again bro
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Sad, for real. You are missed bro @McShnutz
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