rossomendblot's 2025

[rossomendblot]

Hello and welcome to my 2025 growing season.

Two days ago I set up the QuadGrow wicking systems in the greenhouse. The past two years of growing tomatoes in the soil on this side of the greenhouse have been really bad, and last year only the grafted tomatoes performed well. This year I had the intention of planting only grafted tomatoes, but despite getting a 50% success rate compared to last year's 20%, I only had survivors for 5 out of the 8 varieties I want to grow this year, and the grafts just weren't strong enough for me to be confident that they'd do well.

I was planning on making my own wicking systems, but buying big enough and strong enough plastic boxes with the right dimensions would've brought me close to the price I paid for this system at 40% off. My grafted plants went to a local community garden.

Two pots sit above an 18 litre reservoir, and capillary matting goes from the top of the pot to the bottom of the reservoir. Two reservoirs are joined by a connecting pipe, so I only have to water into one of them. So far the plants seem very happy, and the wicking is working well.

The varieties are one each of:

Daniel Burson
Mat-Su Express
Red Lithium
Rose Crush F1
Shake The Disease
Strangelove
Suffer Well
True Colours

I will also be growing about 16 plants outdoors, but they are still at the seedling stage due to me sowing them late.

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[JayneR13]

This looks like a Kratky system! And I can see just buying it and saving the work when the price is similar anyway. Absolutely!

[rossomendblot]

This looks like a Kratky system! And I can see just buying it and saving the work when the price is similar anyway. Absolutely!

I will be trying to grow some chillies Kratky style this year for the first time. I drilled the holes in the lids for the net cups yesterday, now I just have to silicon the holes in the bottom of the buckets and wrap everything in foil (to stop the black plastic from getting too hot and heating the water, and to protect the white plastic which tends to go brittle in the sun).

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I actually did make some wicking containers similar to the QuadGrow when I managed to get some boxes on offer. The black trays are from an old wooden A-frame and I've been trying to grow things in them for a number of years, but they're so shallow they dry out incredibly quickly. For these I used wicking cord instead of capillary matting.

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[Tim DH]

Hi Rossomendblot,
Sorry to hear your grafting didn’t go well. I think its worth persevering with. My success rate is now regularly over 90%.

One game changer for me, was learning that you can ‘hold’ rootstock stumps for weeks. Just cut the rootstock at the stem diameter that you want and wait until your scions are ready. Treat the rootstock tops as cuttings and you get another rootstock!

This year I bought 20 rootstock seed only 16 germinated (Grrr) but so far I’ve produced 69 grafted plants!!

Tim DH

[rossomendblot]

Hi Rossomendblot,
Sorry to hear your grafting didn’t go well. I think its worth persevering with. My success rate is now regularly over 90%.

One game changer for me, was learning that you can ‘hold’ rootstock stumps for weeks. Just cut the rootstock at the stem diameter that you want and wait until your scions are ready. Treat the rootstock tops as cuttings and you get another rootstock!

This year I bought 20 rootstock seed only 16 germinated (Grrr) but so far I’ve produced 69 grafted plants!!

Tim DH

90% is very good! I am quite happy that my survival rate increased by 30% in a year, so maybe next time I try it will be 80%!

I noticed the rootstock stumps of some of the failed grafts just hung around, not growing but not dying either. I also 'held' some rootstock plants unintentionally: they were too small to graft with when I grafted the others so I sort of forgot about them and didn't water them much. A few weeks later and they were a nice size for cleft grafting. I did think about using the rootstock tops as cuttings, but I wouldn't have had enough scions to use.

What method of grafting do you use? Last year I tried top grafting, this year side grafting. However, both years I've had more success with cleft grafting after my initial grafts have failed, probably because I find matching the angles for top/side grafting quite hard and you don't have to be so precise with cleft grafting. Initially I thought most of my side grafts would survive, but the scions still being attached to their root systems gave me false hope.

[Tim DH]

For tomatoes I’ve only ever done top grafting using grafting clips. I’ve amassed quite a collection of clips. Here are six, left to right:

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1) Hard plastic, so two halves of graft have to be well matched. Jaws not circular, so danger of two halves not lining up. Nice length 15mm

2) A little softer. Jaws slightly more circular. Too short 11mm. My third choice clip, only for fatter graft pairs.

3) Hard plastic. Nearly circular jaws. Good length, but burrs of plastic at the cut ends can be a problem.

4) Silicon, nice and soft. Circular jaws. Short. Hole diameter too small for me (less than 1mm) Silicon is very forgiving of poorly matched graft halves!

5) Silicon, nice and soft. Circular jaws. Short. More useful hole diameter (2mm)

6) Silicon, nice and soft. Circular jaws. 13mm long 1.5mm hole. My favourite clip.

It was re-using a failed graft, where the stump still looked good, which put me onto 'holding' stumps. The second graft onto that stump did fine.

Incidentally, I potted up some peppers about three months ago and cut the tops off the surplus seedlings. Those stumps still look healthy! Perhaps there is just enough chlorophyll in the stems to keep the thing ticking over.

[JayneR13]

Interesting. The basic grafting technique I was taught was simply a small slit in the bark, slide the graft bud in, and wrap with damp moss. Cover with parafilm and let nature take its course. I see things can be much more complicated!

[rossomendblot]

For tomatoes I’ve only ever done top grafting using grafting clips. I’ve amassed quite a collection of clips. Here are six, left to right:

A very comprehensive review of grafting clips! Last year I used 2mm silicone clips, I found them a bit fiddly, and my stems were too big so they didn't fit properly and I ended up having to use sticky tape and clothes pegs. This year I used spring clips, like yours but in red, which I like much better since you don't have to be so bang on with the stem size. I think if I were to graft again I would go with cleft grafting and spring clips. Cleft grafting gives a much larger surface area for the cuts to meet, so that's probably why I had better success with it.

[rossomendblot]

Interesting. The basic grafting technique I was taught was simply a small slit in the bark, slide the graft bud in, and wrap with damp moss. Cover with parafilm and let nature take its course. I see things can be much more complicated!

There's a few more interesting grafting techniques, like using a pin to hold the scion and rootstock together instead of a clip. Hole insertion was a technique I came across when looking into grafting cucumbers.

https://cefs.ncsu.edu/wp-content/upload ... g-full.pdf

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[rossomendblot]

Yesterday I transplanted the chillies from soil into Kratky. That's 4 each of Jalapeno Orizaba and Reggae. The root systems were too big to fit into the net cups, so initially I jammed them in and covered with clay pebbles, but changed my mind and cut the bottoms out of the net pots and fed the roots through into the nutrient water. These are sitting outside temporarily so I have more space when planting the sweet peppers in the soil today. I didn't cover the pots with foil, I don't think it will get hot enough here to boil the roots, fingers crossed.

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[rossomendblot]

First calabrese of the season harvested yesterday. This is either Marathon or Aquiles, I can't remember which. The plants were sown in October and overwintered in 1L pots in the greenhouse, then planted out in February. Interestingly the side shoots have been developing at the same rate as the main head, which I've not seen before. It's amazing how sweet fresh broccoli is, I've never tasted the same sweetness in shop bought.

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[JayneR13]

Isn't it always like that? Garden grown is always better than store bought! Here, vegetables are harvested early for transport to the store. Sometimes they're sprayed to inhibit further development. So not only is the taste inferior, the nutritional value is also. Garden grown all the way, baby!

[Tim DH]

I'd not thought of growing calabrese that way. .... Maybe when I get the new greenhouse!

I'll be interested to hear how your kratky peppers get on.

Tim DH

[rossomendblot]

I'd not thought of growing calabrese that way. .... Maybe when I get the new greenhouse!

I'll be interested to hear how your kratky peppers get on.

Tim DH

I also do it with red cabbage and cauliflower. You generally get an earlier harvest, which reminds me, I need to check on the cauliflower to see what they're doing. A 1L pot is about right, since brassicas still grow quite well during winter, and in a 9cm pot they will get too stressed which could promote bolting/buttoning.

The Krakty peppers don't look too hot at the moment, but they're putting out new white roots and I can see some air roots forming, so fingers crossed they perk up again soon.

[rossomendblot]

I've been turning these big 50 Litre pots into wicking containers. I am a pretty lazy waterer, and these tubs always dry out on me since the black plastic heats up so much in the sun.

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This pot has quite big holes, so there's no chance of blocking them up with silicon caulk like I've done with other pots.

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The easiest thing to do is to create a reservoir by lining the bottom of the pot with plastic wide enough that it goes up the sides to your required reservoir height. With large pots like this you need to take into account the taper, so your plastic needs to be as wide as the container at the height you want your reservoir to end, plus the reservoir height. Here, the plastic goes up the sides about 6 inches.

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You need air in the reservoir, otherwise it will stink. Here I've used an upturned 10 Litre pot. If you're using a completely sealed container in the reservoir, you need to put holes in it's side: one at the bottom so the water can get in, and one at the top so there is always an air gap above the water. In this set up there's a small gap between the rim of the 10 Litre pot and the plastic liner which allows water to pass into it freely.

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The pipe which is used to fill the reservoir has a diagonal cut at the end, to stop it forming a vacuum with the base of the pot.

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The next step is to fill around the pot to the top of the reservoir with some material which holds water and wicks nicely. I've used coir here because it's all I have on hand, though I've also used perlite and molar clay cat litter before with good results. I think Leon just uses a peat-based growing media. The weed barrier is to stop any potting mix falling into the reservoir.

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Testing to see if the pot fills properly and has a nice air gap above the water. You can see the water level is at the top of the reservoir. This took about 10 Litres of water. Any excess flows down the gap between the plastic liner and the pot wall then out of the drainage holes, so there's no need to put a drainage hole in the side of the pot as you do with a sealed container. The weed barrier is temporarily off as I was checking the water level in the pot.

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The only thing to do now is fill the pot up. This is half old compost and half new (a mixture of coir, bagged compost and homemade compost).

The idea is from this video by Gardening with Leon, though I notice he puts the plastic liner above the top of the pipe, which means there's not going to be an air gap in there once the reservoir is full.

[rossomendblot]

I'd not thought of growing calabrese that way. .... Maybe when I get the new greenhouse!

I'll be interested to hear how your kratky peppers get on.

Tim DH

The Krakty peppers don't look too hot at the moment, but they're putting out new white roots and I can see some air roots forming, so fingers crossed they perk up again soon.

Kratky update - the plants were looking pale and dropping their lower leaves, so I took about 1 Litre of nutrient solution out of each pot, and within 2 days they're looking much better. I think because I pulled the roots through the net cup, most of the root system was submerged, meaning the plants couldn't put out enough air roots and were effectively drowning. I've not transplanted such large plants into hydroponics before, and I only decided to grow these plants Kratky style quite late, so it's a lesson learned. If trying this again I would grow them hydroponically from germination.

[Tim DH]

Hi Ross,
With reference to:

'The pipe which is used to fill the reservoir has a diagonal cut at the end, to stop it forming a vacuum with the base of the pot.'

I have a diagonal cut at the other end too. The low side gives me somewhere to rest the watering can spout when filling and the high side means more of the water actually goes down the pipe!

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Two water pipes visible in this view.

TimDH

[rossomendblot]

Hi Ross,
With reference to:

'The pipe which is used to fill the reservoir has a diagonal cut at the end, to stop it forming a vacuum with the base of the pot.'

I have a diagonal cut at the other end too. The low side gives me somewhere to rest the watering can spout when filling and the high side means more of the water actually goes down the pipe!

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Two water pipes visible in this view.

TimDH

That's a good idea. I mostly use a funnel, or if I'm feeling lucky I pretend like I'm pouring cider like an Asturian.

Are those peppers in 100% clay pebbles?

[rossomendblot]

First fruit set of the year award goes to...STRANGELOVE! Even earlier than Mat-Su Express.

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[JayneR13]

That setup reminds me of a self-watering container. Some people swear by those, I am not a fan. I found that mine didn't drain well even after I added holes, leaving my plants sitting in mud. That of course stunted the plants and they didn't produce well. I now use my Earth Boxes as simple containers, which for me works very well and much better than using it as an SWC.