by samenrahmen
Miniature ?
9:06 am in Completed Window Farms, Plants, posts with pitcures! by samenrahmen
This supposedly is a Miniature Yellow Bell pepper.
Photos show it to be a compact plant with short internodes and a lot of small, dark green leaves.
What a nice addition, and it probably won’t get too large in a WF anyway …
This plant is now 7,5 weeks old, and it’s a whopping 75cm high.
It has few leaves, but they really are huge (ramifications have begun to appear, too).
And it’s flowering.
Maybe it’ll grow as high as the bolting lettuce next to it: 100cm.
Nice.
Edit 2010-08-14:
The first two flowers have opened; currently standing at 87cm …
I ran into the same thing. For some reason, plants in a window farm grow really high.
I figure the reason is either 1) that the nutrients and water are giving the plants a super boost, or 2) there is not enough light and they are stretching for more sunlight. I figure for the second to be true, you’d notice your plants having very few leaves and long long stems.
which direction does your window face?
It’s facing east, but the pepper grew most of its length during the sunniest weeks of the year.
Right now it may have reached its maximum height; the internodes are getting shorter, and there are both more and shorter leaves (same with the ramifications).
Light definitely is a factor, but I have a suspicion that this “lazy” style of growing is probably due to a total absence of water stress, little wind and an abundance of nutrients as well.
yea that would make sense, the lack of direct sun is probably the primary cause. The plant likely could build up sufficient stores of energy in the time it spent in direct light to be able to grow. Then the ( I’m guessing, following?) shadier light caused more stem growth. Similar situation happened with one of my tomatoes, try to add supplemental light so you have 12 hours direct light on the plants and I would think it should prevent stretch armstrong there.
I don’t think more light would be of much significance with this specific plant.
The largest leaf measures 18cm (!), and they’re all very healthy and strong – I don’t think it gets much better than that.
That said, I will add lights, and if my little Raijin plan works out, I’ll post about it
I had my tomato plants up to 4 feet before I had to move apartments and kill them off. But they were beating my mom’s potted variety outside by leaps and bounds. We had planted them the exact same time.
Oh yea definitely, your plants look great. I meant more for your limited room issue, more consistent direct light will prevent stretching and make it bushier and sturdier. Overall you certainly have enough light to sustain the plants, but adding supplemental direct light will help with fruit growth and limit the stem growth.
On a side note, if there is NO wind or air flow at all, add a fan. It will help with the plants building up additional fiber in the stalks to withstand a breeze, making them sturdier for when your peppers come in. it also helps increase transpiration (plant breathing) which will allow for better nutrient and water uptake.
The plants get rattled 48 times a day, so they are pretty sturdy
The 100cm-lettuce would certainly not have reached this height without the fans (I put in the cords after it had already shot up).
Check out: http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/08/12/aquaponic-window-farm/
one reason to how tall my tomatoes are is that I have a T5 florescent light on my seedlings which are sitting to the left of my farm. I also have a turtle tank with a turtle heat lamp on it sitting to the right of my farm. Due to the 18/6 cycle of these lights, and now with my tomatoes flowering, all light in room should be on a 12/12 light cycle! I had to adjust timers so that it would not through my tomatoes BACK in to the VEGETATIVE state.
Hi there,
I don’t think you can push them back into a vegetative state or influence them by shortening the light cycle.
Tomatoes are day neutral, but they react very strongly to the combination of ‘amount of light – temperature – amount of nutrients’.
F.e., it seems to be quite easy to sow them in winter and then keep them at cooler temperatures until the amount of light is enough for them to grow sturdily; otherwise they’d simply shoot up, because of all the nutrients readily available in the soil.
Yea, most if not all, tomatoes auto-flower. No bearing on light cycles. Plants from the tropics are more effected by light I think. Up here (North America {specifically MA}), if plants waited until the fall equinox to flower they would be frost bitten before they even produced flowers.
It’s probably the other way round:
As a sub/tropical plants with pretty stable conditions all year round tomatos and beans f.e. can all but “ignore” the seasons, whereas in Europe and North America plants had to adapt as annuals or hibernating species.
That’s what makes the temperature so crucial:
They’ll happily grow all year; it’s the gardener that has to “tell” them how to behave.