Hello everyone and all members of HiveGarden Community, how are you today? when I write this, March has entered the middle of the month. I live in Medan City which is administratively located in the province of North Sumatra – Indonesia. My country is on the equator and has a tropical climate. We only know two seasons, namely the rainy season and the dry season. However, due to climate change and global warming, Indonesia is experiencing transitions more often. Living in a country with a tropical climate, many plants, flowers or vegetables can easily live and thrive.
This time, as usual every Monday I always share my Garden Journal. Since a few years ago, I have been growing various types of vegetables hydroponically for my own consumption or for selling. In addition, for the past two years I have worked as a hydroponic consultant and have helped many people who want to learn about hydroponics or make hydroponic installations.
My Hydroponic Garden Condition
This week, almost all the vegetables that I planted have shown optimal growth. Since the beginning of last year, I have consistently planted kangkong, pakchoy (bokchoi), lettuce and mint leaves. The weather during this kick was very hot during the day, but occasionally it rained so hard that all these vegetables didn't run out of water. I also repair a lot of hydroponic installations that leak and seep, some of the styrofoam media that I use are about 4 years old and maybe many are damaged.
Pakchoy / Bokchoy Development
If I pay attention, these vegetables make up about 60% of the hydroponic installations I have. Pakhcoy is the prima donna of hydroponic vegetables. Vegetables that are similar to this bottle, look very beautiful and beautiful when grown in a hydroponic system. In addition, pakchoy also provides a very good advantage when planted, compared to this vegetable pakchoy is easier to grow, uniform growth and most importantly the use of fertilizer is efficient and not wasteful.
In this planting period, the pakchoy that I planted grew uniformly and the green color was perfect. The age of this plant is about 19 days after sowing, and I still use a concentration of 1000 ppm. In this planting period, I plan to harvest pakchoy faster than usual.
I took this photo of vegetables in the afternoon on last Sunday, the weather was very hot but at 2 pm it changed and it was raining very hard. I installed transparent roofs with plastic uv in some of my hydroponic installations, the goal is to reduce rainwater entering the hydroponic installation and make the concentration of fertilizers fall.
Kangkong Development
Kangkong is a very popular vegetable in Southeast Asia and some countries in East Asia. Kangkong is best when sautéed in oyster sauce. This vegetable has different characteristics from some other vegetables. Kangkong needs a lot of water to live and thrive. We can find this vegetable growing wild in ponds or swamps.
Due to the nature of this life, kangkong is very easy to grow in hydroponic installations. The kankong I planted was about 12 days old after sowing. Believe me, next week this vegetable will grow three times its current size. For kangkung, I don't use a roof because based on my experience, kangkong grows better if it is exposed to rain.
Sweet Mustard
For this planting period, I planted about 100 pots of mustard greens or caisim. I plan to eat these vegetables myself, because these days I really like to eat processed noodles or ramen. Caisim is often used as an additional vegetable for various types of noodle dishes, it is because this vegetable is very crunchy, has a very delicious taste and most importantly does not have a bitter taste like other vegetables.
Seedage of Various Kinds of Vegetables
Last week, I started sowing lettuce and spinach seeds. The growth of the seeds that I have planted is about 85% and it looks like I can plant next week. Lettuce is a vegetable that I always grow, because I already have loyal customers and my wife likes to make salad preparations.
In the last planting period, I failed to plant spinach due to various problems such as hot weather and pest attack. However, I did not give up and will try again this time. Hopefully next week, I'll be able to move all these vegetables to my hydroponic installation.
Installation For Mint Leaves
As you know, I have two hydroponic installations with PVC pipes that I specialize in for mint leaves. However, last week there was a caterpillar attack that left half of the mint leaves badly damaged and had to be replaced.
I immediately did a mint leaf nursery to replace some of the mint leaves that I had thrown away. How to propagate mint leaves is quite easy, because we only need to do stem cuttings and make the roots grow.
Okay, here's my Garden Journal this time. Hopefully it can provide inspiration for friends.
Call me Isdarmady, because I have a full name that is very long, namely Isdarmady Syahputra Ritonga. I am a head of the family who work as Farmers Vegetables Hydroponic and Consultant Hydroponics, sometimes I also sell coffee from various regions in Indonesia.
I have expertise dispensing coffee with a variety of techniques and tools brewing, because I have the desire to make a coffee shop with hydroponics as centerpieces. Help me realize that dream.
Thanks for read, vote, re-blog and support me in Hive. Maybe god will reward the kindness, let’s success together.